-2,62 
 
 i 
 
 
 
I 
 
RELIGIOUS LECTURES 
 
 PECULIAR PHENOMENA 
 
 FOUR SEASONS: 
 
 I. THE RESURRECTIONS OF SPRING : 
 
 II. THE TRIUMPHAL ARCH OF SUMMER : 
 
 III. THE EUTHANASIA OF AUTUMN: 
 
 IV. THE CORONATION OF WINTER: 
 
 DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS IN AMHERST COLLEGE, 
 
 IN 1845, 1847, 1848 AND 1849. 
 BY EDWARD HITCHCOCK, D. D., LL. D., 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE, AND PROFESSOR OF NATURAL 
 THEOLOGY AND GEOLOGY. 
 
 AMHEEST: 
 J. S. & C. ADAMS. 
 
 1850. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 
 
 1849, by J. S. & C. ADAMS, in the 
 Clerk's Office in the District Court of Massachusetts. 
 
TO THE HON. SAMUEL WILLISTON; 
 
 THE MUNIFICENT FRIEND AND PATRON OF RELIGION AND LEARNING J 
 
 THE FOUNDER OF WILLISTON SEMINARY} 
 AND THE LIBERAL BENEFACTOR OF AMHERST COLLEGE : 
 
 THIS LITTLE WORK, 
 
 THE FIRST FRUITS OF A PROFESSORSHIP OF NATURAL THEOLOGY 
 AND GEOLOGY, ENDOWED BY HIM, AND FILLED BY THE AUTHOR; 
 
 IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED j 
 AS A TOKEN OF GRATITUDE AND PERSONAL FRIENDSHIP. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 
 
 1849, by J. S. & C. ADAMS, in the 
 Clerk's Office in the District Court of Massachusetts. 
 
TO THE HON. SAMUEL WILLISTON; 
 
 THE MUNIFICENT FRIEND AND PATRON OF RELIGION AND LEARNING J 
 
 THE FOUNDER OF WILLISTON SEMINARY; 
 
 AND THE LIBERAL BENEFACTOR OF AMHERST COLLEGE : 
 
 THIS LITTLE WORK, 
 
 THE FIRST FRUITS OF A PROFESSORSHIP OF NATURAL THEOLOGY 
 . AND GEOLOGY, ENDOWED BY HIM, AND FILLED BY THE AUTHOR J 
 
 IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED j 
 AS A TOKEN OF GRATITUDE AND PERSONAL FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 M184152 
 
PREFATORY. 
 
 THE Lecture entitled " The Coronation of Winter," in this little 
 volume, has been published in a pamphlet form at the request of the 
 students of Amherst College, and the Mount Holyoke Female Sem- 
 inary, before whom it was originally delivered. And it was the in- 
 terest manifested in that discourse, which led the author to prepare 
 others on some rare phenomena of spring, summer, and autumn, 
 and which leads him to hope that the whole may not be unaccepta- 
 ble to his friends ; though he cannot anticipate a wide circulation. 
 To have published four sermons on ordinary subjects, in the expec- 
 tation that they would be read, would have been weakness, if not 
 folly. Perhaps the present effort is no better : But the author feels 
 that Natural Religion has not yet yielded all the fruits that may be 
 derived from it, to feed the heart of piety ; especially when those 
 fruits are ripened and gathered under the bright sun of revelation, 
 It is well known that the phenomena of nature have often been 
 made to utter language opposed to revelation, by the ventriloquiz- 
 ing processes of scepticism. It is hoped, therefore, that even a 
 feeble attempt to let nature speak in unconstrained tones, will be 
 received with favor. 
 
 The manner in which I have endeavored to defend the scripture 
 doctrine of the resurrection of the body, by an appeal to certain 
 principles of chemistry and physiology, which seem to have been 
 
VI PREFATORY. 
 
 overlooked, both by the enemies and the friends of this doctrine, 
 seems to me quite conclusive. Yet as I have met with it in no 
 writer, I ought not to be over confident in its validity. 
 
 The drawings attached are intended to give a more accurate idea 
 of some of the phenomena described than mere words can do. They 
 are not caricatures, or exaggeration ; but fall below the reality. They 
 are a novel appendage to sermons ; but I hope they may aid in 
 deepening the religious effect of the sentiments. 
 
 AMHERST COLLEGE, SEPT. 1, 1849. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 The Resurrections of Spring, - Page 9 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 The Triumphal Arch of Summer, - 57 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 The Euthanasia of Autumn, - 81 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 The Coronation of Winter, - 107 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Emblems of the Resurrection, Frontispiece. 
 
 The Triumphal Arch of Summer, - 57 
 
 Autumnal Scenery, - 81 
 
THE RESURRECTIONS OF SPRING. 
 
 BUT SOME MAN WILL SAY, HOW ARE THE DEAD RAISED UP ? AND 
 WITH WHAT BODY DO THEY COME 1 TllOU FOOL, THAT WHICH 
 THOU SOWEST IS NOT QUICKENED EXCEPT IT DIE: AND THAT 
 WHICH THOU SOWEST, THOU SOWEST NOT THAT BODY THAT 
 SHALL BE, BUT BARE GRAIN, IT MAY CHANCE OF WHEAT OR 
 OF SOME OTHER GRAIN : BUT GoD GIVETH IT A BODY AS IT 
 HATH PLEASED HlM, AND TO EVERY SEED HIS OWN BODY. 
 
 1 Corinthians xv. 35 38. 
 
 THE resurrection of the body is eminently a revealed 
 doctrine. After its announcement in the bible, philoso- 
 phy does indeed point us to interesting examples of trans- 
 formation in the natural world, which some have consid- 
 ered as evidence of this doctrine ; but they are rather its 
 symbols. When satisfied of its truth, on the testimony of 
 inspiration, these natural changes afford beautiful illustra- 
 tions of a doctrine so delightful to contemplate : But the 
 analogies fail in some of the most important points : and, 
 therefore, have little force in argument. 
 
 On the other hand, however, philosophy has ever been 
 
 2 
 
10 OBJECTIONS TO A KESUKRECTION. 
 
 ready to oppose this doctrine with what it regards as insu- 
 perable difficulties. The most prominent one is referred to 
 in the text. How are the dead raised up, and with what 
 lody do they come ? enquires the votary of science, confi- 
 dent that his objection can never be answered. Men de- 
 posit the bodies of their friends in the grave ; but do 
 they remain there ? The chemist knows full well that 
 they suffer entire decomposition, and that the ultimate 
 elements are scattered by the winds and the waves, and 
 are taken up by other bodies, it may be by those of other 
 men ; so that the same particles may enter into the com- 
 position of a multitude of human beings. How then can 
 the body, which is laid in the grave, be raised ; since not 
 even Omnipotence can make the same particles a part of 
 two or more bodies at the same time. 
 
 Prom the time of the Mohammedan philosopher and phy- 
 sician, Avicenna, to the recent appearance of the " Anas- 
 tasis" of a distinguished American professor, this has been 
 the leading objection to man's resurrection : and at first 
 view it certainly seems very strong. The subject de- 
 serves careful examination by all the light, which the 
 bible and philosophy are able to shed upon it. And the 
 resurrections of nature around us, at this interesting sea- 
 son of the year, seem to turn our contemplations natural- 
 ly to man's final deliverance from the power of the grave. 
 
 I shall first enquire, what is the scriptural doctrine of 
 the Resurrection. 
 
THERE WILL BE A KESURRECTION. 11 
 
 Secondly, enquire whether Natural "Religion opposes, 
 or illustrates and confirms the scripture doctrine. 
 
 And thirdly, enquire what symbolizations of the resur- 
 rection are presented in nature at this season of the year. 
 
 1. What then is the scripture doctrine of the Resurrec- 
 tion ? 
 
 In the first place, the bible distinctly announces the fact 
 that there will be a resurrection of the dead at the end of 
 the world. Marvel not at this, says Christ, for the hour is 
 coming in which all that are in their graves shall come 
 forth, they that have done good, unto the resurrection of 
 life, and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of 
 damnation. But the fullest and most unequivocal evi- 
 dence of a resurrection is the graphic and sublime descrip- 
 tion of it in the chapter containing the text. Now, says 
 the apostle, if Christ be preached that he rose from the 
 dead, how say some among you, that there is no resurrec- 
 tion of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the 
 dead, then is Christ not risen. But now is Christ risen 
 from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept. 
 And this resurrection is to take place, according to Paul, 
 at the coming of Christ. Then cometh the end, says he, 
 when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even 
 the Father. 
 
 But even this clear and decided description does not 
 convince all men that any thing will be actually raised 
 out of the grave. Some maintain that such Ian- 
 
12 THERE WILL BE A RESURRECTION. 
 
 guage is used in accommodation to the notions of the ig- 
 norant, who look upon their bodies as their all, and could 
 have no idea of a pure spirit. Others contend, that a spir- 
 itual body is eliminated at the period of death, and accom- 
 panies the soul in its unknown aerial flight. But such 
 opinions can be made consistent with the bible, only on 
 the rationalistic principle of exegesis called accommoda- 
 tion ; which means, when stated plainly, that we are to 
 consult our philosophy as to what the bible should mean, 
 rather than the laws of grammatical construction to learn 
 what it does mean. If language can teach that the dead 
 are to be raised out of their graves, then the bible does 
 teach it ; and if we may regard the statement of so sim- 
 ple a fact as figurative, or modal, there is no other fact 
 stated in the bible which may not be viewed in the same 
 light, and thus set aside. 
 
 2. The bible represents the germ of the resurrection body 
 as proceeding from the body that is laid in the grave. 
 
 If nothing is derived from the grave, or from the body 
 once laid there, for what possible reason does the bible 
 constantly speak of a resurrection from the grave ? It 
 could serve no purpose but to mislead the reader. Nor 
 can any reason be alleged for the use of such language. 
 There are some subjects treated of in the bible, so entire- 
 ly removed from our knowledge, that a clear description 
 of them cannot be given ; as, for instance, Paul's account 
 of the third heavens. But surely, it were easy enough 
 
THE GERM OF THE RESURRECTION BODY. 13 
 
 to say whether any thing laid in the grave is raised from 
 it. If not, how can we vindicate the author of the bible 
 from teaching ignorant man a falsehood ? 
 
 But the text settles this point, if general considerations 
 do not. The apostle selects a specific example from the 
 vegetable kingdom, to answer the infidel's objection, with 
 what body do they come ? He supposes a kind of wheat 
 placed in the earth, where it seems for a time to be dy- 
 ing ; and indeed, everything does decay except the mi- 
 nute germ which springs forth from, and is nourished by, 
 the decaying cotyledon. The ascending plumule, making 
 its way to the air, and the descending radicle, spreading in 
 the soil, draw in nourishment from these two sources, and 
 the expanding stalk becomes independent of the seed ; and 
 we see in it no resemblance to the seed. Yet that seed was 
 indispensable to its germination. Just so, the apostle 
 would have us understand, does the resurrection body 
 arise from that which was laid in the grave. To sup- 
 pose that no such relation exists between them, and that 
 nothing in fact is derived from the grave, is to do away 
 entirely with the force of this beautiful illustration. 
 
 3. The bible represents our present organization as not 
 existing in the resurrection body. 
 
 Flesh and bloody says Paul, cannot inherit the kingdom 
 of God. They, says Christ, which shall be accounted 
 worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the 
 dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage : neither 
 
 2* 
 
14 ' ORGANIZATION DESTROYED. 
 
 can they die any more, for they are equal unto the angels. 
 The employments and enjoyments of heaven are also rep- 
 resented as wholly spiritual, although sometimes describ- 
 ed, from tlie poverty of human language, by a reference 
 to material objects and processes. Christ represented it 
 to his disciples as sufficient proof of his being really a 
 man, and not a spirit after his resurrection, that he had 
 flesh and bones, and could eat and drink. 
 
 Now all such representations clearly show that not any 
 thing of our present organization will survive the grave. 
 This too is demonstrated by the fact that the resurrection 
 body will be incorruptible : an immunity impossible with 
 such bodies as we now possess. 
 
 It may be objected here, that the body, in which Christ 
 appeared after his resurrection, was similar to that of all 
 men. He repeatedly ate and drank, and declared him- 
 self to be composed of flesh and bones, and invited his 
 disciples to reach forth their hands and learn by the 
 sense of touch, as well as sight, that his was the same 
 body that hung on the cross, with the print of the nails 
 still in his hands, and of the spear in his side. We have 
 similar evidence in the cases of Lazarus, of Jairus' 
 daughter, of Dorcas, of the young man of Nain and of 
 Eutychus ; their bodies after their animation had the same 
 organization as before their death. 
 
 These statements are undoubtedly correct : But there 
 is abundant reason to believe that the resurrection bodies 
 
CHRIST'S RESURRECTION BODY. 15 
 
 both of Christ and of Lazarus were the same as were laid 
 in the tomb, reanimated before decomposition. In both 
 cases we know that the bodies laid in the grave disappear- 
 ed from thence, and were seen by their friends revivified. 
 In the case of Christ, although some appear to have 
 doubted for a time, yet when they saw the print of the 
 nails and of the spear, and heard the voice, they were sat- 
 isfied of the reality of the revivification, and exclaimed 
 niy Lord and my God. And if ecclesiastical history may 
 be credited, Lazarus survived this resurrection many 
 years. There is every reason, therefore, to believe, that 
 neither Christ nor Lazarus assumed spiritual bodies at 
 the time of their resurrection, and no one will contend 
 that, in the other cases referred to, there was any thing 
 more than a revivification of bodies but recently deprived 
 of life. That Christ should have received his glorious 
 body when he ascended to heaven, is as probable as that 
 those who may be alive at his coming shall in like man- 
 ner be changed, and the mortal put on immortality. 
 Hence then, in our reasonings about the spiritual body, 
 we are to leave entirely out of the account the case of 
 Christ, of Lazarus, and the others miraculously restored 
 to life in the times of Christ and his apostles. For these 
 were natural bodies, not spiritual. 
 
 4. The scriptures represent the difference between our 
 present bodies and the spiritual or resurrection body to be 
 very great. 
 
16 PRESENT AND FUTURE BODIES COMPARED. 
 
 The text makes it certain that this difference may be as 
 great as that between a seed and the full grown plant that 
 proceeds from it. That which thou soivest, thou sowest not 
 that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of 
 wheat, or of some other grain : but God giveth it a body as 
 it hath pleased him- Take now a kernel of wheat, and 
 with the naked eye what resemblance will you see in it to 
 the full grown plant ? True, the vegetable physiologist 
 will tell us, that powerful glasses may discover in that 
 seed an embryo of the future plant, which only needs de- 
 velopment. But to the unaided eye there is scarcely any 
 resemblance between the two : And in many other seeds 
 that resemblance is still less. 
 
 Now from this illustration we are permitted to infer as 
 great a want of resemblance between our present and fu- 
 ture bodies, as the seed and the plant it produces exhibit. 
 True, had we angelic vision, we might perhaps discern 
 the germ of the spiritual body coiled up in our present or- 
 ganization. But with our present means of knowledge, 
 we can make no such discovery, nor could we probably 
 find any external resemblance between the natural and 
 spiritual body, had we the means of comparing them to- 
 gether. We are justified in supposing the greatest possi- 
 ble difference, which can exist between matter in its most 
 diverse forms. 
 
 Look at the subject in another point of view. Consider 
 how few particles of the seed enter into the composition 
 
THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 17 
 
 of the plant that springs from it. Compare, for instance, 
 a forest tree, weighing many tons, with the seed, weighing 
 a few grains, from which it sprang ; and then recollect, 
 also, that only a small part of the seed finds its way into 
 the future plant ; and we may safely say, that the propor- 
 tion between the particles derived from the seed and from 
 other sources is only as one to a million. Yet the text 
 justifies us in the conclusion that equally small may be the 
 proportion of the particles derived from our present bodies, 
 in the resurection body. If only a millionth part, or a 
 ten thousand millionth part, of the matter deposited in 
 the grave, shall be raised from thence, it justifies the rep- 
 resentations of scripture, that there will be a resurrection 
 of the dead. And why may we not suppose, that amid 
 all the transmutations which the dead body may undergo, 
 some infinitesimal germ may be watched over by omnis- 
 cience, and by omnipotence at length be made to con- 
 stitute the germ of the spiritual body ? 
 
