50 
THE BEAUTIFUL LADDER. 
clouds to God; and who thus becomes so truly 
enlightened by the study, that the incense of his 
altar is a grateful tribute to the adorable Creator, 
and not a profane offering to the creature or a 
pagan sacrifice to science falsely so-called. 
“Let us not hesitate to follow the present lead¬ 
ing because we begin our search for the wonder¬ 
ful and beautiful on the borders of a stagnant 
pond. Filled, apparently, only with objects of 
loathing, it seems to the unsealed eyes as it did 
to the distorted youthful imagination, only a re¬ 
pository of the earth’s excrescences to gender 
deformity and death. Unsightly masses of mud 
and slime, and rank growths, filled with crawling 
worms, water-beetles, and disgusting amphibia, 
surely this is not the place for discovering pecu¬ 
liar waymarks of wisdom and loveliness. But 
let us look with a careful inspection, 
* Not loathing, but lovingly,’ 
and the scales will drop from our vision, and 
the revelation will be so rich that we shall lin¬ 
ger with ever-growing delight around the bor¬ 
ders of such an enchanted world. 
“ What a field is here opened for the exercise 
of every pious emotion! and how irresistibly do 
