PART II.

VOICES OF THE SPRING.

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It is the first mild day of March:

Each minute sweeter than before,

The Red-breast sings from the tall Larch
That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,

Which seems a sense of joy to yield

To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
And grain in the green field.

WORDSWORTH.

ALL abiding and spiritual knowledge, infused into a grateful and affectionate fellow-Christian, is as the child of the mind that infuses it. The delight which he gives he receives; and in that bright and liberal hour, the gladdened preacher can scarce gather the ripe produce of to-day, without discovering and looking forward to the green fruits and embryons, the heritage and reversionary wealth of the days to come, till he bursts forth in prayer and thanksgiving. The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Join with me, reader, in the fervent prayer, that we may seek within us, what we can never find elsewhere, that we may find within us what no words can put there, that one only true religion, which elevateth knowledge into Being, which is at once the Science of Being, and the Being and the Life of all genuine Science. COLERIDGE. Appendix to the Statesman's Manual.

AMID the quiet of this green recess,

But to a higher mark than song can reach,
Rose this pure eloquence; and when the stream
Which overflowed the soul was passed away,

A consciousness remained that it had left

Deposited upon the silent shore

Of memory, images and precious thoughts,
That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.
WORDSWORTH.

An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat countries with spire-steeples, which, as they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and stars, and sometimes, when they reflect the brazen light of a rich though rainy sunset, appear like a pyramid of flame burning heavenward.

Satyrane's Letters-COLERIDGE.

How suddenly that straight and glittering shaft
Shot thwart the earth! In crown of living fire
Up comes the day! As if they conscious quaft
The sunny flood-hill, forest, city spire,
Laugh in the wakening light. Go, vain desire!
The dusky lights are gone; go thou thy way!
And pining discontent, like them, expire!

Be called my chamber PEACE, when ends the day,
And let me with the dawn, like Pilgrim, sing and pray.
DANA'S DAYBREAK.

PART II.

VOICES OF THE SPRING.

CHAPTER VII.

Voices of the Spring-Beginning of the Moral Teaching of NatureMightiness of the Change from Winter to Spring-The Time of Seeds, and the Texts taken from it-Responsibilities arising from the Light of Nature.

Ir is the first mild day of March, each minute sweeter than before! Such is the carol of an English Poet, descriptive of the opening of Spring, in an Island where the season steals upon the senses with a serenity and beauty, that in our New England climate are much later and slower in their development, though perhaps not less lovely when they come. The salutation of our native Poets breaks forth like an Anthem of the tempest; "The stormy March is come at last!" Neverthe