 5. The scriptures represent the spiritual body as possess- 
 ing a specific and individual identify. 
 
 By this I mean, that it will possess characteristics which 
 mark it off distinctly from every other created thing : as 
 the different species and individuals of animals and plants 
 are marked off from one another in the world. This very 
 important principle appears to me, in a great degree, to 
 have been overlooked by commentators ; and yet it seems 
 clearly taught in the text and context. In the passage 
 
18 POSSESSES IDENTITY. 
 
 already quoted, it is said, that Godgiveth to the plant that 
 springs from the wheat, or other seed sown, a body as it 
 hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body ; that is, 
 a peculiar body, one marked off from every other. The 
 apostle proceeds to illustrate this statement, as if it were 
 a point of great importance. All flesh, says he, is not the 
 same flesh ; but there is one kind of flesh of men, another 
 flesh of beasts, another of flshes, and another of birds. 
 He proceeded to state the same fact respecting inorganic 
 bodies : There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestri- 
 al : but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the 
 terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and 
 another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars ; 
 for one star dijfereth from another star in glory. So also, 
 he adds, is the resurrection of the dead. The bible com- 
 monly uses language in its popular sense ; but in this pas- 
 sage we have a nearer approach to the precise language 
 of natural science, in its descriptions of the specific differ- 
 ences of different objec f s. True, Paul describes only 
 differences between different tribes of animals ; though in 
 describing inorganic bodies, as the sun, moon, and stars, 
 he refers to the characters of species. He shows us that 
 each object and species in nature, has certain characters, 
 which distinguish it from every other object and species. 
 And when he adds, so also is the resurrection of the dead, 
 he teaches that there will be a peculiarity of character 
 that will discriminate between the resurrection body and 
 
IDENTITY OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 19 
 
 every thing else. Nay, it appears to me that we may go 
 farther, and say, that he teaches, by implication at least, 
 that even individual peculiarities will exist in a future 
 world. For that same great law of fixed diversity, on 
 which he bases his statements as to men, beasts, fishes, 
 and birds, does here on earth extend to individuals. They 
 have natural peculiarities by which they are marked off 
 from one another, in almost every case with great ease 
 and precision. The fair implication is, that so will it be 
 in a future world. True, our present organization will 
 not exist there ; but this does not imply that there will be 
 no organization. Nay, the more perfect and exalted 
 character of that state would rather teach us that the fu- 
 ture organization will be far more exquisite and wonder- 
 ful than the present ; and hence it would be strange if 
 there should not also be still more marked peculiarities, by 
 which each individual should be clearly known from all 
 others. An interesting application of this principle, I 
 leave to another part of this discourse. 
 
 6. The scriptures present us with several characteristics 
 of the spiritual or resurrection body. 
 
 The term spiritual body^ is peculiar to Paul, and chosen 
 probably because it comes as near to giving an idea of the 
 resurrection body, as human language admits; not be- 
 cause it gives a full idea of that body. Numerous at- 
 tempts have been made to define this term. It cannot 
 mean that the future body will be spirit ; for then it would 
 
20 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE 
 
 not differ from the soul. It must be material, therefore, 
 unless there be in the universe a third substance, which 
 is neither matter nor spirit. But if it be material, why is 
 it called spiritual ? Probably the term implies purity and 
 dignity, in contrast with the natural body, which is gross 
 and sensual. It may be thus termed, also, because it pos- 
 sesses inherent immortality, and is a congenial residence 
 for the undying soul. But though difficult to define, the 
 scriptures have given us several of its characters, from 
 which we obtain an exalted and pleasing idea of its na- 
 ture. These characters are presented by way of contrast 
 to our present bodies. 
 
 1. The spiritual body is represented as endowed with 
 great power and activity. It is soivn in weakness, it is 
 raised in power, says the apostle : and if, as we may rea- 
 sonably suppose, angels possess similar bodies, we might 
 appeal to the biblical descriptions of their active and pow- 
 erful movements, to illustrate this position. Says the 
 Psalmist, Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in 
 strength ; and John speaks of a mighty angel coming 
 down from heaven, who laid hold on the old serpent and 
 bound him a thousand years ; and the ascription of wings 
 to cherubim and seraphim, implies the power of rapid 
 motion ; so perhaps the poet hardly exceeds the literal 
 truth, when he says of the angels, that in their war with 
 apostate spirits they 
 
BEAUTIFUL AND GLORIOUS. 21 
 
 Pluck up the seated hills with all their load, 
 Rocks, waters, woods, and by the shaggy tops 
 Uplifted bear them in their hands. 
 
 Now there is every reason to presume that future glori- 
 fied saints will possess similar power and activity: for 
 they are said to be like the angels, and to be equal to the 
 angels. 
 
 2. The spiritual body will be beautiful and glorious. 
 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It will also 
 resemble Christ's glorified body. Who shall change our 
 vile body, says Paul, and fashion it like unto his glorious 
 body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue 
 all things unto himself. In Revelation we have a figura- 
 tive description of the Son of Man, that gives us an idea 
 of surpassing glory : he was clothed with a garment down 
 to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. 
 His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as 
 snow : and his eyes were as aflame of fire. And his feet 
 like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace. And 
 his voice as the the sound of many waters. And he had in 
 his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth went a 
 sharp two edged sword. And Ms countenance was as the 
 sun shineth in his strength. And when 1 saw him, I fell 
 at his feet as dead. Oh if such a glory shall surround the 
 resurrection body of the saints, what a contrast to the 
 loathsome and deformed mass which is deposited in the 
 grave ! No wonder that the transformation demands that 
 
22 INCORRUPTIBLE AND IMMORTAL. 
 
 power in Christ, by which he is able to subdue all things 
 unto himself. 
 
 3. The spiritual body will be incorruptible and immor- 
 tal. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorrup- 
 tion ; this corruptible must put on incomiption, and 
 this mortal must put on immortality. In such a world 
 as this, we see no organic being able to resist all ten- 
 dency to decay, and all mechanical violence : and 
 hence we may be unable to understand, how a material 
 organization can remain unaffected by all chemical and 
 mechanical agencies. But it is only a narrow mind, that 
 supposes it understands all the possible modifications of 
 matter ; and, indeed, we do know probably a substance 
 in existing nature, which no such agencies can change : 
 But more of this in another place. 
 
 Although, therefore, we have but an imperfect idea of 
 the spiritual body, the bible does so describe its character- 
 istics, as to lead to exalted conceptions of its nature and 
 glory. Indeed, the scriptures probably give us all the in- 
 formation concerning it, which is important, and which in 
 our present state we are able to understand. 
 
 4. The scriptures teach, that the living at the last day, 
 will have their natural bodies changed into spiritual. 
 
 Behold, says Paul, I show you a mystery ; we shall not 
 all sleep ; but we shall all be changed ; in a moment, in the 
 twinkling of an eye, at the last trump : for the trumpet 
 shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and 
 
CHANGE AT THE LAST DAY. 23 
 
 tve shall be changed. And the bible has given us a few ex-? 
 amples of this sudden and astonishing transformation. It 
 was experienced by Christ, when he was taken up and a 
 cloud received him out of sight. It passed over Elijah 
 also, when there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of 
 fire, and he went up by a whirlwind into heaven. Enoch 
 too was translated that he should not see death. In all 
 these cases philosophy would gladly interpose a thousand 
 questions, and try to ascertain whether there be in this 
 world any thing analogous to such a surprising transfor- 
 mation, or whether it is to be resolved entirely into the 
 special omnipotent agency of Deity. But to all her en-> 
 quiries the bible is silent, and she has only to acquiesce 
 in the conclusion, that the whole process is miraculous, 
 and can be understood only when we stand upon the van- 
 tage ground and in the clearer light of eternity. 
 
 Such, if I mistake not, are the scriptural views of the 
 resurrection. Does natural religion oppose, or illustrate 
 and confirm, any of these statements ? This is the sec- 
 ond point to which we shall direct your attention. 
 
 1. In the first place, philosophy shows us, that the iden* 
 tity between the present and the resurrection body, cannot 
 be an identity of particles, or of organization* 
 
 The chemist can demonstrate, that the body laid in the 
 grave is decomposed into its ultimate elements, and that 
 these, by almost endless transmutations, pass through, or 
 rather constitute, a part of other bodies ; so that the suc^ 
 
24 IDENTITY NOT OF PARTICLES, 
 
 cessive races of men that appear on the globe, consist, at 
 least in part, of the same particles which entered into the 
 composition of their progenitors. This makes it physical- 
 ly impossible that the identical particles or atoms, which 
 constitute the body laid in the grave, should belong to the 
 resurrection body as a whole. 
 
 Physiology, also, corresponds with the bible in show- 
 ing that the spiritual body must be differently organized 
 from the natural body. For with our present organs, the 
 body is necessarily subject to decay and dissolution. It 
 could not be immortal and free from suffering without a 
 constant miracle to guard it against mechanical violence 
 and chemical disorganization. Its future organization 
 may be more wonderful than at present ; still it must be 
 widely different, to make it immortal and incorruptible. 
 
 2. Philosophy shows us^ that sameness of chemical com- 
 position and idiosyncrasy of form and structure are all 
 that is essential to personal corporeal identity. 
 
 "What is it that constitutes bodily identity in this 
 world ? Suppose a person born in this country, after liv- 
 ing here twenty years, to go to China for a permanent 
 residence. Now as we have reason to suppose that the 
 entire particles of which a man is composed change every 
 few years, this individual, after residing ten years in 
 China, will not probably retain in his composition a sin- 
 gle particle of the body which he acquired in America. 
 But he is still the same man, and why ? Because his body 
 
BUT OF CHEMICAL COMPOSITION. 25 
 
 is made up of the same kinds of elementary matter com- 
 bined in the same proportion as in America, and has the 
 same form and structure. And it matters not whence 
 the elements of a compound are derived, whether from 
 China, or the United States ; if they are only united in 
 the same proportion, they will constitute exactly the same 
 substance. Thus, it can make no difference from what 
 source the oxygen and hydrogen are obtained, that form 
 water. It will be identically the same substance, though, 
 its elements come from the antipodes. So it is with the 
 oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and 
 lime, that make up the human system. The essential 
 thing, that makes them the flesh and bones of a man, is 
 their combination in a certain definite proportion. And 
 though there may be a constant loss of individual parti- 
 cles, yet if their place is supplied with others of the same 
 kind, no matter whence they came, they will maintain 
 the identity of the body, if combined in the proper prcn 
 portion : for it is essentially the chemical composition, 
 not the identity of particles, that continues a man the 
 same from year to year. 
 
 The chemist, however, may doubt whether the flesh of 
 man can be distinguished from that of beasts by its chem- 
 ical composition alone ; although there do exist slight dif- 
 ferences in this respect between all classes of animals. 
 But between man and quadrupeds, they are less than be- 
 tween man and birds and fishes. "We are obliged, there-- 
 
 a* 
 
26 SPIRITUAL BODY 
 
 fore, to add other characters in order to distinguish man 
 from other animals, and individual men from one another. 
 We say, therefore, that in order to identity, there must be 
 peculiarity of form and structure. Sameness of chemical 
 constitution, at all periods of man's existence, is the prin- 
 cipal internal character essential to identity ; while pecu- 
 liarity of form and structure give the external marks by 
 which we distinguish families and individuals from one 
 another. And very probably, when Paul says that the 
 flesh of man is different from that of beasts, he uses the 
 language not in a strict chemical sense, but embraces 
 structure and form, as well as composition. 
 
 If this be a correct view of what constitutes personal 
 corporeal identity in this world, it is obvious to remark, 
 that we have only to apply it to the resurrection body, in 
 order to meet satisfactorily the famous objection to the 
 resurrection of the body, that its particles enter into the 
 composition of several bodies. By this view, it is not 
 necessary that the resurrection body should contain a single 
 particle of the body laid in the grave, if it only contain 
 particles of the same kind, united in the same proportion, 
 and the compound be made to assume the same form and 
 structure as the natural body. For all this is what often 
 happens to men in this world, without exciting a suspicion 
 that the identity of the individual is endangered. God 
 may give to the man raised from the grave, such a body 
 as pleases him, just as he does to the plant : but if it be 
 
MAY BE TOTALLY UNLIKE THE PRESENT. 27 
 
 only composed of the same elements in the same propor- 
 tion, and have a peculiarity of form and structure, its 
 identity with the individual buried will be preserved. 
 Even if we admit, what it seems to me the bible teaches, 
 that the germ of the resurrection body does spring from 
 the natural body in the grave, it does not weaken the 
 force of this reply to the sceptic's objection. For that 
 germ may not contain a millionth part of the original par- 
 ticles in the natural body ; and therefore, no one can say 
 but that infinitesimal portion of the man may be preser- 
 ved by Omniscience and Omnipotence, disconnected with 
 everything else, and be ready at the command of Jeho- 
 vah, to form the nucleus of the spiritual body. 
 
 I would add, that since the subject of the resurrection 
 of the body has been within a few years past so fully dis- 
 cussed by able men, and this famous objection has been 
 the grand difficulty in the way of a literal understanding 
 of the inspired declarations, it seems strange, I say, that 
 this simple mode of meeting the difficulty has not been 
 suggested : or if it has been, the fact has escaped my no- 
 tice. 
 
 3. Philosophy furnishes us an example of attenuated 
 matter, which appears to be scarcely, if at all, affected by 
 mechanical or chemical agencies- 
 
 The phenomena of light, heat and electricity, as well 
 as the history of several comets, make it almost certain, 
 that there exists, diffused through every part of the mate- 
 
28 THE LUMINIFEROUS ETHER. 
 
 rial universe, an exceedingly subtle and active fluid, some- 
 times called the luminiferous ether. It seems to be the 
 agent by which light, heat and electricity are transmitted 
 by undulations in every direction, with inconceivable ve- 
 locity ; not less, than 200,000 miles per second. It exists 
 wherever light, heat and electricity penetrate ; and, there- 
 fore, it is found, not only in what we call empty space, 
 but in the most solid bodies ; since they are more or less 
 permeated by these agents. There is no evidence that 
 this ether possesses weight, though it has the power of 
 resistance, since it obstructs the movements of several 
 comets. No force, which the mechanician or the chemist 
 can exert, has the least effect upon it. Nor is it cogniza- 
 ble by any of the senses : and yet certain phenomena in- 
 dicate its existence and prodigious activity. 
 
 Now without asserting that the spiritual body is made 
 up of the luminiferous ether, or of a substance analogous 
 to it, it is interesting that we have evidence of the exist- 
 ence of such a substance in nature, and great reason to 
 believe it to be attenuated matter. Reasoning on the 
 subject, we should presume that the future body would 
 be of such a nature as to be unaffected by mechanical or 
 chemical action ; and which might exist with equal free- 
 dom, and without change, in the midst of the sun, or the 
 volcano, or in the polar ice : and yet that it would possess 
 great activity and energy ; and such a substance we have 
 before us in this universal ether. Of such a substance, 
 
GERM FROM THE GRAVE. 29 
 
 therefore, the spiritual body may be composed, or of some- 
 thing analogous to it. 
 
 4. Finally, philosophy cannot show that the germ of the 
 future spiritual body will not arise from the grave. 
 
 Suppose that germ to consist of the subtle fluid that 
 has been described. Since this can be made cognizable 
 by none of the senses, nor by any other means, how do 
 we know but it may be attached to the sleeping dust, or 
 accompany that dust wherever it may be scattered. 
 What though the grosser particles of the body may be 
 decomposed and scattered to the ends of the earth, and 
 assume new forms of organism : yet who knows but a 
 portion of this wonderful form of matter, connected with 
 the body in this world, may remain isolated till the resur- 
 rection morning, and await the Divine summons to be re- 
 united with the immortal spirit. With the facts respect- 
 ing the ether in mind, shall we undertake to prove this 
 impossible ? It must be a superficial philosophy that will 
 take up such a gauntlet. And yet how often has such a 
 philosophy put the question, how are the dead raised up $ 
 and with what body do they come ? 
 
 Natural theology, then, as it seems to me, harmonizes 
 fully with the revealed doctrine of the resurrection ; nay, 
 it throws some light on the meaning of scripture, and 
 silences the sceptical objection. We need not, therefore, 
 abandon this animating doctrine, or torture the language 
 
30 LIFE FROM DEATH. 
 
 of the bible, till it tells us that the resurrection is already 
 past. 
 
 It only remains, in the third place, that we point out 
 some symbolizations of the resurrection, in the phenome- 
 na of spring. It may be thought that this part of my 
 subject can hardly be derived from the text. True, it is 
 only the germination and development of the vegetable 
 world that are alluded to m the passage. But to bring 
 the developments of the animal kingdom into the same 
 category, is surely no violation of logic ; since it is only 
 extending to the whole organic world, what the scrip- 
 tures predicate of a part. 
 
 1 . In the first place, spring presents us with numerous 
 examples of life emerging from apparent death. 
 
 Had we no experience of the effects of spring, we could 
 not imagine, during the winter months of such a climate 
 as ours, that leaves, and flowers, and fruit, would ever 
 clothe the barren trees, or a green carpet again cover the 
 earth, or the air, the earth and the waters swarm with 
 animal life. And when we should witness the ten thou- 
 sand forms of vegetable and animal existence, which the 
 genial influences of spring develope, it would seem almost 
 as if a new creation had taken place. Experience, indeed, 
 and the aid of the microscope, enable us to discover evi- 
 dences of vitality, where, to common observation, nature 
 seems bound only in icy fetters. Yet without such aids, 
 
SCENES AT THE RESURRECTION. 31 
 
 all the developments of spring would seem to be made 
 on the bosom of death. 
 
