a picturesque and diversified scenery, which is highly gratifying to the principle of novelty implanted in the human mind. On all sides we behold a rich variety of beauty and magnificence. Here, spread the wide plains and fertile fields, adorned with fruits and verdure; there, the hills rise in gentle slopes, and the mountains rear their snowy tops to the clouds, distilling from their sides the brooks and rivers, which enliven and fertilize the plains through which they flow. Here, the lake stretches into a smooth expanse in the bosom of the mountains; there, the rivers meander through the forests and the flowery fields, diversifying the rural scene, and distributing health and fertility in their train. Here, we behold the rugged cliffs and the stately port of the forest; there, we are charmed with the verdure of the meadow, the enamel of flowers, the azure of the sky, and the gay colouring of the morning and evening clouds. In order that this scene of beauty and magnificence might be rendered visible, He formed the element of light, without which the expanse of the universe would be a boundless desert, and its beauties forever veiled from our sight. It opens to our view the mountains, the hills, the vales, the woods, the lawns, the flocks and herds, the wonders of the mighty deep, and the radiant orbs of heaven. It paints a thousand different hues on the objects around us, and promotes a cheerful and extensive intercourse among all the inhabitants of the globe.

Again, in order to gratify the sense of hearing, He formed the atmosphere, and endowed it with an undulating quality, that it might waft to our ears the pleasures of sound, and all the charms of music. The murmuring of the brooks, the whispers of the gentle breeze, the soothing sound of the rivulet, the noise of the waterfall, the hum of bees, the buzz of insects, the chirping of birds, the soft notes of the nightingale, and the melody of thousands of the feathered songsters, which fill the groves with their warblings, produce a pleasing variety of delightful emotions;-the numerous modulations of the human voice, the articulate sounds peculiar to the human species, by which the interchanges of thought and affection are promoted, the soft notes of the piano forte, the solemn sounds of the organ-and even the roaring of the stormy ocean, the dashings of the mighty cataract, and the rolling thunders which elevate the soul to sentiments of sublimity and awe-are all productive of a mingled variety of pleasures; and demonstrate that the distribution of happiness is one grand end of the operations of our bountiful Creator.

To gratify the sense of smelling, he has perfumed the air with a variety of delicious odours, which are incessantly exhaled from a thousand plants and flowers. Countless millions of these odoriferous particles, which elude the penetrating power of the finest microscope to discover, are continually wafted about by the air, and floating around us, impervious to the sight, the hearing, and the touch, but calculated to convey pleasure to the soul, through the medium of the olfactory nerves, and to enable us to "banquet on the invisible dainties of nature."

To gratify the sense of feeling, he has connected pleasure with the contact of almost every thing we have occasion to touch, and has rendered it subservient for warning us of whatever may be disagreeable or dangerous. Had a malevolent Being constructed the body of man, and formed the arrangements of external nature, he might have rendered the contact of every object of touch as acutely painful as when we clasp a prickly shrub, or thrust our fingers against the point of a needle.

To gratify the sense of taste, and to nourish our bodies, he has furnished us with a rich variety of aliments, distributed not with a niggardly and a sparing hand, but with a luxuriant profusion, suited to the tastes of every sentient being, and to the circumstances of the inhabitants of every clime. He has not confined his bounty merely to the relief of our necessities by confining us to the use of a few tasteless herbs and roots, but has covered the surface of the earth with an admirable profusion of plants, herbs, grains, and delicious fruits of a thousand different qualities and tastes, which contribute to the sensitive enjoyment and comfort of man. In almost every

region of the earth, corn is to be found, in the valleys surrounded by the snowy mountains of the North, as well as in the verdant plains of the Torrid Zone. In warm regions, cool and delicious fruits are provided for the refreshment of the inhabitants, and the trees are covered with luxuriant foliage to screen them from the intensity of the solar heat !*

*The manner in which the Creator has contrived a supply for the thirst of man, in sultry places, is worthy of admiration.-He has placed amidst the burning sands of Africa, a plant whose leaf twisted round like a cruet, is always filled with a large glass full of fresh water: the gullet of this cruet is shut by the extremity of the leaf itself so as to prevent the water from evaporating. He has planted in some other districts of the same country, a great tree, called by the negroes Boa, the trunk of which of a prodigious bulk, is naturally hollowed like a cistern. In the rainy season, it receives its fill of water, which continues fresh and cool in the

Every season presents us with a variety of fruits peculiar to itself, distributed by the munificent hand of the "Giver of all good." The month of June presents us with cabbages, cauliflowers, and cherries; July, with gooseberries, raspberries, peaches, and apricots; August and September scatter before us, in luxuriant abundance, plums, figs, apples, pears, turnips, carrots, cresses, potatoes, and, above all, wheat, oats, rye, and barley, which constitute the "staff of bread" for the support of man and beast; and although we are indebted chiefly to summer and autumn for these rich presents, yet, by the assistance of human art, we can preserve and enjoy the greater part during winter and spring. The soil which produces these dainties has never yet lost its fertility, though it has brought forth the harvests of six thousand years, but still repays our labour with its annual treasures ;-and, were selfish man animated with the same liberal and generous views as his munificent Creator, every individual of the human family would be plentifully supplied with a share of these rich and delicious bounties of nature.

