THE BEAUTIFUL LADDER. 
49 
mind will revel in the discoveries of beauty that 
we shall make. 
“ But our great object is not merely to dis¬ 
cover beauties for the gratification of our taste. 
There is a higher aim and a greater good for 
which we should seek. Whatever we may se¬ 
lect for our examination, we should ask these 
questions in regard to it: ‘What is it? How is 
it made? For what is it made? Who is the 
maker ?’ Thus the study of Nature would grat¬ 
ify our intellect, by giving us clear and distinct 
knowledge of the things that are about us; it 
would also gratify our taste, by opening to our 
view beauties of form and of adaptation, perhaps 
new, strange, wonderful; but, above and beyond 
all this, the study, if properly conducted, would 
lead us to look through Nature up to Nature’s 
God, making known to us more and more fully, 
as we advance, his wisdom and power and good¬ 
ness and glory, and leading us to desire as our 
highest happiness, our greatest good, to be fash¬ 
ioned into his image, conformed to his will, 
fitted for his presence, made the everlasting 
sharers of his glory and joy. Happy the man 
who finds the study of Nature a beautiful ladder 
by which he climbs from clod to clouds, from 
5 D 