 Just so it is with the resurrection of the dead. Go to 
 their burial place, and see if among the great congrega- 
 tion that lie side by side beneath the soil, you can discov- 
 er any signs of life. You call, but there is no answer : 
 you remove three ,feet of earth ; but you shrink back hor- 
 rified at the corruption that riots there upon all ages and 
 all classes. Yet when the last trumpet shall sound, that 
 whole surface shall become instinct with life, and corrup- 
 tion shall put on incorruption. Go if you will and trav- 
 erse the ten thousand battle fields, that have been the 
 vast slaughtering places of man, from Nimrod to Bona- 
 parte ; and all is silence and solitude over the graves of 
 these millions. But how changed the scene on the resur- 
 rection morning ! Then not less than one thousand mil- 
 lions of human bepgs shall start up from these battle 
 fields, and crowd upwards to the judgment seat. What 
 vast multitudes too, shall ascend from the site of such an- 
 cient cities as Nineveh, and Babylon, and Thebes, and 
 Palmyra, and a hundred other great centers of population, 
 now the seat of solitude and desolation. Think of Jeru- 
 salem, which for more than 2000 years has been the great 
 central slaughter house of the world ; where human relics, 
 and comminuted dwellings have accumulated on the sur- 
 face to the depth of 40 or 50 feet, and the whole has been 
 soaked a thousand times with blood, Oh think of the scene, 
 
32 CHANGES OF STRUCTURE. 
 
 when the millions that lie buried there, shall start into 
 life at the shout of the descending Judge and the archan- 
 gel's voice. From the sea's broad surface, too, what mul- 
 titudes shall be seen ascending to be judged according to 
 the deeds done in the body. Indeed, when we remember 
 that probably as many as ten billions of human beings 
 have already dwelt upon this globe, reasonably may we 
 enquire, from what portion of its surface, will not myriads 
 start into life at the final summons ? 
 
 2. In the second place spring presents us with marvellous 
 developments of structure and changes of condition in the 
 organic world. 
 
 As we look abroad over the unfolding landscape of 
 spring, how should we be struck with the contrast, could 
 all the seeds producing the vegetation of that landscape 
 be laid before us! Who, by looking at the seed, could 
 once in a thousand times predict the qj^racter of the plant 
 that would spring from it ; or trace out any analogy be- 
 tween them ? That such an analogy exists, I admit ; but 
 vernal developments can alone show us what it is ; and 
 we are often amazed and delighted by these develop- 
 ments. And the wonder rises higher as our instruments 
 of examination are more perfect. There is, indeed, more 
 simplicity of structure in the vegetable than the animal 
 frame. But the organs are minute and complicated 
 enough in the former, to set at defiance the powers of the 
 microscope ; or rather, there are wonders in the vegeta- 
 
TRANSFORMATIONS OP ANIMALS. 33 
 
 ble structure, which lie beyond the reach of that instru- 
 ment. And yet, how easily are they all unfolded when 
 spring applies to the vegetable world her transmuting 
 touch. 
 
 But the changes among animals which spring devel- 
 opes, are still more striking, and analogous to those of the 
 future resurrection. At that time, many of the animals 
 that have lain during the winter months in a state of tor- 
 pidity, hardly to be distinguished from death, begin to 
 show signs of returning vitality, and soon assume thd 
 whole activity of their natures, and enter upon a new 
 scene of enjoyment. Many too, not entirely torpid, pass 
 through transformations which bring them into states of 
 existence so different from all former ones, that it must 
 seem to them almost a new creation. Indeed^ almost up 
 to the present time, they have been regarded by the 
 ablest naturalists as different species of animals, and even 
 as belonging to different classes in their different states. 
 In fact could they answer the question themselves, they 
 would probably testify that their experience in one state is 
 totally diverse from their experience in every other state. 
 I refer to those cases which the naturalists denominate al- 
 ternate reproduction : in some of these cases the whole 
 series of transformations is not completed till the eighth 
 or ninth generation : that is, it is only in the eighth or 
 ninth generation that the perfect animal is produced. It 
 is in the spring, also, for the most part, that we witness 
 
 4 
 
34 METAMORPHOSIS OF INSECTS. 
 
 what has long been thought an illustration of this subject ; 
 I mean the metamorphosis of insects. Enveloped in his 
 silken shroud, the chrysalis has passed the wintry months 
 in some obscure spot, apparently almost as lifeless aa 
 man in the grave. But in the vernal season it bursts 
 from its prison, endowed with new life and beauty. It 
 entered its narrow tomb an unsightly worm ; but it 
 comes forth a perfect insect, with splendid colors and 
 strong wings, to pass through a season of great activity 
 and apparently of high enjoyment. 
 
 Now so striking is the analogy between these metamor- 
 phoses and the reanimation of man, that many able wri- 
 ters on natural theology have considered them as direct 
 proof of his future resurrection. But unfortunately 
 there is one defect in the analogy, that seems to have 
 been overlooked. When man is laid in the grave, we 
 know that no vestige of life remains. We may inflict 
 whatever injury we please upon the dead body, but it 
 will exhibit no signs of sensibility. Not so with the chrys- 
 alis. In its most torpid state, you can always find marks 
 of vitality, or rather, if you cannot discover signs of life, 
 it will never come forth as a perfect insect. The con- 
 clusion, therefore, is, that the curious facts respecting in- 
 sect metamorphosis, although a beautiful emblem of man's 
 resurrection, are but a poor argument in direct proof of 
 the doctrine. They do, however, show us in what widely 
 different states the same animal may exist, and what cu- 
 
MAN'S TRANSFORMATION- 35 
 
 iious means nature has provided, by which they may pass 
 from one of those states into another, not only unharmed, 
 but with higher developments of beauty and richer 
 means of enjoyment ; all this, I say, does afford a strong 
 presumption that the change of death may pass upon man 
 with no other effect upon his interior nature, than to fit it 
 to unfold in higher perfection in eternity. 
 
 And every thing in religion and philosophy indicates that 
 man will come forth from the grave with a body vastly 
 better adapted for the exercise of his mental and moral 
 powers than his present organization. Indeed, wonder- 
 ful as that organization is, both scripture and experience 
 testify, that in this world, because it is a state of sin and 
 death, the whole creation groaneth and traveleth in pain 
 together. In this tabernacle man's spirit groans, being 
 burthened, and God meant it to be in a fettered and in 
 many respects an uncongenial state, in order that it might 
 wait with earnest expectation for the manifestation of the 
 sons of God, in other words, for the adoption, which 
 the apostle declares to be, the redemption of the body. 
 Here, it is a natural body ; there, it will be spiritual : sown 
 in dishonor in the grave, but raised in glory. We have 
 shown how wide the difference may be between the natu- 
 ral and the spiritual body, consistently with the scriptural 
 representations : and doubtless the changes that will be 
 undergone, will far transcend our present conceptions. 
 Here, it is mortal ; there, immortal : here, gross, and the 
 
36 HOPE CHANGED 
 
 seat of gross appetites ; there, etherial and free from 
 every taint of sense or sin : here, the seat of pain : there, 
 invulnerable to violence, disorganization, and disease. 
 Oh, what wonders will such a body contain ; and how 
 will its study force from us, with far deeper emphasis 
 than it was ever uttered in this world, the exclamation, 
 1 am fearfully and wonderfully made! 
 
 3. In the third place> in the spring hope changes into 
 fruition. 
 
 During the long winter months of high latitudes, how 
 often do men sigh after the return of spring ! Having 
 had so long experience of the certain revolutions of the 
 seasons, their expectation of spring's return, to scatter the 
 snows, unlock the streams, mantle the earth with a green 
 carpet, and cover the vegetable world with flowers of 
 every form and hue, and make the air, earth, and waters, 
 again to teem with life and motion ; this expectation, I 
 say, is almost too strong to be called hope : And yet it 
 may fail. "We know not when the last vernal season may 
 come : for of that day Jcnoweth no man, but the Father on- 
 ly. But when we are actually rioting in the midst of ver- 
 nal glories, we feel that all is a rejoicing reality. Every 
 doubt and fear have departed, and the fruition is richer 
 than the anticipation. 
 
 As the Christian turns his thoughts and his eyes to the 
 place of the dead, he also hopes and longs for the day 
 when all that sleeping dust shall be. reanimated, and the 
 
INTO FRUITION. 37 
 
 grave shall give up its charge. And yet, when faith is 
 weak, how often do desponding doubts and fears coine 
 over his niind ! Oh r could he hear that voice, which 
 once said, Lazarus come forth, in like manner summon all 
 the countless millions of earth from their long sleep, 
 what a glorious realization of fond hopes would he expe- 
 rience ! And ere long he shall hear it, and his hopes be 
 changed into vision. O, what a change, and what a vision ! 
 And to know too, that his own body, on earth so frail, and 
 it may be so full of pain and infirmity, shall then come forth 
 purified, etherial, incorruptible, and adapted to be the resi- 
 dence of the sinless and immortal spirit, how delightful 
 the anticipation. 
 
 Take for an example the long tried and desponding in- 
 valid. Year after year, and decade after decade, it may 
 be, his frail system has battled manfully with the insidi- 
 ous workings of disease. Those in vigorous health re- 
 gard the most of his complaints perhaps as imaginary, 
 and suppose they might easily be thrown off by vigorous 
 effort ; or at the most, they look upon him with silent 
 pity. But the feverish pulse, the aching head, the fail- 
 ing strength, the desponding spirits, and the enfeebled 
 mind, too surely teach him that disease is gaining 
 strength, and must ere long be conqueror. He tries all 
 that the strictest rules of hygiene can do, to restore the 
 wasting energies ; and sometimes hope cheers him for a 
 little while with the sweet vision of renovated health ; but 
 
 4* 
 
38 DIVINE POWER, 
 
 
 
 a deeper darkness succeeds, and each successive alterna- 
 tion of hope and despondency gives to the latter more 
 and more of a predominance. At length, if his heart has 
 felt the transforming power of the Gospel, his thoughts 
 turn with deepening interest to that world where the in- 
 habitant will not say I am sick ; and the hope of a resur- 
 rection of his now diseased and suffering body to im- 
 mortal health and vigor, sends a thrill of delightful antici- 
 pation through his sinking heart. Much as he has suffer- 
 ed in his present body, he still feels for it a strong at- 
 tachment ; especially when he reflects how wonderfully 
 it has held out under the assaults of disease ; and it is a 
 delightful thought, that it shall one day be restored to 
 him, transformed indeed gloriously, but retaining its iden- 
 tity, and having become invulnerable to all created pow- 
 er, shall be his eternal and happy dwelling place. Oh, 
 animating hope ! And it is eminently the invalid's hope ; 
 for how little do they know of its mighty power, whose 
 pulse of health always beats strong, and whose spirits are 
 always buoyant and happy. 
 
 4- In the fourth place, spring opens upon us brighter 
 displays of Divine Power, Wisdom and Goodness. 
 
 Every season has, indeed, its peculiar exhibitions of 
 these attributes. But in the winter months, they are 
 chiefly manifestations of inorganic laws. Chemistry is at 
 work, with its curious transmutations and molecular forces, 
 to convert water into splendid and most useful forms of 
 crystallization ; mantling the earth with snow and ice, and 
 
WISDOM: AND GOODNESS. 39 
 
 thus guarding organic beings from the loss of vital heat. 
 But after all, it is when organic nature is most fully de- 
 veloped, that we are most impressed by the Divine wis- 
 dom and power. Indeed, the germination and growth of 
 an animal or plant, such as we witness in the spring, are 
 most wonderful processes ; and were they not so common, 
 they would be as impressive as miracles. And really, 
 what is it but the direct power of God, that produces 
 these astonishing effects ? True, we speak of the laws 
 by which vegetables and animals are made to grow and 
 flourish. But this is only saying that God works accord- 
 ing to fixed rules : for what is a law without the effi- 
 cient agency of the lawgiver ? Why not at once ascribe 
 to Divine Power the developments of organic life, which 
 that Power can alone produce, and thus follow the exam- 
 ple of the sacred writers, who seem as much impressed by 
 the ordinary as by the extraordinary movements of na- 
 ture, and see the hand of God in the one as distinctly as 
 in the other. In like manner, when spring opens upon 
 us unnumbered examples of expanding organisms, we 
 should look upon them all as the direct fruits of Divine 
 Power and Wisdom, and rejoice in them as indications of 
 Divine Goodness. 
 
 And just so when the winter of the grave is past, and 
 spring shall visit the mouldering urn, and the spiritual 
 shall replace the natural body, how astonishing, have we 
 reason to suppose, will be the manifestations of these Di 
 
40 DEVELOPMENTS 
 
 vine attributes which that new condition will present ! If 
 in this world, so marred by sin, the organism is full of 
 wonders, what shall be its marvelousness, when an or- 
 ganization exists adapted to a sinless and immortal state, 
 to the free exercise of the intellectual and moral powers, 
 and to ever advancing holiness and happiness ! The 
 scriptures allow us to give our imagination free scope, in 
 attempting to conceive of the splendors of that state: for 
 they seize upon the most brilliant scenes of time to set 
 forth its external glories. 
 
 5. In the fifth place, the animating scenes of spring in- 
 spire the expectation of yet richer developments of organic 
 nature. 
 
 To see the expanding bud, the opening flower, and the 
 green fields, and to drink in the balmy breezes loaded 
 with refreshing odors, is indeed most animating and de- 
 lightful. But a part of the pleasure arises from the con- 
 fident expectation that the fresh beauties of spring shall 
 ripen into the more enduring glories of summer, and the 
 mellow fruits of autumn. The latter, indeed, we confi- 
 dently expect as a consequence of the former, and there- 
 fore, as they come on, we are less impressed by their 
 novelty. But let them cease to follow at the expected 
 time, and we should find .that beautiful as were the blos- 
 soms of spring, they could not compare in intrinsic im- 
 portance with the more substantial developments of sum- 
 mer and autumn. 
 
YET RICHER. 41 
 
 When the spring time of the resurrection shall arrive, 
 and man finds himself united to his spiritual body, he will 
 no doubt be amazed and delighted by the novelty and 
 splendor of his house not made ivith hands, eternal in the 
 heavens. I know not what will be the anatomy and phy- 
 siology of the spiritual body. But since it is adapted to 
 a far higher state of existence, can we doubt that in struc- 
 ture and function it will equally transcend the natural 
 body ? It may not possess such senses as we now em- 
 ploy ; but there must be means of receiving knowledge, 
 far more delicate, certain, and rapid, than we now 
 enjoy. Then too the spiritual body must be pos- 
 sessed of an activity incapable of fatigue, and eminently 
 fitted for abstraction. The memory may be expect- 
 ed to retain without effort, every impression made upon it. 
 The organization must likewise be so exquisite, as never 
 to mislead, or allure from duty. All the powers, indeed, 
 of body and mind, must be in perfect harmony, and nev- 
 er know any of those conflicts which in this world so 
 cloud the intellect, pervert the will, and estrange the af- 
 fections from holiness and God. 
 
 But though the soul, when it first enters such a body, 
 will experience intense delight, yet it will doubtless soon 
 discover that still richer developments are in reserve for 
 it: for we have every reason to suppose, both from the 
 nature of the soul, and the whole analogy of the world, 
 that everlasting progress and development are the destiny 
 
42 WELL KNOWN FORMS 
 
 of the glorified spirit ; and that the grand means of such 
 progress will be the exercise of all the powers, corpo- 
 real, mental, and moral. Nay, where is the objection to 
 the supposition, that the glorified spirit may pass success- 
 ively into higher and higher conditions of being, by 
 means of changes as great, it may be, as those that con- 
 duct it from this world into another : yet not of such a 
 nature as implies the least ; amount of suffering. For 
 even what we call death, might be made a transition de- 
 lightful in prospect and in experience. 
 
 It is reasonable then to suppose, that the enchanting 
 scenes of the spring time of future existence will be only 
 an earnest of richer glories, which can be seen in bright 
 perspective, along the pathway of the whole immortal 
 existence, and that as the soul advances on that path, the 
 vision will become wider and more magnificent forever 
 and ever. 
 
 6. Finally, spring restores to us many well remembered 
 forms of vegetable and animal life. 
 
 When the frosts of autumn came on, it was saddening 
 to see how many familiar forms of the vegetable world, 
 to which we had become attached, were yielding up their 
 foliage ; and though they descended to the grave in a 
 gaudy dress, we could not but feel that we were losing the 
 society of friends. Then too, the song of birds ceased in 
 the fields and the woods, or they uttered only a few soli- 
 tary and farewell notes, as they withdrew to their south- 
 
RESTORED. 43 
 
 ern retreats. In like manner, nearly all other voices of 
 the animal world soon ceased, and during the long months of 
 winter, it was the analogy of nature only that inspired the 
 expectation of ever again beholding forms that seemed 
 to have disappeared forever. Yet with the opening 
 spring they have come back : in a new dress indeed ; but 
 still identically the same, and awakening delightful remin- 
 iscences and anticipations. Some of them have been con- 
 cealed among us and subjected to the stern power of win- 
 ter ; and others have fled far away to escape his wither- 
 ing blasts. But they have reappeared as fresh and lovely 
 as ever : yea more so :-nor can we perceive that one fea- 
 ture is gone, or changed, save that the fresher charms of 
 youth are upon them. Every spire of grass is developed 
 with the same form, and colour, and position, as its pro- 
 genitors, so that the Festuca is at once known from the 
 Poa and Agrostis, and the Dactylis from the Phleum. 
 The Anemones and the Violets, the Gnaphalium, the Tri- 
 folium, the Leontodon, the Hepatica and the Trillium, 
 have been restored without the loss of a single tint of col- 
 oring, or change in the form of their leaves, their stems, or 
 their flowers. The oak also, and the maple, the elm and 
 the poplar, the willow and the birch, the Cornus and the 
 Pyrus, the pine and the spruce, and a thousand other spe- 
 cies of trees and shrubs, put forth the same peculiar 
 leaves and flowers, and take the same specific shapes and 
 colors, which they have had since first they rose out of 
 
44 OLD FKIENDS RETURNED. 
 
 the earth at the Divine Command. The same familiar 
 voices meet us too, from the fields and the groves. At 
 the earliest dawn, the robin's cheerful song is heard, with 
 the clear rich note of the lark, the soft tone of the blue- 
 bird, the twitter of the swallow, the cooing of the dove* 
 the clear and cheerful voice of the blackbird, and the 
 hoarse yet welcome garrulity of the crow. In short, 
 wherever we turn our eyes, or wherever we open ouf 
 ears, forms and sounds of vegetable and animal life meet 
 us in almost endless profusion, yet familiar to us from our 
 earliest days ; and most of them dear to us, not only be- 
 cause of their inherent beauty and loveliness, but because 
 they are associated with the most cherished recollections 
 of our lives* When we look back upon life> we see much 
 that is painful because marred by sin. But natural ob- 
 jects are always remembered with pleasure, because they 
 wear the freshness and the innocence of Paradise. Du- 
 ring the stern reign of winter we often sighed for the re* 
 turn of the foliage and the flowers, and the countless 
 voices of gladness, which burst forth from all nature in 
 the vernal season. And now the desire is gratified, and 
 while the soft and healthful breezes fan us, the smile and 
 the song of nature make us almost forget for a time that 
 we are in a world of sin and suffering. 
 
