176 THE BEAUTIFUL LADDER. 
den. It has eased their overtaxed brains and 
hearts, and brought back something of rejuve¬ 
nation to mind and body when years have 
made the grasshopper a burden, and desire 
has failed, and all the daughters of music are 
brought low. Thus it was with Doctors Ide 
and Barnes, so long and well known in Phila¬ 
delphia for their great learning and severe men¬ 
tal labors. When mental relaxation was need¬ 
ed they sought reinvigoration in the delights 
of horticulture, and in the sweet employment 
seemed to catch a new vitality. 
“ Not the least of the sad consequences of 
Adam’s trangression is the inherited tendency 
to mental and moral long-sightedness, an over¬ 
looking of the wonders of creation which are 
scattered all around us, under the mistaken idea 
that the Creator was too stinted in resources to 
lavish on the world more than ‘ seven wonders,’ 
and which, to be impartial, he must widely scat¬ 
ter. That spot of earth does not exist where 
God has not left some evidence of his skill, 
which can be overlooked only by the dull or 
careless. It would justly be supposed, how¬ 
ever, that, of all the beautiful places on earth, 
the one which has received the special adorning 
