Now not only is this expression of infinity in distance most precious wherever we find it, however solitary it may be, and however unassisted by other forms and kinds of beauty, but it is of that value that no such other forms will altogether recompense us for its loss; and in proportion to its presence, it will exalt and render impressive even the most tame and trivial themes.

I have repeated again and again, that the ideas of beauty are instinctive, and that it is only upon consideration, and even then in a doubtful and disputable way, that they appear in their typical character; so that, while I assert positively, and have no fear of being able to prove, that a curve of any kind is more beautiful than a right line, I leave it to the reader to accept or not the only reason of its agreeableness that I can at all trace, namely, that every curve divides itself infinitely by its changes of direction.

What curvature is to lines, gradation is to colors. It is their infinity, and divides them into an infinite number of degrees. Ruskin.

It is generally a prejudice, when people imagine that a beautiful landscape is requisite to the enjoyment of nature. Undoubtedly this greatly enhances its attractions; but the pleasure we feel is not dependent on this. Natural objects themselves, even when they make no claim to beauty, excite the feelings, and occupy the imagination. Nature pleases, attracts, delights, merely because it is nature. We recognize in it an Infinite Power. Wm. Von Humboldt.

Even without attaching any thought of religion to the sight of the heavens, there is something inexpressibly exciting to the mind in thus losing one's self in the infinity of space; it at once takes away from life its little cares and desires, and from reality its otherwise oppressive weight. As surely as the knowledge of man is the first and weightiest concern in the affairs of men, so surely, on the other hand, is there nothing more narrowing to the mind. than the perpetually keeping our eyes fixed on the small circle of human beings by whom we are hemmed in. We must return often to the contemplation and feeling of a higher Power ruling in human affairs, as we see it in nature, ere we can safely come back to the fetters of society. ib.

To look upon nature, to get into the forest or out upon the moor, is no doubt a delightful escape from the teasing ways of men. But there is perhaps an aching of the heart, as well as a soothing, in much contemplation of still life. To me there is most consolation in the immensity of creation, in the vigor and pertinacity of life; the most wounded heart, considering these things, can throw its griefs into the vast mass of life and see that there are other things beside it, that there is a scheme of creation large enough to answer all the demands of vexed imagination. Human science ministers much comfort to the mind. Helps.

Madame Adorna was not ashamed to have it known that her heart could sympathize with the brute animal, and with the insect that floats in the air, and with the humble

worm that dwelt beneath her feet. She loved them, not only because they existed, but because something in her benevolent heart told her that they participated in the care and affections of her Heavenly Father. She went further than this. She associated God with things inanimate, so much so that she loved and adored God with a most tender affection, in plants and trees and flowers. So that when the leaf died, and when the flower withered, and when the tree was cut down, she could not help feeling a sentiment of resigned and sacred sadness, as if so much of God's visible manifestation had been removed from her sight. Thomas C. Upham.

Perhaps the short hasty gazes cast up any day in the midst of business, in a dense city, at the heavens, or at a bit of a tree seen amid buildings - gazes which partake almost more of a sigh than a look, have in them more of intense appreciation of the beauties of nature than all that has been felt by an equal number of sight-seers, enjoying large opportunity of seeing, and all their time to themselves. Like a prayer offered up in the midst of everyday life, these short fond gazes at nature have something inconceivably soothing and beautiful in them. Helps.

But this beauty of nature, which is seen and felt as beauty, is the least part. The shows of day, the dewy morning, the rainbow, mountains, orchards in blossom, stars, moonlight, shadows in still water, and the like, if too eagerly hunted, become shows merely, and mock us with

their unreality. Go out of the house to see the moon, and it is mere tinsel; it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey.

In private places, among sordid objects, an act of truth or heroism seems at once to draw to itself the sky as its temple, the sun as its candle. Nature stretcheth out her arms to embrace man, only let his thoughts be of equal greatness. Willingly does she follow his steps with the rose and the violet, and bend her lines of grandeur and grace to the decoration of her darling child. Only let his thoughts be of equal scope, and the frame will suit the picture. Emerson.

Nature, like art, seems to require a border in order to be finished. The dressmaker hems and ruffles; the carpenter has his beads and pilasters; the painter never rests till his piece is framed. . . . If we should say nature loves a bordering, as it used to be said she abhorred a vacuum, we might state the whole truth. An uninterrupted plane, a continuity of similar surface, vast, monotonous, silent, is intolerable. So a column must have its cap, and a house its cornice, so along the highway spring innumerable flowers, and on its margin the forest is lavish of its foliage; so the sea is terminated by the sky, and we look at the sky through vistas of embanked and woofy cloud. Were you ever in a fine grove of a bright moonlight night? How different from standing upon a mountain at such a time! We recommend to any one on an eminence to go back from the brink thereof, and stand in the forest, and look

44 REPOSE, OR THE TYPE OF DIVINE PERMANENCE.

out through the breaks and crevices. A moss-rose is an instance in point, beautiful because it is bordered; it is a landscape seen through trees. So a view through halfraised window-curtains, and distant scenery through a long suite of rooms; so are light on foregrounds, and shadows on backgrounds, in all pictures. Sylvester Judd.

"The Platonic adage hath evident truth in it. Pleasure is certainly made up of something finite and something infinite meeting together."

As opposed to passion, changefulness, or laborious exertion, repose is the especial and separating characteristic of the eternal mind and power; it is the "I am" of the Creator opposed to the "I become" of all creatures; it is the sign alike of the supreme knowledge which is incapable of surprise, the supreme power which is incapable of labor, the supreme volition which is incapable of change; it is the stillness of the beams of the eternal chambers laid upon the variable waters of ministering creatures; and as we see that the infinity which is a type of the Divine nature, becomes yet more desirable from its peculiar address to our prison hopes, and to the expectations of an unsatisfied and unaccomplished existence, so the types of this attribute of the Deity seem to have been rendered further attractive to mortal instinct, through the infliction upon the fallen creature of a curse necessitating a labor once unnatural and still most painful, so that the desire of rest planted in the heart is no sensual nor unworthy one,