 How delightful now to be able to say, thus shall it be 
 with the resurrection of the dead ! Then, indeed, shall 
 the grave deliver up a multitude of well remembered and 
 
FRIENDS WILL KNOW ONE ANOTHER. 45 
 
 endeared forms, which in sadness we committed to its 
 charge. In another part of this discourse I have endeav- 
 ored to show, that the spiritual body will possess a specific 
 and individual identity, l^ow what is it that enables us 
 in the spring to recognize the plants and animals 
 emerging from the grave of winter, as the same in kind 
 with those that flourished in the previous year? It is 
 simply by their specific identity, which has been preserv- 
 ed through all the changes and rigors of winter. Just so 
 does the bible describe the specific character of man, and 
 by parity of reason that of individuals, as being unharm- 
 ed by the mechanical and chemical changes consequent 
 upon death. We may expect, therefore, to be able at 
 the resurrection, to distinguish those whom we have 
 known on earth, as readily as we do the plants and ani- 
 mals of spring. It is strange, indeed, apart from this 
 doctrine of the preservation of specific identity, how theo- 
 logians could ever have doubted whether men would be 
 able to recognize one another in the eternal world : for 
 they all admit that memory will remain, and some means 
 of intercommunication be possessed, at least as certain as 
 on earth. How then, could individuals be prevented from 
 learning to recognize one another, even though every evi- 
 dence of corporeal identity be lost ? But when the apos- 
 tle says, that God giveth to every seed his own body, and 
 that so it will be with the resurrection of the dead, every 
 
 5 
 
46 LET THE BEREAVED 
 
 naturalist feels sure that there will exist also, such marks 
 of identity between the natural and the spiritual body, as 
 will enable those familiar with the one, to recognize the 
 other. I pretend not, indeed, to describe how that spe- 
 cific identity can be preserved, amid the decompositions 
 of the grave ; especially when I know that flesh and Mood 
 cannot inherit the kingdom, of God. But I do know, that 
 the specific characteristics of plants and animals are main- 
 tained in this world under changes perhaps equally great ; 
 and when Jehovah declares, that so it shall be in the res- 
 urrection of the dead, I joyfully acqiiiesce in the doctrine, 
 because I know that infinite power can accomplish that 
 which infinite wisdom determines* 
 
 I come, then, my hearers, with my heart full of this 
 consoling doctrine, to pour it into the bosoms of the af- 
 flicted. And who of us have not sometimes been afflicted 
 in the removal of those whose forms and features have 
 tfeen ever since remembered with the deepest inter- 
 est. We have called in the aid, it may be, of painting 
 and photography, to embalm their features, and the ex- 
 pression which the workings of the soul within gave to the 
 countenance. And how deep was our anguish, when we 
 last looked upon them, although death had marred their 
 countenances, as we saw the grave closing over their re- 
 mains. But if the doctrine of this discourse be true, and if 
 they were the true disciples of Christ, they shall be re- 
 
BE COMFORTED. 47 
 
 stored to us in the resurrection morning, and we shall re- 
 cognize them amid the millions, who then awake from the 
 grave, as we now recognize the plants and animals of 
 spring. There shall be a characteristic something in 
 their spiritual bodies, that will lead us at once, and 
 with exulting joy, to fly to their embrace. Fathers and 
 mothers, who have been called to yield to the demands of 
 death, a darling and pious child, while yet the dew and 
 the beauty of youth were fresh upon him, go forth at the 
 shout of the archangel, and you shall find that child, glow- 
 ing indeed with celestial beauty and glory, yet retaining 
 something of that same expression which has stamped his 
 image so deeply on your heart. And thou disconsolate 
 man, from whom death has taken the wife of your youth, 
 go thou forth at the same signal, and you shall at once 
 distinguish her too, amid ascending millions, and become 
 her everlasting companion, in that world where they neither 
 marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of 
 God. The lonely widow too, let her come, and she shall 
 recognize that countenance, which a noble soul and gen- 
 erous affection have made indelible on her heart, as once 
 her husband and protector, nor shall any power be able 
 again to tear him from her side ; but the holy joys of 
 eternity shall be doubly sweet, because enjoyed together. 
 Children of beloved Christian parents, come ye, also, and 
 rush again into the embrace of those who gave you being) 
 
48 RECOGNITIONS 
 
 and who trained you up for heaven, and they shall take 
 you by the hand and still be your guides and companions 
 amid the wonders of the New Jerusalem. There like- 
 wise shall the brother, from whom death has torn an af- 
 fectionate brother or sister, and the sister, who has often 
 wept over a departed brother, or sister, find them again 
 radiant with heavenly glory, yet retaining the traces of 
 their earthly character. And whatever Christian weeps 
 over the memory of a Christian friend, let him wipe away 
 his tears, and prepare to meet that friend, when the 
 graves have given up their dead, with a body like unto 
 Christ's, yet fashioned so as to make it only a transmuted 
 and glorified natural body, recognized by one of those 
 golden links that bind the natural to the spiritual, the 
 mortal to the immortal. Oh, blessed season of recogni- 
 tion and joy begun ! How will it wipe away in a moment 
 every Christian mourner's tears, and restore to him his 
 departed friends, and bring them all together in the pres- 
 ence of their common Lord, to enjoy his smiles, and the 
 delightful intercourse of one another, with no fear of dis- 
 astrous change or separation, forever and ever. Sur- 
 rounded as we are, my Christian friends, by the resurrec- 
 tions of spring, let us look upon the thousand forms of 
 life and beauty that meet us from day to day, as symboli- 
 zations of that nobler resurrection, when , forms a thous- 
 and times dearer shall start into life from a deeper win- 
 
IN HEAVEN. 49 
 
 ter, and put on a verdure that will never decay^ and a 
 glory that will never fade. Oh, that this bright hope 
 might stimulate us so to live and to labor, that not only 
 ourselves, but all whom we love on earth, shall come 
 forth at the resurrection of the just, purified from the 
 stains and sins of earth, and ripe for the perfect holiness 
 and perfect happiness of heaven ! 
 
THE TRIUMPHAL ARCH OF SUMMER. 
 

THE TRIUMPHAL ARCH OF SUMMER. 
 
 AND GOD SPAKE UNTO NOAH AND TO HIS SONS WITH HIM, 
 SAYING, AND I, BEHOLD I ESTABLISH MY COVENANT WITH 
 
 YOU AND WITH YOUR SEED AFTER YOU *. AND WITH EVERY 
 LIVING CREATURE THAT IS WITH YOU OF THE FOWL, OP 
 THE CATTLE, AND OF EVERY BEAST OF THE EARTH WITH 
 YOU, FROM ALL THAT GO OUT OF THE ARK, TO EVERY 
 BEAST OF THE EARTH. AND I WILL ESTABLISH MY COV- 
 ENANT WITH YOU ) NEITHER SHALL ALL FLESH BE CUT OFF 
 ANY MORE BY THE WATERS OF A FLOOD I NEITHER SHALL 
 THERE ANY MORE BE A FLOOD TO DESTROY THE EARTH. 
 
 AND GOD SAID, THIS is THE TOKEN OF THE COVENANT 
 
 WHICH I MAKE BETWEEN YOU AND ME, AND EVERY LIV- 
 ING CREATURE THAT IS WITH YOU, FOR PERPETUAL GENER- 
 ATIONS. I DO SET MY BOW IN THE CLOUDS, AND IT SHALL 
 BE FOR A TOKEN OF A COVENANT BETWEEN ME AND THE 
 EARTH. AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS WHEN I BRING A 
 CLOUD OVER THE EARTH, THAT THE BOW SHALL BE SEEN 
 IN THE CLOUD. AND I WILL REMEMBER MY COVENANT 
 WHICH IS BETWEEN ME AND YOU AND EVERY LIVING 
 CREATURE OF ALL FLESH; AND THE WATERS SHALL NO 
 MORE BECOME A FLOOD TO DESTROY ALL FLESH. AND THE 
 
54 SOOTHING EFFECT 
 
 BOW SHALL BE IN THE CLOUD; AND I WILL LOOK UPON IT 
 THAT I MAY REMEMBER THE EVERLASTING COVENANT BE- 
 TWEEN GOD AND EVERY LIVING CREATURE OF ALL FLESH 
 THAT IS UPON THE EARTH. Genesis 9 : 8 16. 
 
 IT does not follow from this description, that the rain- 
 bow had no existence before the deluge, but only that 
 God appealed to it upon the subsidence of the waters, as 
 a token or sign of the promise or covenant he then made 
 with the earth. Whenever that sign should appear in 
 the cloud, it would be a pledge that the constancy of na- 
 ture was not again to be interrupted in order to deluge 
 the earth. 
 
 Every one has observed and delighted in the tranquil- 
 izing influence of striking scenes in nature. Let a man's 
 nerves be ever so much rasped and irritated by the colli- 
 sions and perplexities of life, how quickly will they be 
 soothed, if some splendid landscape bursts at once upon 
 his sight ; if a meteor rushes across the heavens ; or the 
 northern aurora decorates the sky ; if the thunder cloud 
 rises slowly and majestically, or the sun emerges after a 
 storm and paints a rainbow upon the retiring darkness. 
 It is as if, while thus excited and ruffled, he were to attempt 
 to perform a piece of music, or were to listen to one who 
 has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument. 
 He could not sing, and with difficulty could he hear mu- 
 sic well executed, without becoming tranquil. And there 
 is a music in the striking scenes of nature still more po- 
 
OF NATURAL PHENOMENA. 55 
 
 tent, which exerts a magic power to soothe the agitated, 
 and cheer the desponding heart. 
 
 But such an effect is not the highest and most impor- 
 tant influence which we should seek from natural phe- 
 nomena. They teach many a moral lesson with great 
 clearness and force ; and the religious man should ever 
 desire to secure this most needed benefit from every thing 
 beautiful and sublime in nature. 
 
 You will see by my text, that my object on this occa- 
 sion, is, to call your attention to one of the most splendid 
 and not unfrequent spectacles, .which crown the balmy 
 season of summer. I would point out those religious 
 truths, which the rainbow, by fair analogy, illustrates and 
 impresses. 
 
 In the first place, the text shows us that the rainbow is a 
 token, or pledge of God's fidelity to his word. 
 
 In order to appreciate the value of this pledge to Noah 
 and his family and his immediate successors, we need only 
 place ourselves in their circumstances. The constancy of 
 nature had been broken in upon, and a frightful catastro- 
 phe had followed, involving the whole world in destruc- 
 tion, save a single family. That family had seen a rain 
 commence, as any other rain ; yet it ceased not for forty 
 days ; and then too, the ocean came rolling in its giant 
 waves upon the land, engulphing in awful ruin, the unbe- 
 lieving world, and sparing only those, who, trusting in God's 
 word, had prepared an ark and were borne upwards by the 
 
56 THE PLEDGE OF GOD's FIDELITY. 
 
 swelling flood. As they saw multitudes struggle in vain 
 against the waters, and their dead bodies at length strew- 
 ed over the universal flood, how deeply must they have 
 been impresssd with the powerlessness of man when God 
 rises up in anger, and how easy for him to turn all nature 
 into a chaos in the execution of vindictive justice upon 
 the guilty. The inquiry, therefore, must have been one 
 of deep interest to these survivers and their descendants, 
 to whom for several generations the story of the deluge 
 would be told with the vividness of a present reality, 
 whether they might not expect other special interpositions 
 of Divine Power, arresting the ordinary operations of na- 
 ture, whenever the guilty deserved punishment. And 
 doubtless they felt as if their own conduct deserved from 
 Infinite Holiness, a repetition of the terrible infliction. 
 How cheering then to hear God say, 1 will establish my 
 covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any 
 more by the w aters of a flood. I will not again curse the 
 ground any more for man*s sake : for the imagination of 
 marfs heart is evil from his youth : neither will I again 
 smite any more everything living as I have done. While 
 the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest, and cold and 
 hea^ and summer and winter, and day and night, shall 
 not cease. I do set my boiv in the cloud, and it shall be 
 for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And 
 the bow shall be in the cloud, and I will look upon it that 
 I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and 
 
SPECIAL INTERPOSITION. 57 
 
 every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. 
 Oh, with what intense anxiety must these survivors, after 
 leaving the ark, have watched the clouds, to see if the 
 promised sign should appear ! and what exultation must 
 have swelled their bosoms, as they saw the many colored 
 arch spanning the heavens and quelling their fears, and 
 inspiring confidence in God, and gratitude towards him. 
 No wonder that the rainbow, as well as every other cir- 
 cumstance connected with the deluge, should have enter- 
 ed so largely into the mythological systems of heathen 
 antiquity, and that the bow should have been personified 
 in the goddess Iris. 
 
 It did not require many generations to pass, before men 
 lost their deep moral interest in the rainbow : for the long 
 continued constancy of nature dissipated their fears of its 
 interruption : and at this day, how few, as they look up- 
 on this phenomenon, remember at all that it is the token 
 of that only covenant, which ensures the constancy of na- 
 ture's operations ! But that pledge is indeed our only se- 
 curity. We do not learn, either from philosophy or rev- 
 elation, that God might not as certainly and successfully 
 have governed the world by special interposition, as by 
 fixed laws. Indeed, special interposition might have 
 been easily made the law, and uniformity the exception. 
 But how disastrous would such a state of things have 
 been to the human family ! Suppose that every time we 
 saw the clouds rising, we were to anticipate a penal del* 
 
 6 
 
58 THE PLEDGE 
 
 uge ; or every time the thunder and lightning played, we 
 were to expect some signal manifestation of God's dis- 
 pleasure towards the guilty : and who is not conscious 
 enough of guilt to feel that he deserves the stroke. Still 
 more painful must have been our apprehensions, when the 
 comet's train was in the heavens, or the aurora borealis 
 was flashing up from the horizon, or the sun and moon 
 were suffering eclipse ! The heathen, and those extreme- 
 ly ignorant, have these fears to some extent : and we 
 know how miserable it makes them. Thus saith the Lord, 
 learn not the way of the heathen, and he not dismayed at 
 the signs of heaven ; for the heathen are dismayed at them. 
 Let us then, remember with gratitude, as we look upon 
 the bow of summer, that it is our only pledge against an 
 insecurity and uncertainty in nature, that would convert 
 the world into a torturing house, where conscience would 
 act as inquisitor. 
 
 But this is not all. For if the rainbow is the token of 
 God's covenant with the material universe, it is also, by 
 parity of reason, a pledge of the fulfilment of all his promis- 
 es, and all his threatenings. For the last four thousand 
 years, God has not failed of the promise that seed time and 
 harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and 
 day and night, shall not cease. Why should we doubt any 
 more that he will show the same fidelity to all the prom- 
 ises : and Oh, how rich and abundant they are, to those 
 who are faithful in his service ! God is not man that he 
 
OF GOD'S PROMISES. 59 
 
 should lie ; neither the son of man that he should repent : 
 hath he said, and shall he not do it ? or hath he spoken, 
 and shall he not make it good f God, says the apostle, 
 willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise 
 the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath : 
 That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible 
 for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who 
 have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us. 
 And in another place, the same apostle, speaking of 
 Christ, says, For all the promises of God in him, are yea, 
 and in him amen, unto the glory of God, by us. Truly 
 we may add the inference which he makes on this subject, 
 from another train of reasoning : If God be for us^ who 
 can be against us ? 
 
 But I need not make this point a matter of inference 
 from the promises of God in general : for he has express- 
 ly compared his covenant with Noah, to that made with 
 his people. This, says he, is as the waters of Noah unto 
 me : for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no 
 more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not 
 be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains 
 shall depart* and the hills be removed ; but my kindness 
 shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my 
 peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. 
 How strong this language ! It does not say that God's 
 covenant with his people is as firm as that with the ma- 
 terial universe as ratified by the rainbow. But it goes 
 
60 GOD'S THREATENINGS 
 
 farther, and declares that even though the latter be bro- 
 ken, so that the mountains shall depart, and the hills be 
 removed, yet his promises to his people shall neverthe- 
 less abide, and they need not fear amid a dissolving uni- 
 verse. 
 
