nature be excluded from the soul; there must be a ministry above nature to interpret to the soul the altar of nature, and teach it how to present a sacrifice in the great temple. Thus, how beautiful, side by side with Wordsworth's descriptions of the inspirations of nature, is that Sonnet translated by him from Michael Angelo

The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed
If thou the spirit give, by which I pray :
My unassisted heart is barren clay,

Which of its native self can nothing feed.
Of good and pious works Thou art the seed,
Which quickens only where Thou sayst it may.
Unless Thou show to us thine own true way,

No man can find it. Father! Thou must lead.

Do Thou, then, breathe those thoughts into my mind

By which such virtue may in me be bred,

That in thy holy footsteps I may tread,

The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind,
That I may have the power to sing of Thee,
And sound thy praises everlastingly!

In this connection, as to the heavenly lessons to be drawn from the contemplation and study of nature, we may apply religiously, within the domain of truths revealed in God's Word, but foreshadowed in nature, what Coleridge applies philosophically. "The first range of hills that encircles the scanty vale of human life is the horizon for the majority of its inhabitants. On its ridges the common sun is born and departs. From them the stars rise, and touching them they vanish. By the many, even this range, the natural limit and bulwark of the vale, is but. imperfectly known. Its higher ascents are too often hidden by mists and clouds from uncultivated swamps, which few have

courage or curiosity to penetrate. To the multitude below these vapors appear, now as the dark haunts of terrific agents, on which none may intrude with impunity, and now all a-glow, with colors not their own, they are gazed at as the splendid palaces of happiness and power. But in all ages there have been a few, who, measuring and sounding the rivers of the vale at the feet of their furthest inaccessible falls, have learnt that the sources must be far higher and far inward; a few, who even in the level streams have detected elements, which neither the vale itself, nor the surrounding mountains, contained, or could supply.”*

The prevailing habits of association in the mind will greatly modify the manner in which a man communes with nature. Not only the temper of the affections, but the daily objects and sphere of habitual thought exercise a mighty influence. The air of the mind, not of the seasons, is the real atmosphere through which the scenes of the natural world, the dawning and the twilight, the sunrise and the sunset, the trees and the stars, are viewed. The mind reduplicates itself.* One man sees the loveliness abroad, another sees it not; they both behold a world veiled by their own habits of thought and feeling. In this sense, the eye looks through the mind, not the mind through the eye. The sense of vision puts on the spectacles of character, and looks through several mental lenses, and the creation is seen, not as it is, but as the man is. Early communion with nature, from childhood on into life, is therefore the truest, the most genuine; and such communion, together with the habit of tracing analogies, will enrich the mind's associative stores, and give to the law of association a nobleness of sweep, a paradisiacal power, and a gorgeousness of train like a Roman Biographia Literaria. † Dana's Poem on the Soul.

triumph. And of God in nature, as well as in his Word, it may be said—They that seek me early shall find me.

Let me add to these thoughts a proof, in the personal experience of a great mind, how strong and lasting are the associations, whatever they may be, which link the soul to the natural scenes and objects that have been watched with an early and heartfelt interest; "Sweet nature," says John Foster, “I have conversed with her with inexpressible luxury; I have almost worshipped her. A flower, a tree, a bird, a fly, has been enough to kindle a delightful train of ideas and emotions, and sometimes to elevate the mind to sublime conceptions. When the autumn stole on, I observed it with the most vigilant attention, and felt a pensive regret to see those forms of beauty which tell that all the beauty is soon going to depart. One autumnal flower, the white convolvulus, excited very great interest, by recalling the season I spent at Chichester, where I happened to be very attentive to this flower, and once or twice, if you recollect, endeavored to draw it with the pencil. I have at this moment the most lively image of my doing this, and of the delight I used to feel in looking at this beautiful flower in the hedges of those paths and fields, with which both you and I are so well acquainted.”

How beautiful this dome of sky,

And the vast hills, in fluctuation fixed

At thy command, how awful! Shall the soul

Human and rational, report of Thee

Even less than these? Be mute who will, who can,
Yet I will praise Thee with impassioned voice.
My lips, that may forget Thee in the crowd,

Cannot forget Thee here, where Thou hast built

For thine own glory, in the wilderness!

WORDSWORTH.

FORTH from his dark and lonely hiding-place,
Portentous sight! the owlet Atheism,

Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon,

Drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them close,

And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven,

Cries out, Where is it?

COLERIDGE'S Fears in Solitude.

It cannot be denied, without wilful blindness, that the socalled system of nature (that is, materialism, with the utter rejection of moral responsibility, of a present providence, and of both present and future retribution) may influence the characters and actions of individuals, and even of communities, to a degree that almost does away the distinction between men and devils, and will make the page of the future historian resemble the narration of a madman's dreams.

Satyrane's Letters-COLERIDGE.

I can never think that man a Christian who has blotted out of his scheme the very powers by which only the great functions of Christianity can be sustained; neither can I think that any man, though he may make himself a marvellously clever disputant, ever could tower upwards into a very great philosopher, unless he should begin or should end with Christianity.

But Kant had no instincts of creation or restoration within his Apollyon mind; for he had no love, no faith, no self-distrust, no humility, no childlike docility; all which qualities belonged essentially to Coleridge's mind, and waited only for manhood and for sorrow to bring them forward. . . . . Though a great man may, by a rare possibility, be an infidel, yet an intellect of the highest order must build upon Christianity. A very clever architect may choose to show his power by building with insufficient materials, but the supreme architect must require the very best; because the perfection of the forms cannot be shown but in the perfection of the

matter.

DE QUINCY.