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The sacred groves of the ancients were appropriate places for their 
great philosophers to impart their lessons of moral instruction. The im¬ 
mense rural lecture room, arranged and decorated by the God of nature, 
was adapted to add weight and solemnity to their discourses on moral 
and religious themes. Indeed, so intimately were the religious associa¬ 
tions of the ancients connected with their rural scenery and retreats, that 
‘‘the Elysian fields were the heaven of classic mythology,” and, even to 
this hour, the imaginative, and “devout Mussulman hopes to renew hia 
existence in a celestial paradise.” Now this universal tendency of the 
human mind to connect a high degree of moral purity with the celestial 
garden, making it the sacred place where the soul enjoys intimate com¬ 
munion with the very essence of Divinity, shows how natural the transi¬ 
tion is from the beautiful and luxuriant forms of nature to the glorious 
Author of nature. If it is true that 
“The un-dcvout philosopher is mad,” 
it is equally true, that the mind must be fearfully fallen, and the heart 
deeply corrupted, when the horticulturist can mingle with the almost end¬ 
less forms of beauty, grandeur and glory, which rural nature presents 
before him, and not be led to admire the infinite riches of Divine wisdom 
and love. If that philosopher must be morally insane who can remain 
“ un-devout” while he is journeying over the great highways of astrono¬ 
mical science, amid the mild radiance of stars, and the more intense 
splendor of suns, and the wide sweep of revolving worlds, it is equally 
difficult to defend the moral sanity of him who can, like Adam, dwell 
within the magnificent inclosures of a literal paradise, and not mingle 
his devout anthems with the morning and evening songs of the beautiful 
bird— 
“When all things that breathe, 
From the earth’s great altar send up silent praise 
To the Creator, and his nostrils fill 
With grateful smell.” 
In short, but few of all the earnest and delighted students of nature can 
be thus embowered in the midst of her everlasting charms, without hav¬ 
ing their moral perceptions quickened, and their moral sentiments puri¬ 
fied and exalted. ! 
It is an historic truth, that virtue abounds most and presents her bright¬ 
est examples in the rural districts of every country. Cincinnatus acquired! 