 As the Christian, then, looks upon the bow of summer 
 spanning the arch of heaven, what a lesson of trust in 
 God does it teach him ! Only one half hour before, per- 
 haps, he was surrounded by blackness and darkness and 
 tempest ; and no sign in nature indicated a cessation of 
 the wild commotion of the elements. But how soon was 
 the change accomplished, that brought back the light, and 
 hushed the winds, and made beauty and glory almost un- 
 earthly succeed the elemental war ! And that bow which 
 crowns the whole scene, tells the Christian, that with like 
 ease can God make the storms of affliction and trial, and 
 the furious onsets of temptation, and the darkness of de- 
 spondency, pass away, and peace and hope revisit the 
 trembling heart, and fill it with joy unspeakable and full 
 of glory. In the darkest hour, therefore, let the believer ' 
 cling to the promise of God and fear no evil, and wait in 
 assured hope for his arm to clear the darkest skies, and 
 forget not, that though weeping may continue for a night, 
 joy cometh in the morning. 
 
 But God has promulgated threatenings as well as 
 promises : His holy law has penalties as well as re- 
 wards : penalties of deep and terrible import, whose an- 
 
WILL BE EXECUTED. 61 
 
 nouncement is couched in language and metaphors the 
 most terrific which the vocabulary and the rhetoric of 
 man can command. And it is declared of these too, that 
 though heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle 
 shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. 
 What infatuation, then, for man to fancy that these 
 threatening^ will not be executed ! How should any one 
 presuming to entertain such fancies be rebuked, as he 
 looks upon the rainbow, and is there reminded that in 
 nothing else has God failed to be as good as his word. 
 Beautiful then as the bow of heaven is, it speaks only ter- 
 ror and denunciation to the unhumbled sinner. 
 
 The Hindoo mythology teaches that there is a certain 
 fluid prepared by the gods, called the Amreetta, or drink 
 of immortality, which confers eternal life upon all that 
 taste it. But to the pious man, along with immortality, 
 it brings happiness without measure and without end : 
 while in the wicked, it works everlasting agony. So if 
 the rainbow were viewed aright, it would awaken confi- 
 dence and joy in the pious heart, but fear and distress in 
 the wicked. And if such are not its opposite effects, it is 
 because men regard not its original dedication, as a wit- 
 ness of God's faithfulness to his declarations. 
 
 In the second place , the rainbow is an emblem of the 
 covenant of redemption. 
 
 I might have mentioned this fact without impropriety, 
 under the first head, But there are some peculiarities of 
 
 6* 
 
G2 THE COVENANT 
 
 resemblance, which make a separate notice more appro- 
 priate. 
 
 When the law was proclaimed on Sinai, the mountain 
 was covered with a thick cloud, from which issued the 
 thunderings and the lightnings and the loud trumpet ; but 
 there was no bow upon that cloud. All was suited to a 
 dispensation, whose unyielding demand was, this do and 
 tliou shalt live. Whosoever Jceepeth the whole law, and 
 yet offendeth in one point, is guilty of all. But when the 
 Gospel was proclaimed, it painted a bow of promise upon 
 that cloud ; not by dissipating the cloud, or robbing it of 
 its thunders, but only turning them upon the head of a 
 substitute, and inviting the guilty and the lost to take 
 shelter beneath the cross. 
 
 We speak of the rainbow as painted upon the clouds. 
 But who has not seen its arch creep downward upon the 
 mountain's side, and taking hold of the forest, seem to 
 unite the stormy cloud above to the quiet earth beneath. 
 In like manner, how beautifully does the covenant of re- 
 demption link, by a golden chain, heaven to earth, and 
 earth to heaven. The cloud of Divine Justice still hangs 
 above our heads, and the lightning is sometimes seen 
 playing upon its face. But the bow of mercy smiles up- 
 on the darkness, and whispers peace and security to the 
 humble believer. With argument irresistible, and confi- 
 dence unshaken, he exclaims, He that spared not his own 
 Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with 
 
OF REDEMPTION. G3 
 
 him also, freely give us all things ? Who shall lay any 
 titing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justi- 
 jfteth : who is he that ccnidemneth ? 
 
 In the third place, the rainbow is an apt emblem of 
 union and harmony in the midst of diversity. 
 
 The beam of light that comes to us from the sun, is 
 homogeneous and apparently simple. But let it pass 
 through the prism, or the drop of rain, and it developes 
 the colors that form the rainbow. Apply the thermome- 
 ter, and you will find also in that beam, invisible rays, 
 producing the phenomena of heat. Subject the photo- 
 graphic plate to the same beam, and you will find other 
 invisible rays, that shall realize the ancient fancy of the 
 painter, who dipped his pencil in the sun. Now all these 
 rays, so diverse in color and effect, are harmoniously 
 blended in the rainbow. And who fancies any want 
 of congruity and harmony ? Take away any one of 
 them indeed, and you despoil the bow of its perfection. 
 A single color painted upon the clouds, would excite 
 comparatively little interest. But when the seven are 
 blended in the magnificent arch, you feel how won- 
 derful is the power of nature to unite and harmonize 
 things so diverse ; and in the midst often thousand differ- 
 ences, to exhibit perfect union and proportion. 
 
 The beam of truth that comes to us, either through the 
 volume of nature or revelation, is homogeneous and pure. 
 But passing through the various separating media, of dif- 
 
64 UNITY CONSISTENT 
 
 ferent intellects, of education, of prejudice, and various 
 systems of philosophy, it is divided into rays of many col- 
 ors. And usually men do not recognize their common 
 origin, nor imagine that they can be made to harmonize. 
 Some of these rays are, indeed, lost, and most of them 
 are obscured, by the perverting influence of the medium 
 through which they pass. But whenever the different 
 denominations of Christendom unite upon any great ob- 
 ject of benevolence, they show that the light which they 
 emit, had a divine original ; and though of different 
 shades, it may all be blended into an arch of light, that 
 shall spread glory over the darkness of this world, and 
 become an omen of hope for the future. They learn, 
 that so long as they see evidence that the light which is 
 thrown out from any denomination had a divine origin, 
 they need not fear that it will blast, but they may hope 
 it will bless, the nations ; although diverse in- appearance 
 from their own ; and that in fact, the different colored 
 rays may blend in harmony. They will find too, that 
 there are invisible rays, calorific rays, unequally diffu- 
 sed, perhaps, as in the spectrum, among the different col- 
 orific rays : yet spreading a genial warmth through the 
 whole. And they will find other invisible rays, whose 
 magic power shall paint Christianity, as thus exhibited, 
 in a juster and fairer light before the world, than she has 
 ever yet assumed. 
 
 Beautiful, however, as the natural rainbow is, it lacks 
 
WITH DIVERSITY. 65 
 
 one thing essential to the perfection of its beauty. As 
 seen in the heavens, by an eye on earth, it can never 
 form but a portion of a circle. Yet when you stand up- 
 on the brink of the cataract of Niagara, in favorable cir- 
 cumstances, you may see that circle completed upon the 
 spray. And then will you feel, what probably you nev- 
 er thought of before, how much more glorious the bow 
 upon the clouds would be, could it be presented as an un- 
 ending curve. 
 
 In like manner, the union of different denominations of 
 Christians, so fitly represented by the colors of the rain- 
 bow, never yet has been, and I fear never will be, per- 
 haps I might say, never can be, on earth, anything but a 
 broken circle. But when from every nation, every de- 
 nomination, and every communion, they shall be assem- 
 bled around the throne of their common Lord on Mount 
 Zion above, the circle shall be completed, and the full glo- 
 ries of Christian love, marred and obscured on earth, shall 
 shine forth in all their brightness, and excite the admira- 
 tion of all heaven, and become the Redeemer's diadem. 
 
 In the fourth place, the rainbow aptly represents man's 
 present state of probation and discipline. 
 
 When we see the tempest rising and hear the winds 
 whistling ; and see the billowy clouds wheeling and mix- 
 ing in wild commotion, while ever and anon from their 
 dark folds, flashes out the lightning, and the startling 
 thunder comes pealing after, while the riven tree or the 
 
6G MAN'S PROBATION. 
 
 blazing habitation, attests the power of the electric dis- 
 charges, such a scene may and must interest us by its 
 sublimity. But it wears too much the aspect of terror to 
 make its long continuance desired. Yet when the fury 
 of the storm is past, and the wild wind is lulled, and the 
 forked lightning plays only at a distance, and the sun be- 
 gins to look out again from behind the retiring cloud, we 
 view the scene, with lively emotions of pleasure ; and 
 when at length the rainbow is seen spanning the storm, 
 and nature smiles in morning freshness, we rejoice in the 
 contrast, and do not regret the violence of the tempest, 
 iior its dangers, if such a scene of loveliness is permitted 
 to follow. 
 
 No less in contrast are the scenes which man's proba- 
 tionary state in this world presents. It is, indeed, full of 
 enigmas, too deep for human philosophy to solve. The 
 author of the book of Ecclesiastes has left us the result of 
 his observations and reflections upon the checkered state 
 of things, which society exhibits. / returned, says he, 
 and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor 
 the battle to the strong ; neither yet bread to the wise, nor 
 yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of 
 skill ; but time and chance happeneth to them all. This is 
 blank atheism. But others among the ancients, as they 
 observed the condition of the world, saw in it such 
 a strange mixture of retributive justice and benevo- 
 lence, as to regard it as a state of rewards and punish- 
 
THE DARK SIDE. 67 
 
 ments. This was the view entertained by Job's comfort- 
 ers, who argued against him on such a basis ; and the 
 view was not uncommon among the heathen. Even in 
 modern times, this checkered aspect of human society and 
 individual experience, has perplexed and confounded 
 many, who have not drank deeply into the spirit of reve- 
 lation. Aside from that fountain of truth, it is not, indeed, 
 strange, that men should be confounded by what they 
 witness. When they see whole cities and districts sud- 
 denly overturned by the earthquake or the volcano, or 
 deluged by water ; when the tornado spreads desolation 
 over fertile regions ; when the pestilence moves in terror 
 over the land ; when famine and war convert regions, 
 populous and fertile, into uninhabited deserts ; and when 
 in individual experience the best laid plans prove abor- 
 tive, and misfortune and sickness paralyze the most vigor- 
 ous frame, it does seem as if the arm of God's punitive 
 justice were laid bare, and as if he were giving painful 
 exhibitions of his hatred of sin. The world, indeed, seems 
 covered with the cloud of Divine vengeance, and we 
 see the lightnings flashing from it, and the winds and the 
 floods rushing with fury from its caverns. And yet the 
 destruction falls on the just as well as the unjust, the in- 
 nocent as well as the guilty, and we wonder why Infinite 
 Wisdom and Justice do not make a distinction. 
 
 On the other hand, when none of these terriffic mes- 
 sengers of wrath are abroad, and we go forth to survey 
 
68 THE BRIGHT SIDE. 
 
 the world, we find a thousand tokens of benevolence 
 smiling upon us on the face of society. Over vast re- 
 gions waves the olive of peace, and happy millions sit un- 
 der their own vines and fig trees, with none to molest or 
 make them afraid. The gory battle-field waves with 
 golden grain ; new cities and towns are springing up on 
 the ruins of those buried by the earthquake, the volca- 
 no, or the flood, science and art unite to multiply the 
 comforts and elegancies of life, multitudes are rising 
 from the degradation of ignorance and superstition ; the 
 chains of the oppressor are snapping asunder, and we 
 hear the shout of freedom from disenthralled millions. 
 And when we descend to the examination of individuals, 
 we find peace and prosperity, health and happiness, to be 
 the law, and suffering, poverty, sickness, and misery, to 
 be the exception. If the former view brought before us 
 the cloud of Divine Justice with its lightning and thun- 
 der, the latter spreads over it a bow of hope and prom- 
 ise. It is the voice of nature, telling us in language not 
 to be mistaken, that if the world does exhibit, here and 
 there, evidences of God's displeasure against sin, if we 
 do see marks of a fallen condition of the human family, 
 still it is not a condition without hope. Bright rays of 
 mercy are smiling upon its darkness, speaking in gentle 
 tones of Divine forgiveness to the penitent. Nature, in- 
 deed, with a thousand tongues, tells us that it is a world 
 of probation and discipline ; a mere preparatory state for 
 
HUMAN HOPES. 69 
 
 a final and far more exalted condition. And this voice 
 solves satisfactorily the enigma of this world, and justi- 
 fies the ways of God to man, and brings back peace and 
 hope into the bosom of dejection, doubt and despair. 
 
 In the fifth place, the rainbow is a striking emblem of 
 human hopes. 
 
 Although the laws by which the rainbow is produced 
 are everywhere the same, yet it presents itself to our view 
 in two quite different circumstances, "in the one case it 
 precedes, and in the other it follows, the storm. When 
 it appears at the rising of the sun, it is painted upon the 
 approaching storm, and when at the setting sun, upon the 
 retiring storm. Hence the morning bow presages the 
 storm, and the evening bow gives promise of a subse- 
 quent day with a clear sky and an invigorating atmos- 
 phere : or as the homely proverb has it, 
 
 " A bow in the morning : 
 Let sailor's take warning : 
 
 A rainbow at night, 
 
 Is the sailor's delight." 
 
 Now the morning bow aptly represents those human 
 hopes that are destined to end in disappointment and de- 
 feat. And these hopes are for the most part such as are 
 inspired in the morning of life. At that period, when 
 the sun of life is first above the horizon, the clouds of care 
 and suffering have not yet cast a shadow over its bright- 
 
 7 
 
70 HUMAN HOPES 
 
 ness, and its rays throw a deceitful splendor over the fu- 
 ture. Then too, the bow of promise smiles so sweetly, 
 as to lure on the inexperienced youth, and inspire hopes 
 that can never be realized. He has not yet learnt that 
 this bow of promise, like the rainbow, is painted upon a 
 rising storm, and owes its brilliancy to the storm. He is 
 amazed, therefore, and disheartened, when he sees the 
 clouds begin to rise, and the sun passes behind them, and 
 the bow fades away, and the storms of misfortune com- 
 mence. It is well in such circumstances if he does not ut- 
 terly despair, and give over his efforts after future good. 
 Some do thus yield to the power of adversity. But oth- 
 ers nobly breast the storm, and trust that when its fury is 
 spent, the sun will reappear, and new and better hopes 
 shall not only spring up, but be realized ; if not in this 
 world, yet in another, far brighter and nobler. And to 
 produce such a state of feeling and action, is precisely the 
 object God has in view in thus blasting earthly hopes. 
 
 The morning bow, however, does aptly symbolize some 
 human hopes that extend into eternity. If not built 
 upon the right foundation, those hopes, however 
 confident, will never be fulfilled. Nay, worse than 
 this : they will end in a storm that will know no 
 mitigation and no end. Every hope will thus termi- 
 nate that is not founded on Jesus Christ and him 
 crucified ; every hope that does not begin with the wash- 
 ing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost : 
 
SYMBOLIZED. 71 
 
 every hope that rests on external rites in religion, 
 or on mere worldly morality, or on fitful frames instead of 
 a deep seated abiding principle of piety ; love to God 
 and love to man* Oh, how painful to think how many 
 hopes are indulged among nominal Christians, that will 
 prove like the spider's web, or like the giving up of the 
 ghost I With comparative composure can we see earth- 
 ly hopes crushed, and those who entertained them stand- 
 ing desolate and disconsolate : for that very desolation 
 may lead them to secure hopes that shall prove an anchor 
 to the soul both sure and stedfast, in the final conflict of 
 nature. But how overwhelming the thought, that when, 
 a man stands on the brink of life, and a hope of heaven 
 is the only support which can buoy him up amid the angry 
 waters, Oh, to find that this is a delusion, and like a mill 
 stone will drag him to the bottom, who, who, can contem- 
 plate without anguish his condition ! And yet you and I, 
 my Christian brother, may find that condition to be our 
 own. 
 
 Contemplate now the rainbow of the evening, or rather 
 of the setting sun, and you have a beautiful emblem of 
 hopes, temporal and eternal, that are true and will become 
 reality. And a striking difference between these hopes 
 and such as will perish, lies in the fact, that they follow, 
 instead of preceding, the storms of life. After the clouds 
 and the darkness, and it may be the tempests of affliction, 
 and disappointment have passed by, God impresses upon 
 
72 REGENERATION 
 
 those who have endured them the tokens of his approba- 
 tion and favor, and gives them a bright earnest of happier 
 days ; it may be on earth, but assuredly in heaven. 
 Bravely and patiently have they stood at the post of 
 duty, when the winds and the storm beat upon them, 
 resolving to trust in Jehovah, though he slew them ; and 
 now they have their reward. Thus did light and peace 
 break in upon Job after his fiery trials ; and thus have 
 ten thousand others found that their afflictions were only 
 necessary precursors of days of rest and happiness. And 
 as to heavenly hopes, they are almost as necessarily 
 preceded by storms and tempests in the moral world, 
 as the rainbow of evening is by those in the natural 
 world. Says Paul, we glory in tribulation ; knowing that 
 tribulation worlceth patience, and patience experience, and 
 experience hope : and hope maketh not ashamed. Our 
 light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for its 
 a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. 
 
