sons we owe, in part at least, the sanctities of home. Winter comes with ligatures in his hands, to bind not only the stream and the earth, but the family. He drives the fisherman from his nets, the plowman from the field, the child from the play-ground, and collects them around the hearth. There a new senate is convened the senate of the family. The village may meet to preserve its ways and commons, the farmers may consult as to the best way to put down vermin and keep off horse-thieves; but the family has its special objects, the preservation of home peace, and the culture of the heart. In a little community, so closely bound together for several months each year, it is soon learned how necessary for the good of each as well as of the whole it is, to pass laws requiring self-denial, personal purity, refinement, and thoughtfulness as to others. The veneering of politeness, which is enough for the superficial use of the world, does not do here. There must be an interior refinement by the establishment (and unless in early childhood, how hard is this to be done!) of a good heart. Now is there any school like the family for this, or any school-house but the home? And yet are we not indebted, if not to the school, at least for the school-house, to the pressure of winter? § 57. Let us, however, rise, in considering the question, to a higher stand-point. Changing the method of stating the argument for a moment, let us suppose that there is an all-wise Creator, to whom, for purposes of His own, it seems good to excite certain tastes and establish certain principles in His creatures, not by compulsion, but in such a way as to preserve their moral agency. Let us suppose that among these tastes and principles are :— a2. Appreciation of and love for beauty, particularly in connection with personal well-doing, and with a due objective exhibition of order and law, so that such beauty may itself be the subject of orderly development. b. The faculty of patient hope and faith in the future, connected with present labor. "It is this," says Dr. Paley, "which creates farmers, which divides the profit of the soil between the owner and occupier; which, by requiring expedients, by increasing employment, and by rewarding expenditure, promotes agricultural arts and agricultural life, of all modes of life the best, being the most conducive to health, to virtue, to enjoyment." c2. Fixed habits of industry as a necessary element in probation. d. Belief in the transient and ephemeral character of such present state of probation, and in a more splendid and enduring existence hereafter. § 58. Now, what spectacle could be devised grander or more impressive than that of the seasons? We have here a most exquisite, as well as a most sublime mechanism constructed. "The vegetable clock-work," says Mr. Whewell, "is so set as to go for a year." It is a clock-work whose dial-plate is the surface of the earth; whose figures are marked by flowers and fruits, and whose hours are struck in turn by the voices of the air, the field, and the forest. But Mr. Whewell abridges the argument from contrivance when he states that the clock of the seasons goes but for a year; for it is part of a great chronometer which the Artificer of the universe established before the beginning of time. Jean Paul, in one of his apothegms, brings before us an impressive picture of art as developed in the clock of St. Mary's, Lubeck, which will exhibit the movements of the heavenly bodies until 1875, when it must be reset. Dr. Paley, in illustration of the argument from contrivance, takes us to one of the ordinary time-pieces, against which he supposes. his philosoper to stumble in crossing a field. Is not the argument strengthened, when the time the watch runs and the number of its combinations are multiplied ten thousandfold? And are we to recognize this progression of proof in the clock of art, which runs for years, and refuse it to the clock of Nature, which runs for ages? To the beauty of the sights that the seasons unfold we may well turn, as reflecting not only the almighty power and skill of the Creator, but the tenderness with which He provides for His creatures sights of loveliness. The language of poetry, sometimes real, sometimes conventional, has been so intimately associated with the beauty of nature, that practical minds, when they hear anything like an accurate description of any of the exquisite scenes which the ocean, the meadow, or the sky afford, turn from it as if it were sentiment, not fact. But the delicate coloring of the spring flowers; the emerald verdure of the early grain as it springs from the dark mould,-that dark mould itself at once the grave of past vegetation and the cradle of future; the voices of the birds, those cheap orchestras of the poor; the rich and dark foliage of summer, and the gorgeous fruits of autumn,-all these things are FACTS, and are to be treated as such. Let us take, for instance, Bryant's exquisite description of Indian Summer: And now when comes the calm, mild day, as oft such days will come, The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more. § 59. Now, this is all reality, and each distinct feature, as it stands before us in its individual beauty, will be found to tell its specific message. And this message is not single; for it combines several great truths. It tells us of that tenderness which provides sights of beauty and repose for eyes weary with the sorrows and trials of probation. It accompanies these spectacles with utterances of grandeur which make that tenderness, even if we view it by itself, still more wonderful and still more winning. It tells us of the patient endurance and love of order of the Almighty himself; and it asks us, if the Creator is thus forbearing and lawloving, what ought the creature to be. And, as the seed bursts both from its burial-place of last year to its resurrection of the next, it proclaims the crowning truth of all: "So ALSO IS THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD: IT IS SOWN IN CORRUPTION, IT IS RAISED IN INCORRUPTION; IT IS SOWN IN DISHONOR, IT IS RAISED IN GLORY; IT IS SOWN IN WEAKNESS, IT IS RAISED IN POWER; IT IS SOWN A NATURAL BODY, IT IS RAISED A SPIRITUAL BODY." c. WATERING THE EARTH. § 60. As we stand by the water-works in a large city, as, for instance, in Philadelphia, we find our recognition of the amount of contrivance used to become the more vivid as the simplicity and efficiency of the mechanism become the more clear. We observe the dam by which the river is raised to a height which enables it to supply the water power. By the bank we observe the dark and dripping ribs of the giant wheels as they heavily perform their rounds. Underneath us we can almost see the quivering recoils of the water, as by blow after blow it is beaten up the supply-pipes which lead to the top of the hill. Then comes the reservoir, whence the water is conducted through the great city below. The marble bath-tubs and the sparkling fountain in one mansion do not prove the usefulness of the contrivance more than the rough hydrant which supplies the stream by which the washerwoman plies her trade in another. It is a process which exhibits, in one of its highest grades, not only the skill but the beneficence of civilization. Let us look, however, from this to the watering-works of the skies. The sun, acting on the rivers and the sea, produces a vapor which, while it raises, cleanses the water, which is then received into the reservoir of the clouds. Here it is held until the process is applied for its dispersion. A watering-pot is said to be an imitation of clouds, but at best the imitation is poor; for the rain drops so softly, so equally, and in showers so patient, as to temper the system as well as to supply the thirst of the vegetation it affects. While the clouds are the reservoir, the sun is the forcingpump, the vapor the supply-pipes, and the rain the distributing-pipes. And yet, we find contrivance in the waterworks of the city, but refuse to see it in the infinitely |