SOUTH AMERICA. 
25 
The tree which thou passedst but a little ago, 
and which perhaps has laid over yonder brook for 
years, can now hardly support itself, and in a few 
months more it will have fallen into the water. 
Put thy foot on that large trunk thou seest to 
the left. It seems entire amid the surrounding 
fragments. Mere outward appearance, delusive 
phantom of what it once was ! Tread on it, and 
like the fuss-ball, it will break into dust. 
Sad and silent mementos to the giddy traveller 
as he wanders on ! Prostrate remnants of vegetable 
nature, how incontestably ye prove what we must 
all at last come to, and how plain your mouldering 
ruins show that the firmest texture avails us naught 
FIRST 
JOURNEY, 
when Heaven wills that we should cease to be!— 
“ The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inhabit, shall dissolve, 
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision, 
Leave not a wreck behind.” 
Cast thine eye around thee, and see the thousands 
of nature’s productions. Take a view of them from 
the opening seed on the surface, sending a down¬ 
ward shoot, to the loftiest and the largest trees, 
rising up and blooming in wild luxuriance; some 
side by side, others separate; some curved and 
knotty, others straight as lances; all, in beautiful 
gradation, fulfilling the mandates they had received 
from heaven, and though condemned to die, still 
never failing to keep up their species till time shall 
be no more. 
Reader, canst thou not be induced to dedicate a 