 Christian brother, I know that your thoughts will re- 
 cur in this connection to the time when your soul was 
 first brought out of the darkness of nature into the mar- 
 vellous light of the Gospel. A sense of unpardoned sin 
 had brought a frightful cloud over your prospects for 
 eternity ; and ever and anon you saw the lightning of 
 Sinai leaping forth from its bosom, threatening you with 
 the instant destruction which you felt that you deserved. 
 Your earnest cry for help was answered only by the heavy 
 
SYMBOLIZED. 73 
 
 thunder of the Divine Law ; and you sought in vain for 
 any refuge from the pelting storm. Hope died in your 
 bosom, and despair was settling down upon your pros- 
 pects, when suddenly, and as if almost by miracle, the 
 tempest lulled, the blue sky reappeared, your eye caught 
 the bow of the everlasting covenant, the Sun of Right- 
 eousness looked through the clouds with noonday bright- 
 ness, your soul was filled with light, and love, and exulting 
 joy, and heaven and earth with the glory of God. Oh, 
 can you look upon the natural rainbow, and not be re- 
 minded of that amazing and triumphant hour, when you 
 exclaimed, 
 
 11 This relief, 
 
 " This change, whence are they ? almost it might seem 
 " I never Hv'd till now, all else had been a dream." 
 
 But the closing scene of the true Christian's life, as 
 well as its commencement, is most impressively symbol- 
 ized by the rainbow of evening ; not to speak of that 
 beautiful silver bow which the rays of the moon unfre- 
 quently exhibit upon the evening clouds, and which is 
 called the Lunar Iris : a phenomenon which a man may 
 think himself fortunate to have seen once in the course of 
 an ordinary life ; and which, moreover, does finely repre- 
 sent the condition of some shrinking yet amiable Chris- 
 tians as death approaches. But I speak now of that rich 
 
 7* 
 
74 A RAINBOW 
 
 scene, which we sometimes witness at the hour of sunset, 
 when the tempests have subsided, and the day closes with 
 a splendor which none can appreciate but those who have 
 seen it. Let me refer to an example, which has not yet 
 escaped from any of our memories,* 
 
 The sultry and almost suffocating condition of the 
 atmosphere in the forenoon, foreboded a thunder tem- 
 pest in the afternoon. Accordingly the brazen thun- 
 der heads began to shoot up magnificently along the west- 
 ern horizon, reposing upon dense darkness beneath. 
 Higher and higher they mounted upwards as the sun de- 
 clined, and at length he disappeared behind them, and the 
 distant thunder began to mutter. Louder and louder did 
 it roll along, causing the solid mountains to rock and 
 tremble. The sharp and angry lightning too, darted 
 from cloud to cloud, and sometimes to the earth, and na- 
 ture seemed waiting in stillness for the full force of the 
 onset. At length we heard the roar of the wind and the 
 rain, and in a few moments, torrents of water were swept 
 through the air, the trees reeled and bowed beneath the 
 impulse, flash after flash of lightning in quick succession 
 illuminated the darkened air, and an almost continued 
 
 * Exhibited June 23d, 1 848, at Amherst : also in equal splendor, 
 on the 10th of July, 1849 ; and is feebly represented upon the ac- 
 companying sketch. I say feebly, for the original (which led to the 
 preparation of this discourse,) was as magnificent a scene as I ever 
 witnessed in nature. 
 
DESCRIBED. 75 
 
 roar of thunder, reminded the observer of his impotence 
 when God unchains the elements. But ere long the fury 
 of the tempest passed by, and we looked with relieved 
 feelings upon the retiring cloud. Soon the blue sky ap- 
 peared along the western horizon, the furious winds 
 were hushed, the rain ceased, and the sun looked forth 
 with a brighter and more joyous face, and spread a glory 
 over the landscape unknown before. Then too, the dark 
 retiring cloud was lighted up by the magnificent rainbow, 
 whose double and concentric arches arrested every eye 
 and interested every heart, not dead to nature's charms, 
 nor insensible to the assurance thence derived, that 
 though for a time the elements may be lashed into fury, 
 the omnipotent God, who sits behind the elements, holds 
 them in his fist, and will say to them, thus far shall ye go 
 but no farther. Magnificent, indeed, was the scene that 
 now spread itself before us. Along the eastern and south- 
 ern horizon, the black cloud was still extended, and over 
 its face we still saw the flickering lightning play, and we 
 heard the thunder dying away in the distance. The pu- 
 rified atmosphere gave a free passage to the horizontal 
 rays of the sun, so that the whole landscape presented an 
 unwonted distinctness of outline and richness of coloring ; 
 and it seemed as if we could almost touch the distant 
 mountain tops. On the south, (for I will describe the 
 phenomena as they fell under my own eye on the 23d of 
 June,) the right hand extremity of the rainbow's arch re- 
 
76 THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 posed against the side of Mount Norwottuck, and its left 
 hand extremity, against Mount Lincoln, while its centre 
 was occupied by the College Edifices, which never seem- 
 ed so much honored as when surmounted by this coronal 
 arch, placed over them by God's own hand. And then 
 what a sunset followed ! As the rainbow brightened and 
 rose higher and higher with the sinking sun, all the space 
 within its arch assumed the aspect of embossed gold, in 
 fine contrast with the darker shades without the circle. 
 And yet the clouds on every side changed their form and 
 coloring continually ; and the whole scene deepened in in- 
 terest till the sun sunk behind the hills ; nor could the 
 man of genuine taste turn away from the fascinating 
 scene, till the darkness hid it from his view. And even 
 then, he knew that such a sunset, although a dark night 
 might follow, is a sure harbinger of a glorious morning on 
 the subsequent day : agreeably to the beautiful lines of 
 Dr. Watts, upon the setting su.n. 
 
 " And now the fair traveler's come to the west ; 
 His rays are all gold, and his beauties are best ; 
 He paints the sky gay as he sinks to his rest, 
 And foretels a bright rising again." 
 
 Analagous to this, I may truly say, has been the clos- 
 ing scene of many an eminent and devoted Christian. 
 His life may have been filled with trials and conflicts, 
 
AT LIFE'S CLOSE. 77 
 
 and often may his earthly hopes have been blasted. In- 
 deed, such discipline seems almost essential to a full pre- 
 paration for a triumphant departure to a brighter world. 
 But when the storms of life swept over him, and dark- 
 ness enshrouded him, faith still kept her firm hold of the 
 Divine Promise, and felt confident that the tempest and 
 the darkness would at length give place to the Sun of 
 Righteousness with healing in his wings. And now that 
 blessed time has arrived. The bow of Christian hope 
 spans the receding darkness, and the sweet light of eter- 
 nal glory comes in through the gloom of the grave. The 
 tempests of human passion are hushed, and no wave ruf- 
 fles the ocean of eternity, whose quiet surface invites the 
 soul to launch forth. As the Christian looks backward, 
 the bow of the everlasting covenant between God and his 
 soul, shuts out from his view his past sins and sorrows, 
 and he feels sure they can follow him no farther. And as 
 he looks forward, so bright is the light of eternal glory, 
 that shoots down the dark valley and shadow of death, 
 that it lights up all the scene with unearthly splendor., 
 True, that dark valley is before him, and he must now 
 pass through it. But the night will be short, and he 
 knows that when the morning comes, it will usher in a 
 . day of indescribable and unending glory. He will not 
 find there, indeed, the sun or the moon : fw the glory of 
 God enlightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof; and 
 there shall be no night there. Nay, so strong is faith now, 
 
78 A GLIMPSE 
 
 and so wide the vista which she opens into the unseen 
 world, that death is robbed of his terrors and the grave of 
 its gloom. You see indeed the earthly house of his tab- 
 ernacle crumbling down ; but not till the building of 
 God, the house not made with hands, eternal in the heav- 
 ens, is all ready and waiting to receive him. Friends 
 stand around to mourn his dissolution : but they will see 
 only a triumph and a coronation. So much of the light 
 and the spirit of heaven have come down to him, that the 
 last enemy lays aside his useless dart, and comes only as 
 a welcome messenger, to cut the last tie that binds, him to 
 earth, and strip off the vestments of the mortal, that the 
 robe of the immortal may be put on. Oh, thou depart- 
 ing spirit, shall we call this death ? I know that thou 
 wilt answer, Death is swallowed up in victory ! 
 
 Finally ) the rainbow affords us a glimpse of the mag- 
 nificence of the heavenly world, and the glory of God. 
 
 In the book of Revelations John says : After this I 
 looked and beheld a door was opened in heaven : and the 
 jirst voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talk- 
 ing with me, which said, come up hither and 1 will show 
 thee things which must be hereafter. Ar^d immediately I 
 was in the Spirit ; and behold a throne, was set in heaven 
 and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look 
 upon like a jasper and a sardine stone : and there was a 
 rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emer- 
 ald. I cannot fall in with the current opinion among 
 
OF THE HEAVENLY WORLD. 79 
 
 Christian writers, that the various objects here enumera- 
 ted, the throne, the jasper, the sardine stone, and the. 
 rainbow, are intended to represent some moral quality or 
 transaction: that the rainbow, for instance, means the 
 covenant of God with his people. I regard the descrip- 
 tion rather as an attempt to give us some idea, by appeals 
 to sensible representations, of the magnificence of the 
 heavenly world. And I am the more persuaded of the 
 correctness of this view by a similar representation in 
 the book of Ezekiel, in which it is said, As the appear- 
 ance of the low that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so 
 was the appearance of the brightness round about. This 
 was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. 
 Heaven cannot, indeed, as we learn from Paul's beatific 
 vision, be described in human language. But by bring- 
 ing before the imagination the most brilliant objects of 
 the natural world, we get some faint conception of its 
 magnificence ; or rather, we learn that the most splendid 
 scenes of earth are only faint emblems of the New Jeru- 
 salem and the Glory of God which forms its light. John 
 seems not content with the ordinary rainbow as an em- 
 blem of the glory that is about the throne of God. He 
 heightens the effect by making the whole bow of an em- 
 erald hue ; a color unsurpassed among the choicest gems 
 of nature. He seems disposed to tax imagination to the 
 utmost in its conceptions of material beauty, that it may 
 rise to higher conceptions of uncreated and heavenly 
 
80 THE THRONE OF GOD. 
 
 splendor. He thus teaches us that we need not fear 
 forming too vivid conceptions of those glories that will 
 burst upon the vision of the righteous when they tread the 
 new earth, and the canopy of the new heavens is arched 
 over them. As we look then upon the literal rainbow 
 and admire its beauties, let us apply to it the conception 
 of the seer of Patmos, and change it into an emerald arch 
 in the heavens. Then let imagination, with that rainbow 
 in her hand, mount up to the New Jerusalem, and with it 
 encircle the throne of God ; and then remember that even 
 this splendid image is only a faint shadow of the glory 
 that will meet the disembodied spirit as it enters the cel- 
 estial city, and that higher and higher glories shall open 
 upon the soul as it rises in capacity and bliss, through 
 everlasting ages. Oh, what preparation, Oh, what pu- 
 rity does such a world demand ! 
 

THE EUTHANASIA OP AUTUMN. 
 
THE EUTHANASIA OF AUTUMN- 
 
 WE ALL DO FADE AS A LEAF. Isaiah 64 : 6. 
 
 He who studies the anatomy and physiology of ani- 
 mals and plants, will be struck with the many analogies 
 of structure and function between them. In both he will 
 find a vital principle, whose presence is essential to 
 every function, and whose absence is death. Both also 
 are sustained by food received from without. Hence, or- 
 gans are needed and provided for preserving and intro- 
 ducing this food into the system. Is it digested by ani- 
 mals ? So it is by plants. Have animals organs for re- 
 ceiving and decomposing the atmosphere ? So have 
 plants : and in both cases is the oxygen essential to life 
 and health. If there be a beautiful chemistry at work 
 to transform the gross materials of food into the proxi- 
 mate principles of animals, so it is in plants. If the for- 
 mer have organs for separating and throwing off the pois- 
 
84 " ANALOGIES 
 
 onous and redundant matter, that finds its way into the 
 system, so have the other. As there is in animals a sys- 
 tem for the circulation of the blood, whereby it is first 
 brought in contact with the air, and then propelled by 
 the heart into every part of the frame, that every organ 
 may be supplied with nourishment, so, by a force equally 
 effectual, called, endosmosis and exosmosis, and by ves- 
 sels equally well adapted to the purpose, is the sap of 
 vegetables made to go its roundj and supply every part 
 with the materials for growth, and the elimination of the 
 various peculiar principles found in plants. Plants too, 
 like animals, are liable to disease, and from the same 
 causes : causes which sometimes can, and sometimes can- 
 not, be avoided : causes sometimes obvious and striking, 
 and at other times too recondite to be understood, or even 
 discovered. The result, however, is the same in all or- 
 ganic nature, viz., decay and death. Nay, if there be no- 
 actual disease, decay gradually comes on, and the vital 
 functions drag heavily along, till at length life departs, 
 and leaves the animal or the vegetable to the disorgani- 
 zing agencies of chemistry, to revert to its original ele- 
 ments. 
 
 The incipient stages of this decay and dissolution are 
 alluded to in the text, We all do fade as a leaf. As the 
 leaf changes its summer greenness for the brown of au- 
 tumn, and at length falls, and is driven by the winds 
 along the surface, and is finally decomposed, so the beau- 
 
BETWEEN ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 
 
 ty, strength, and glory of man, as the autumn of life 
 comes on, lose their brightness, and sink ere long into the 
 darkness and dishonor of the grave. At a season of the 
 year then, when the vegetable world is undergoing this 
 transformation, it is wise to learn the lessons taught us by 
 the fading leaf. For it is the intention of God that 
 every natural as well as providential event should be 
 turned by us into moral instruction. 
 
 The first moral lesson taught us by the fading leafy is 
 the certainty of the decay and dissolution of our bodily 
 powers. 
 
 The analogy of the seasons to human life, has long 
 since been sung by the poet : 
 
 " Behold, fond man, 
 
 See here thy pictured life : pass some few years 
 Thy flowering spring ; thy summer's ardent strength; 
 Thy sober autumn, ripening into age ; 
 And pale concluding winter comes at last, 
 And shuts the scene." 
 
 The contrast is indeed striking, between the rich green- 
 ness and expanding vigor of the summer, and the shrivel- 
 led and decaying aspect of autumn. Nor do we see any rea- 
 son for such a change in the physiology of vegetable life, 
 except in a change of temperature. We cannot see why 
 all the functions of animal or vegetable life might not be 
 performed indefinitely, under the same circumstances. 
 
 8* 
 
86 DECAY 
 
 But experience teaches us, that after a certain time, they 
 will cease their operation, even though no blighting influ- 
 ence come over them. This is old age, in the vegetable 
 as well as the animal. And it is a law of nature, whose 
 operation no care or prudence can arrest. We may con- 
 tend with it for a time, and sometimes the vital principle 
 will struggle long before it yields ; and now and then, 
 generation after generation see some vegetable or animal 
 Nestor outliving them all, and bidding fair to triumph 
 over the last enemy. But in that war, it is found at last, 
 there is no discharge, and only one conqueror. 
 
 There exists, however, among men a most powerful 
 tendency to forget this great law of decay and mortality, 
 and to put far off the evil day. In respect to our worldly 
 affairs, indeed, this tendency seems most wisely adapted 
 to promote them. For there are those, who through fear 
 of death are all their life time subject to bondage ; and 
 they accomplish but little for the world. Nevertheless, 
 this disposition to overlook this inevitable tendency of 
 our physical system, exerts a most disastrous influence 
 upon our higher interests ; because we are led by it to 
 put off a preparation for our departure out of the world 
 till the summons comes, and then the stern and unpitying 
 messenger will not wait for us. Therefore it is, that 
 Providence has placed all along our path, mementos of 
 our approaching decay and dissolution. We see our 
 companions, nay, our dearest friends, dropping all around 
 
OP OUR POWERS. 87 
 
 us, and their glory departing. In the occasional feeble- 
 ness and pain that assail the strongest, and are the con- 
 stant companions of multitudes, we have internal testi- 
 mony of our own, to our approaching dissolution. And 
 as if all this were not enough, we read the same lesson 
 in all nature around us. Amid all the glories that meet 
 us throughout creation^ there is a strange mixture of de- 
 cay and decomposition. Even the most solid materials 
 of our globe, the adamantine rocks and the everlasting 
 hills, are crumbling down, and spreading apparent ruin 
 over the surface. And the proudest human monuments, 
 man's Babel towers and brazen walks, need only the 
 ruthless tooth of time to grind them to dust. But it is at 
 the season of the fading leaf, that nature utters her loud- 
 est warning ; and this was the lesson intended by the text 
 to be most deeply impressed upon us as we look over the 
 changing landscape. 
 
 A second lesson, which we should learn from the fading 
 leafy is the brevity of human beauty and glory. 
 
 It seems but a day since we first saw the vegetable 
 world coming forth from its wintry grave ; and casting 
 aside its fleecy winding sheet, clothe itself with a mantle 
 of green, and cover its head with a flowery wreath. Our 
 hearts beat quick, responsive to the strong pulse of na- 
 ture, propelling the vivifying and beautifying fluids 
 through every part of her system. We gazed with de- 
 light and poetic rapture upon the beauties of spring, and 
 
88 BREVITY 
 
 soon saw them swelling and developing into the full glories 
 of summer. Hill and dale, woodland and open field, 
 feasted the eye with their mellow tints, their deep green 
 waving foliage, and intermingled flowers. We did not 
 see why we might not for years be regaled by the zeph- 
 yrs that came to our senses, loaded with health and fra- 
 grance and delicious song. But a few short days and 
 nights only had passed, when, at the slight touch of frost, 
 the delicate currents were chilled, and soon the changing 
 and fading and falling leaf told us that summer had been 
 driven from her throne, and her glories were trodden in 
 the dust. 
 