In fine, the happiness of man appears to be the object of the divine care, every returning season, every moment, by day and by night. By day, He cheers us with the enlivening beams of the sun, which unfolds to us the beauty and the verdure of the fields; and lest the constant efflux of his light and heat should enfeeble our bodies, and wither the tender herbs, he commands the clouds to interpose as so many magnificent screens, to ward off the intensity of the solar rays. When the earth is drained of its moisture, and parched with heat, he bids the clouds condense their watery treasures, and fly from other regions on the wings of the wind, to pour their waters upon the fields, not in overwhelming and destructive torrents, but in small drops and gentle showers, to refresh the thirsty soil, and revive the vegetable tribes. He has spread under our feet a carpet of lovely green, richer than all the produc tions of the Persian loom, and has thrown around our habitation an azure canopy, which directs our view to the distant regions of infinite space.-By night, he draws a veil of darkness over the mountains and the plains, that we may be enabled to penetrate to the regions of distant worlds, and behold the

greatest heats by means of the tufted foliage which crowns its summit. In some of the parched, rocky islands in the West Indies, there is found a tree called the water lianne, so full of sap, that if you cut a single branch of it, as much water is immediately discharged as a man can drink at a draught, and it is perfectly pure and limpid. See Pierre's "Studies of Nature."

moon walking in brightness, the aspects of the planetary globes, the long trains of comets, and the innumerable host of stars. At this season, too, all nature is still, that we may enjoy in quiet the refreshments of sleep, to invigorate our mental and corporeal powers. "As a mother stills every little noise, that her infant be not disturbed; as she draws the curtains around its bed, and shuts out the light from its tender eyes; so God draws the curtains of darkness around us, so he makes all things to be hushed and still, that his large family may sleep in peace."-In a word, if we look around us to the forests which cover the mountains, or if we look downwards to the quarries and mines in the bowels of the earth, we behold abundance of materials for constructing our habitations, for embellishing the abodes of civilized life, and for carrying forward improvements in the arts and sciences. And, if we consider the surrounding atmosphere, we shall find it to contain the principle of life, and the element of fire, by means of which our winter evenings are cheered and illuminated in the absence of the sun. Contemplating all these benign agencies as flowing from the care and benevolence of our Almighty Parent, the pious mind may adopt the beautiful language of the poet, though in a sense somewhat different from what he intended:

"For me kind Nature wakes her genial power,
Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower;
Annual for me, the grape, the rose, renew
The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew;
For me the mine a thousand treasures brings;
For me health gushes from a thousand springs;
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me, rise;
My footstool earth, my canopy the skies."

POPE.

Viewing the various scenes and harmonies of nature, in relation to man, and to the gratification of his different senses, we may also say, in the language of Akenside, in his poem "On the Pleasures of Imagination," that

"Not a breeze

Flies o'er the meadow, not a cloud imbibes
The setting sun's effulgence; not a strain
From all the tenants of the warbling shade
Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake
Fresh pleasure and delight.-

The rolling waves, the sun's unwearied course,
The elements and seasons, all declare

For what the Eternal Maker has ordain'd
The powers of man: we feel within ourselves
His energy divine: He tells the heart

He meant, He made us to behold and love
What He beholds and loves, the general orb
Of life and being: to be great like Him,

Beneficent and active."

66

Let us now consider, for a few moments, the Wisdom which is displayed in the harmonious adjustment of the organs of sense to the scenes of external nature. All the scenes of beauty, grandeur, and benignity, which surround us, in the earth and heavens, would remain as one mighty blank, unpro ductive of enjoyment, unless our bodies were fearfully and wonderfully" framed, and endowed with organs fitted for ena bling us to hold a correspondence with the material world. Ten thousands of vessels, tubes, bones, muscles, ligaments, membranes, motions, contrivances, and adaptations, beyond the reach of the human understanding fully to investigate or to comprehend, must be arranged, and act in harmonious concert, before any one sense belonging to man can perceive and enjoy its objects.

Before the eye can behold a landscape, and be charmed with its beauties, it was requisite that three humours should be formed, of different sizes, different densities, and different refractive powers-three coats, or delicate membranes, with some parts opaque, and some transparent, some black, and some white, some of them formed of radial, and some with circular fibres, composed of threads finer than those of the spider's web. The crystalline humour required to be composed of two thousand very thin spherical lamina, or scales, lying one upon another, every one of these scales made up of one single fibre, or finest thread, wound in a most stupendous manner, this way, and that way, so as to run several courses, and to meet in as many centres. This curious and delicate piece of organization required to be compressed into the size of a ball of only half an inch in diameter, and a socket composed of a number of small bones, to be hollowed out and exactly fitted for its reception. A bed of loose fat for this ball to rest upon, a lid or curtain to secure it from danger, a variety of muscles to enable it to move upwards and downwards, to the right and to the left, and a numerous assemblage of minute veins, arteries, nerves, lymphatics, glands, and other delicate pieces of animal machinery, of which we have no distinct conception, were still requisite to complete this admirable organ. Even in this state it would be of no use for the purpose of vision, unless it were connected with the brain by the optic nerve, through the medium of which the impressions of visible objects are conveyed to the soul. Still, in addition to all these contrivances, a won