 And now the leaf 
 
 Incessant rustles from the mournful grove : 
 Oft startling such as studious walk below. 
 And slowly circles through the waving air.' 
 Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields, 
 And shrunk into their buds, the flowery race 
 Their sunny robes resign. 
 
 In like manner, in the spring of life, we look with de- 
 light upon the germinating and expanding beauties and 
 charms of man. With quick elastic step, he bounds be- 
 fore us. The sparkling eye tells us of the strong emo- 
 tions of the soul within. The rose flourishes on his cheek, 
 and the full and strong muscle, with an excess of animal 
 spirits, gives fair proportion to his form, and agility and 
 
OF MAN'S GLORY. 89 
 
 power to his movements. The heart beats so full and 
 strong, and life glows so vividly in his whole frame, that 
 we look upon him as almost invulnerable to the assaults 
 of disease and decay ; and fancy that he will long resist 
 the universal law. He too, exhilirated by the full tide 
 of health that courses through his veins, thinks not of 
 sickness and death, except as possibilities, which he may 
 mock at many a long year, and he looks with a mixture 
 of pity and contempt upon the lank and sallow invalid. 
 You lose sight of him for a brief period : and when you 
 meet him again, you are amazed at the change. The 
 sunk and languid eye, the pale and hollow cheek, the 
 emaciated and ungainly form, the curved spine, the slow 
 and trembling gait, the hollow voice, the feeble diges- 
 tion, the tardy pulse, the failing muscle, the irritable 
 nerve, the mental torpor and dejection ; all, all, make 
 you feel that the beauty and glory have departed from 
 him : and you see too how the world, casting one look of 
 pity, perhaps, upon what was once their admiration and 
 their idol, turn away from him with a sigh, as the wreck 
 of former greatness, and seek some other object, in the 
 bloom and vigor of life, on which to fasten their regards. 
 Oh, how great and melancholy the transformation ? And 
 how soon too has it been effected ! You were not ready 
 for it ; and it makes you sad. For this individual was 
 perhaps elevated to a lofty seat, and wielded mighty influ- 
 ences, and stood forth as an illustrious example of hu- 
 
90 WE DO FADE 
 
 man glory and excellency. Yet he could neither con- 
 quer nor resist the universal law, that tramples in the 
 dust all human beauty and human glory. 
 
 And well would it be, when we witness such monu- 
 ments of the brevity of man's most splendid characteris- 
 tics, if we could make the lesson personal. But though 
 we can see that others are losing their charms, and their 
 vigor, and mourn over it, how amazed often are we, 
 when an intimation is made to us, that others witness the 
 same symptoms of decay in our ourselves. Grey hairs 
 are here and there upon him, says the prophet, yet he 
 knoweth it not. He is amazed that any should think him 
 old, or failing in his physical or intellectual powers. He 
 resists as long as possible the opticians aid to his flattened 
 eye-ball, and tries to convince himself that he has still the 
 elastic vigor of muscle, and mental energy of youth. But 
 alas, we all do fade as the leaf ; and to close our eyes 
 against the evidences of the fact, is only to treasure up 
 bitter disappointment for the hour when the visor shall 
 be torn from our eyes, by time's ruthless hand. Better 
 is it to listen to the lesson which decaying nature reads to 
 us so impressively at this season of the year, and not 
 make ourselves the ridicule of the world, by striving to 
 hide the marks of decaying energies, which their keen 
 eyes will be sure to discover, long before we see them 
 ourselves. 
 
 Such I doubt not is the most important instruction 
 
AS THE LEAF. 91 
 
 which is taught us in the text. And this may be learnt 
 from the changes in nature in all parts of the world, save 
 tropical regions, where perpetual summer reigns, and the 
 fading leaf drops almost unobserved. In such climates 
 this text could have little force : and so its impressiveness 
 would vary as we pass from the equator through differ- 
 ent isothermal zones. But in this country, the phenom- 
 ena of the fading leaf, exhibit peculiarities found I believe 
 no where else : and if I mistake not, we may learn from 
 these peculiarities some moral lessons, not taught by the 
 mere fact that in autumn vegetation decays and passes in- 
 to its wintry grave. 
 
 With us, then, the fading leaf is not a mere example of 
 decay, producing sadness, if not melancholy, in other 
 lands. When autumn approaches, some slight frosts 
 chill the vegetable fluids and weaken the power of their 
 delicate organs to produce the various proximate princi- 
 ples in proper proportions. In other words, a diseased 
 action supervenes in the vessels, and the result is, an ex- 
 cess of acid or alkali. These substances, it is well known, 
 produce most striking effects upon vegetable colors ; 
 changing sometimes those that are dull into a brilliancy 
 often gaudy, and sometimes oppressive. Ere long the ef- 
 fects of these chemical changes become manifest upon the 
 foliage of our forests, as the autumn advances ; and then 
 follow weeks, in which the eye is met by prospects the 
 most brilliant and imposing that can be conceived of. 
 
92 AUTUMNAL SCENERY. 
 
 whose description the inhabitants of other lands regard as 
 caricature. The richest and most diverse hues that na- 
 ture can produce by the separation and blending of all the 
 prismatic colors, meet us in every grove, and hill side, 
 and mountain. Red of every shade, from crimson to 
 cherry, yellow, from bright sulphur to orange, brown, 
 from clove brown to liver brown, and green, from grass 
 green to oil green, stand forth in distinct spots, yet all 
 mingled in fantastic proportions, and clothing the land- 
 scape with an almost dazzling brilliancy ; especially when 
 lighted up by the mellow rays of an October sun. Said 
 once a distinguished foreigner from continental Europe, 
 "when shown a sketch of our autumnal scenery, before he 
 had seen it in nature, " this is caricature ;" but when he 
 had witnessed it, " the drawing," said he, " does not come 
 up to nature." " What a strange country must America 
 be," said once the simple minded Nestorians of Persia, 
 when looking at the same drawing, " what a strange' coun- 
 try must America be, where the people live in wooden 
 houses, and the trees are painted." 
 
 What now are the peculiar moral lessons which we 
 may learn from these splendid exhibitions of autumnal 
 metamorphoses in the forests of our country ? The text 
 does not- indeed teach them directly : Yet since the phe- 
 nomena of the fading leaf vary so much in different lands, 
 we may regard this passage as indirectly teaching us 
 whatever lessons natural religion may derive from these 
 peculiarities. 
 
MELANCHOLY FEELINGS. 93 
 
 / say then, in the first place ', that our autumnal scenery 
 testifies to the benevolence of God. 
 
 The laws of vegetable nature might have been so con- 
 stituted, that at the close of the summer months, a sudden 
 change might have come over the foliage, and from a 
 pleasant green, it might, by a single step, have reverted 
 to a shriveled, blackened and unsightly mass ; as if scath- 
 ed by fire. That would, indeed, have given us a striking 
 emblem of the suddenness of death, as it sometimes falls 
 upon the unsuspecting : but it would have produced only 
 melancholy emotions, as we looked out upon the seared 
 landscape. And, indeed, such seems to be the most 
 striking impression produced by the autumnal scenery of 
 other lands. And hence the poet of the seasons, in de- 
 scribing that part of the year, says, 
 
 " He comes ! lie comes ! in every breeze, the Power 
 
 Of Philosophic Melancholy comes ! 
 
 His near approach the sudden starting tear, 
 
 The glowing cheek, the mild dejected air, 
 
 The softened feature, and the beating heart 
 
 Pierced deep with many a virtuous pang, declare." 
 
 But though, when we contemplate the fading leaf of 
 our climate, as an emblem of decay, some degree of sad- 
 ness cannot but be excited, yet other and more cheerful 
 emotions are also awakened, which soften the melancholy 
 
 9 
 
94 DIVINE 
 
 into a pleasing experience, as one of our own poets has 
 sung : 
 
 " What is there saddening in the Autumn leaves ? 
 Have they that " green and yejlow Melancholy" 
 That the sweet poet spake of? Had he seen 
 Our variegated woods, when first the frost 
 Turns into beauty all October's charms ; 
 When the dread fever quits us, when the storms 
 Of the wild Equinox, with all its wet, 
 Have left the land as the first deluge left it, 
 With a bright bow of many colors hung 
 Upon the forest tops, he had not sigh'd." 
 
 No : lie would have sung of the Divine Benevolence, 
 that has thus spread rich beauty over the face of unwel- 
 come decay, and made nature's party-colored winding 
 sheet so attractive, that we smile with her as she puts it 
 on. It is a beautiful example of that Infinite Benevo- 
 lence, which, though it could not but make nature every- 
 where remind us that we live in a fallen world, has yet 
 so mingled mercy in the cup, that we drink it almost with- 
 out pain, and are softened by the kindness that yearns 
 over us in our misery, and throws many a bow of prom- 
 ise over the dark clouds that spread over the heavens. 
 This mingling of goodness and severity, shows us the 
 exuberance of the benevolence, which seems loth to in- 
 flict merited punishment, and thus inspires us with the 
 
BENEVOLENCE. 95 
 
 hope that we may be delivered from the ruins of the 
 apostacy, and again enjoy the unclouded favor of God. 
 It was not necessary that incipient decay should be made 
 even attractive, in order to accomplish all that justice de- 
 manded. But God delights to influence men by the pow- 
 er of goodness. In the great plans which he has devised 
 for the rescue of our race from the consequences of the 
 fall, He has lavished the riches of that goodness : and it is 
 pleasant to see the same kindness manifested in all the 
 arrangements and operations of nature. 
 
 In the second place, our autumnal scenery affords a 
 striking analogy to the changes through which man passes 
 from time into eternity. 
 
 The difference is, indeed, great, between the rich green- 
 ness and waving foliage of August with the rustling and 
 sighing zephyr, and the barren trees of November, with 
 the northern blasts whistling through the branches ; and 
 greater still the difference, when the last vestige of life 
 seems to have departed, and the vegetable world is wrap- 
 ped in its winding sheet of ice and snow. But has life 
 really all gone ? No : it has only withdrawn to the 
 citadel, and there concentrated its powers to resist the as- 
 4 saults of frost, and prepare for new developments , when 
 the sun shall return from southern skies, and a more ge- 
 nial temperature shall revisit these northern climes. It 
 is only a change of state, and not the extinction of life. 
 The trees have merely put off their summer robes, be* 
 
96 MAN DIES 
 
 cause inappropriate for the sterner climate of winter. Life 
 does, indeed, seem to have departed. But we know that 
 its germ is yet unextinct ; and that there shall come, 
 and that ere long, a resurrection day. The icy grasp 
 of winter shall be relaxed ; and then shall the mysteri- 
 ous principle of life again develope its marvelous pow- 
 ers, in weaving a new and lovelier robe to grace the fair 
 form of spring. 
 
 See now in these changes a striking analogy to those 
 through which man passes on his way to immortality. 
 As disease fastens upon him, or old age creeps on, his 
 beauty and glory are, indeed, made to consume away 
 like the moth. The rose flies from his cheek, his senses 
 become dull, his brain torpid, and all the wheels of 
 life move slow, because the vital energies are failing. 
 And even the mind seems to partake of the general de- 
 cay. However tenacious of their hold, the powers of life 
 may be, we know that ere long they must yield, and 
 man's glorious beauty become as a jflower. The work 
 goes on, till vitality resigns its charge of the human 
 frame so curiously and wonderfully made, and it quickly 
 becomes the prey of disorganizing agencies, reverting to 
 its original elements ; which, scattered by the winds and 
 dissolved by the waters, enter into new combinations, and 
 assume new forms of loveliness and life. In short, the 
 triumph of death seems to be complete. The man has 
 
BUT STILL LIVES. 97 
 
 disappeared, and survivors feel and weep as though he 
 had disappeared forever. 
 
 But after all, how deceptive are these appearances, 
 and how contrary to the reality. We know, because both 
 reason and scripture teach us, that he whom death has 
 thus stricken down, has not become extinct. A germ, a 
 precious, priceless germ, the man himself, indeed, 
 still survives. There is a deathless principle within, 
 which smiles over the wreck of the body. Whether it 
 has gone forth a disembodied, immaterial principle ; or 
 whether it be still attached to some attenuated, undecay- 
 ing, material tenement, we know not : But it exists : 
 nay, having broken loose from its prison-house of flesh 
 and sense, it has risen to a higher existence, and enter- 
 ed upon a brighter sphere of action. The body, indeed, 
 like the barren tree, must for a while lie dormant in the 
 grave. ,But that too shall at length emerge in renovated 
 glory. 
 
 " See truth love and mercy in triumph descending, 
 And nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom, ; 
 On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses are blending 
 And beautv immortal awakes fron} the tomb," 
 
 In the third place, owr autumnal scenery forcibly repre- 
 sents to us, emblematically, what ought to be the effect of ad- 
 versity upon us in the development of our piety. 
 
 9* 
 
98 ADVERSITY 
 
 It may have seemed inappropriate to my hearers, that 
 I introduced in a sabbath day discourse, a scientific theo- 
 ry to explain the manner in which the hues of autumn 
 are produced in our forests. But my object will now be 
 apparent. For if that theory be admitted, it illustrates 
 the effect which adversity should have upon us. "We 
 might expect, that when the plant is first smitten by frost, 
 its functions would at once cease, its foliage droop, and 
 wither, and fall, and decomposition ensue. But though 
 the action of the delicate machinery is so disturbed that 
 it cannot any more elaborate perfect vegetation, still the 
 organs do what they can, and though they fail to preserve 
 and continue the healthy greenness of summer, they de- 
 velope hues still more brilliant, and make creation smile, 
 though about to descend into her wintry grave. They 
 clothe her with an appropriate dress for her coming trans- 
 mutation, and lead observers to admire the wonderful 
 chemistry within, that can thus make decay seem lovely 
 and attractive. 
 
 In like manner, do the frosts of adversity operate upon 
 the true hearted Christian. In other words, they devel- 
 ope virtues in his character which would otherwise have 
 never appeared. Where a true stamina of piety is not 
 found, the man often sinks at once when smitten : his 
 hopes die, and his affections are dried up : and he becomes 
 the prey of despondency, if not of despair, the wreck of 
 what he once was, a withered monument of a broken 
 
DEVELOPES VIRTUES. 99 
 
 heart He resembles the tree blasted by the lightning, 
 or scathed by fire. But he who views his chastisements 
 as the necessary inflictions of his heavenly Father, and 
 intended for his best good, desires and aims that they 
 shall produce their appropriate effects. And they do de- 
 velope in brighter colors, like the foliage of autumn, his 
 Christian virtues, his sweet submission, his deep hu- 
 mility, his expanding charity, his long forbearance, 
 his humble gratitude, his unaffected kindness, in short, 
 his ardent love to God and man. Instead of being crush- 
 ed by the load of sorrow, or frozen into a petrifaction, he 
 bears up nobly under the load, and shoots forth many a 
 new trait of character, that blossoms in beauty, and bears 
 fruit in abundance. His virtues never would have shone 
 so brightly, had not adversity touched his heart with her 
 icy hand. Those virtues do, indeed, make us feel that 
 the man is ripening too fast for heaven to continue long 
 below ; just as the variegated splendors of an autumnal 
 forest, tell us of approaching winter. But it is not the 
 less interesting, because the Christian exhibits more and 
 more of the spirit of heaven. He may die unto the world 
 but he will live unto God. And this accords with an in- 
 spired exhortation : reckon ye yourselves to be dead, in- 
 deed, unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ 
 our Lord. 
 
 Finally, our autumnal scenery is a significant emblem 
 
100 HOW THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 of the manner in which the Christian should go down to 
 the grave- 
 
 The gay splendor of our forests, as autumn comes on, 
 may seem to some inappropriate, when we consider that 
 it is the precursor of decay and death. But when we re- 
 member that the plant still lives, and after a season of in- 
 action will awake to new and more vigorous life, and 
 that the apparent decay is only laying aside a summer 
 robe, because unfit for winter, is it not appropriate that na- 
 ture should hang out signals of joy, rather than of sorrow ? 
 Why should she not descend exultingly, and in her rich- 
 est dress, into the grave, in hope of so early and so glori- 
 ous a resurrection ? 
 
 And what is the condition of the Christian, as he per- 
 ceives himself approaching the tomb ? Long since has 
 he fled from the curse of a broken law, to Him who bore 
 it in his own body on the tree. And ever since that well 
 remembered time, when the hope of sin forgiven and 
 heaven secured, filled his soul with joy unspeakable and 
 full of glory, has he felt that he was not his own, and that 
 this world was not his home : that his best friends were 
 on the other side of the dark valley ; and there his Sa- 
 vior had prepared a mansion for him. Thither has 
 strong affection drawn his soul, and often, when opening 
 the eye and the ear of faith, he has contemplated his ever- 
 lasting rest, has he felt a desire to depart and be with 
 Christ. And especially when sin within and without has j 
 
SHOULD DIE. 101 
 
 harrassed and overcome him, has he sighed for the per- 
 fect holiness of heaven. And now the progress of years, 
 or the pains of disease, admonish him that the time of his 
 release is approaching. Shall he then put on the weeds 
 of mourning, and shrink back distressed, and cling to this 
 world with a stronger grasp, although he has only to 
 look up to see the arms of his blessed Savior opened, and 
 departed Christian friends beckoning him to join them 
 in their happy home on high ? What though he feels the 
 earthly house of his tabernacle crumbling down : he has 
 a house not made with hands, a building of God, eter- 
 nal in the heavens. What though he mubt bid adieu to 
 beloved friends below ? He goes to join those no less be- 
 loved on high ; and those now left behind will follow him 
 soon. Does he tremble in dread of the parting struggle ? 
 But how short, if endured ! and how often found to be a 
 mere figment of imagination : 
 
 " What though the sickle sometimes keen, 
 Just scars us as we reap the golden grain ? 
 More than thy balm, Gi lead, heals the wound. 
 
 What occasion, then, has the real Christian to welcome 
 the harbinger of his translation from earth to heaven ? 
 Let surviving friends, as well they may, mourn over 
 his departure, and clothe themselves with the insignia of 
 sorrow. But let his soul be clothed with the bright gar- 
 
102 DEATH 
 
 merits of peace, and joy, and praise, as he comes nearer 
 and nearer the hour of release. Thus will he imitate na- 
 ture in her autumnal scenes. Thus will he do honor to 
 the religion he professes ; to the faith by which his soul is 
 anchored to the eternal throne ; to the Savior, by whom 
 he has been rescued from sin and destruction ; and to the 
 God whose Infinite grace has transformed him from a 
 slave of sin and an heir of perdition, into a freeman of 
 the Lord, and a king and a priest unto God. 
 
 But in order that we may be able thus to look on decay 
 and death as welcome messengers, and not as hated and ter- 
 rific enemies, we must lead a life of humble and devoted 
 piety. God must be glorified in our lives, or we cannot 
 glorify Him when sinking into the grave. Daily must 
 we come so near to eternity in our meditations, that its 
 scenes are familiar, and we seem to be gazing upon ' 
 them almost without an intervening veil. Daily, too, 
 must we imbibe more and more of the spirit of heaven, 
 and feel more and more how empty and vain this world is. 
 In short, we must learn to pant after God and heaven as 
 the hart panteth after the water brooks, and feel our souls 
 drawn upwards with overwhelming power, before we can 
 exult as our material framework is falling into dust, and 
 look upon our winding sheet as our coronation robe, 
 and upon the King of Terrors as the Prince of Peace. 
 
 And shall such a Christian be overwhelmed with fear 
 and sorrow, and put on the badges of mourning, when he 
 
WELCOMED. 103 
 
 feels within him the premonitions of such a glorious trans- 
 formation ? Rather let him who indulges no such hopes, 
 put on sackcloth and ashes, and take as a fit emblem of 
 his condition, the forest scathed and blackened by fire, 
 and sit down in inconsolable sorrow, and begin the weep- 
 ing and wailing of the lost, before he is forced into the pit. 
 But should the Christian go down to the grave in sadness, 
 when that is the end of his sorrow ? Shall he who has 
 been sweating and suffering with slaves, and as a slave, 
 under the world, that most ferocious of all taskmasters, 
 shall he be disconsolate, because the Deliverer approaches, 
 to knock off his fetters, and to make him a freeman for- 
 ever ? Shall he who has been struggling for years, as on 
 a wide battle field, with principalities and powers, with 
 the rulers of the darkness of this world , and with spiritual 
 wickedness in high places, and has often fainted in the con- 
 test, shall he not rejoice when he hears the shout of vic- 
 tory, and is summoned to receive the conqueror's crown, 
 in the presence of the universe, and from the hands of 
 the Captain of his salvation ? Shall he not say with 
 Paul, I am now ready to he offered, and the time of my 
 departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have 
 finished my course: I have kept the faith. Hencefotth 
 there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the 
 Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day. 
 Shall he who has long been buffeting the winds and the 
 waves, and almost sinking, feel no joy when he approach- 
 
104 GOING HOME. 
 
 es the peaceful haven, and the life boat is sent out to re- 
 ceive him ? Shall he who has long dwelt on the out- 
 skirts of creation, in a land of clouds and fogs, be sad be- 
 cause the invitation has come to go to the cloudless cen- 
 ter of the universe, where truth is written in sun beams 
 over his head, and its transparent fountain gushes up be- 
 neath his feet ? Does he sigh and weep, who has long 
 been an exile and a prisoner in a distant and inhospita- 
 ble land, when the vessel is spreading her canvass to 
 cany him back to his father's house, and to the em- 
 brace of beloved friends ? Yet how truly is the devo- 
 ted Christian an exile in this world : how uncongenial a 
 place for his new born soul : and what mighty attractions 
 draw him towards his eternal home ! Is a robe of sad- 
 ness appropriate for him who is invited to become a cit- 
 izen of the New Jerusalem, and there to be anointed a 
 king and a priest unto God, and to live in his smiles ? 
 Oh no! such were not the feelings of the hundred and 
 forty and four thousand, who have been called to go up 
 to Mount Zion. As a great cloud of witnesses they come 
 around us to day, and point back to the time, when with 
 joyful step, they went down to the brink of Jordan, and 
 saw the waters divide for their passage. Soon as the 
 summons came, they threw aside the badges of sorrow and 
 mourning, and put on the garments of salvation. As 
 they drew nearer and nearer the heavenly world, its 
 spirit and its joy were breathed more and more into their 
 
TO HEAVEN. 105 
 
 souls, and its radiant glory beamed from their faces. 
 And as they went forward the dark valley was all filled 
 with light, and they knew not where earth ended, or 
 where heaven begun ; for their hearts were full of hea- 
 ven. Like them may we all live. Like them may we 
 die, and with them be joined in glory everlasting ! 
 
 10 
 
THE CORONATION OF WINTER. 
 
THE CORONATION OF WINTER. 
 
 HE CASTETH FORTH HIS ICE LIKE MORSELS. Psalm 147 : 17. 
 
 THE eminent saints of ancient times were watchful ob- 
 servers of the objects and operations of nature. In every 
 event they saw the agency of God ; and therefore they 
 took delight in its examination. For they could not but 
 receive pleasure from witnessing the manifestations of 
 His wisdom and beneficence, whom they adored and 
 loved. They had not learnt, as we have in modern 
 times, to interpose unbending laws between the Creator 
 and his works, and then, by giving inherent power 
 to these laws, virtually to remove God away from his 
 creation, into an etherial extramundane sphere of re- 
 pose and happiness. I do not say that this is the univer- 
 sal feeling at the present day. But it prevails extensive- 
 ly in the church, and still more in the world. The ablest 
 philosophers of modern times do, indeed, maintain, that a 
 natural law is nothing more than the uniform mode in 
 
 10* 
 
110 GOD EXCLUDED. 
 
 which God acts ; and that after all, it is not the efficiency 
 of the law, but God's own energy, that keeps all nature 
 in motion : that he operates immediately and directly, not 
 remotely and indirectly, in bringing about every event : 
 and that every natural change is as really the work of 
 God, as if the eye of sense could see his hand turning 
 round the wheels of nature. But although the ablest 
 philosophy of modern times has reached this conclusion, 
 the great mass of the community, and even of Christians, 
 are still groping in the darkness of that mechanical sys- 
 tem, which ascribes the operations of the natural world . 
 to nature's laws, instead of nature's God. By a sort of 
 figure, indeed, it is proper, as the advocates of this sys- 
 tem maintain, to speak of God as the Author of natural 
 events, because he originally ordained the laws of nature. 
 But they have no idea that He exerts any direct and im- 
 mediate agency in bringing them about ; and therefore, 
 when they look upon these events, they feel no impres- 
 sion of the presence and active agency of Jehovah. 
 
 But how different, as already remarked, were the feel- 
 ings of ancient saints. The psalmist could not look up 
 to heaven without exclaiming, The heavens declare the glo- 
 ry of God, and the firmament shoiveth his handy-work. 
 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night shoiv- 
 eth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where 
 their voice is not heard. When he cast his eyes abroad 
 upon the earth, his full heart cried out, Lord, how 
 
THE BIBLE VIEW. Ill 
 
 manifold are thy ivorks : in wisdom hast thou made them 
 all: the earth is full of thy riches. In his eye, every 
 thing was full of God. It was God who sent springs in- 
 to the valleys, ivhich run among the hills. When the thun- 
 der storm passed before him, it was God's voice in the hea- 
 vens, and his lightnings that lighted the ivorld. When he 
 heard the bellowings and saw the smoke of the volcano, 
 it was God who looketli on the earth and it tremoleth : he 
 toucheth the hills and they smoke. 
 
 In like manner did Job refer all natural operations to 
 the immediate agency of God, and bid us draw from 
 them lessons of wisdom. Ask now the leasts, says he, and 
 they shall teach thee, and the fowls of the air, and they 
 shall tell thee : Or speak to the earth and it shall teach 
 thee ; and the fishes of the sea shall declare it unto thee. 
 Who knoweth not, in all these, that the hand of the Lord 
 hath wrought this ? 
 
 The writers of the New Testament we find to be pene- 
 trated with the same sentiments. Especially do we see 
 a desire to learn a religious lesson from every event, 
 manifested in the history of Jesus Christ. In giving in- 
 struction to his disciples, he seized for illustration upon 
 almost every occurrence in the natural, political, and so- 
 cial world around him. When for instance he would 
 teach his followers to rely on God's Providence, and not 
 be unreasonably anxious for temporal good, he appealed 
 to the animal and vegetable world : Consider the ravens: 
 
112 CHRIST'S METHOD. 
 
 for they neither sow nor reap : which have neither store 
 house nor barn : and Godfeedeth them. How much more 
 are ye better than the fowls. Consider the lilies, how they 
 grow ; they toil not, they spin not : and yet I say unto you 
 that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of 
 these. If then God so clothe the grass, which is to-day in 
 the Jield and to-morrow is cast into the oven, how much 
 more will he clothe you, ye of little faith ? So at the 
 well of Jacob in Samaria, how beautifully did he dis- 
 course to the woman of the living water, which he was 
 able to give. In short, as the Savior met the sower go- 
 ing forth to sow ; or saw the corn growing up, or the 
 trees putting on their foliage and flowers ; as he saw the 
 vineyards dressed, the grass waving in the fields, the 
 birds flying through the air, the chickens gathering under 
 the wing of their mother, the burrows of the foxes, the 
 plowmen holding the plow, the architect building houses, 
 the soldier going to war, or a band of thieves breaking 
 into the house ; all these events, and many others, were 
 seized upon by him to illustrate great moral and religious 
 truths. 
 
 Now with such illustrious examples, is it not the part 
 of wisdom to attempt to seize upon passing events in na- 
 ture as well as in society, and make them subservient to 
 moral instruction ? I know, indeed, that in an age, too 
 artificial already, and becoming daily more so, this is not 
 fashionable ; unless some event occurs in nature as strik- 
 
THE GLACIAL PHENOMENON. 113 
 
 ing as a miracle. From time to time, however, nature 
 puts on some new aspect, so striking and peculiar, as to 
 elicit some regard from the most inatentive observer. 
 And for the last ten days, we have been living in the 
 midst of one of these peculiar manifestations, which must 
 have interested every one, and may afford some valuable 
 religious hints. God has cast fourth his ice like morsels ; 
 and those morsels have clothed nature with a richer and 
 more attractive robe, than we can hope to witness more 
 than once in a life of three score years and ten. It should 
 not pass without some notice. 
 
 Allow me, then, in the first place, to give a brief des- 
 cription of this phenonenon, as it met my own eye ; for 
 from what I can learn, I should not think it strange, if some 
 of the most brilliant features of this exhibition were 
 scarcely seen, even by some who lived in the midst of it. 
 
 On Wednesday, the 17th of January, a moderate and 
 very cold snow storm closed a little before mid-day, leav- 
 ing the surface of the earth and of vegetables at so low a 
 temperature, as to absorb heat rapidly from objects placed 
 upon them. But during the following night, the themom- 
 eter rose nearly to the freezing point, and a moderate 
 rain commenced, which continued about two days, almost 
 without interruption. It was accompanied with but little 
 wind, and the rain drops, most of the time, were almost as 
 fine as mist ; so that the whole amount of rain scarcely 
 exceeded an inch and a quarter in depth. The thermome- 
 
114 THE SEA OF GLASS. 
 
 ter did not rise during the storm quite to the freezing 
 point ; and towards the close, it sunk several degrees be- 
 low it. The result was, that all the rain froze to the sur- 
 face on which it fell, and formed a coat of pure transpa- 
 rent ice, over the snow, and all other objects exposed to 
 it, from a quarter of an inch to more than an inch in thick- 
 ness. On the snow this crust was strong enough to sus- 
 tain a man ; and almost as smooth as the frozen surface 
 of a lake or pond ; looking as if the billows of the ocean 
 had been suddenly congealed before they could subside 
 entirely. 
 
 Still more striking, however, was the effect upon the 
 vegetable world, now stripped of its foliage. The leaf- 
 less branches and twigs of every tree, of every shrub, 
 and even of every spire of grass, or other annual plant, 
 that rose above the surface of the snow, were encased in 
 this thick and beautiful hyaline coat, as transparent as 
 the purest water. Along these branches, in many instan- 
 ces, the ice swelled into tubercular masses, and almost 
 uniformly terminated in a knob ; so as to resemble 
 strings of gigantic glass beads. Now just imagine the ef- 
 fect, as the sun from time to time on Saturday, broke 
 through the clouds upon these countless natural gems, 
 prepared to refract and reflect his light with more than 
 his original brightness. I thought I had before seen 
 splendid exhibitions of this sort, in the glittering dew 
 drops of summer and the frost work of winter. But the 
 
THE DIAMOND PENDANTS. 115 
 
 present scene surpassed all my former experience incom- 
 parably ; and even the figments of my imagination. If 
 the twigs of every tree and shrub and spire had been lit- 
 erally covered with diamonds of the purest water and 
 largest known size, say an inch in diameter, they would 
 not, I am sure, have poured upon the eye in the sun 
 light a more dazzling splendor. But it may give those 
 not familiar with the diamond, a better idea of the scene, 
 to compare the icy pendants with those of cut glass, 
 which are sometimes hung in great profusion around large 
 chandeliers, in many of our churches and public halls. It 
 is no exaggeration to say, that each tree, nay, each shrub, 
 of moderate size, exhibited as numerous crystalline drops, 
 and as brilliant an aspect, as I have ever seen around the 
 largest chandelier. Think, then, how much superior 
 must have been the aspect of a large tree, with a grace- 
 ful shape and wide spreading branches. Nay, think of a 
 whole forest with the rays of the sun darting through, and 
 lighting up ten thousand radiant points of a diamond hue 
 and intense brilliancy. These could be seen as many as 
 forty or fifty rods, and beyond that distance, the forests, 
 as far as the eye could reach, had the aspect and the rich- 
 ness of embossed silver. 
 
 When 1 perceived what a splendid robe nature had put 
 on, I went forth to pay my homage in her magnificent 
 temple. As I wandered over " the sea of glass," through 
 fields, and forests, over hill and dale, new forms of beauty 
 
116 THE INTEREST INCREASES. 
 
 met me at every step. Amazement was soon succeeded 
 by admiration, and admiration gave place to intense de- 
 light ; nor could I help repeating over the poet's enthu- 
 siastic eulogy : 
 
 " Oh Nature ! how in every charm supreme. 
 Whose votaries feast on raptures ever new. 
 Oh for the voice and fire of seraphim, 
 To sing thy glories with devotion due." 
 
 I could not believe, that any more splendid develop- 
 ments of this phenomenon awaited me. But on Satur- 
 day night the thermometer sunk to zero, and on Sunday 
 morning the sun arose in a cloudless sky, and the icy 
 shoots and pendants, more thoroughly crystalized by the 
 intense cold, formed ten thousand points of overwhelming 
 brightness on every side. Nor were all the sparkling 
 brilliants, as on the day before, of colorless light. But 
 here and there, I began to notice the prismatic colors ; 
 now exhibiting a gem of most splendid sapphire blue ; 
 next one of amethystine purple ; next one of intense to- 
 paz yellow ; then a sea green beryl, changing by a slight 
 change of posture, into a rich emerald green ; and then 
 one of deep hyacinth red. As the sun approached the 
 meridian, the number and splendor of these colored gems 
 increased ; so that on a single tree hundreds of them 
 might be seen, and sometimes so large was their size and 
 
THE FAIRY LAND. 117 
 
 intense their color, that at the distance of fifty rods, they 
 seemed equal to Sirius, nay, to the morning star ! and of 
 hues the most delicate and rich that can be conceived of, 
 exactly imitating, so far as I could judge, the natural 
 gems ; and not partaking at all of those less delicate and 
 gaudy tints, by which a practiced eye can distinguish gen* 
 uine from supposititious precious stones. And by mov- 
 ing the eye a few inches, we could see these different 
 colors pass into one another, and thus witness the rich in- 
 termediate shades. I have seen many splendid groups 
 of precious stones, wrought and unwrought, in the large 
 collections of our land ; and until I witnessed this scene, 
 they seemed of great beauty. But it is now literally true, 
 that they appear to me comparatively dull and insignfi- 
 cant. In short, it seemed as if I was gazing upon a land- 
 scape which had before existed only in a poet's imagina- 
 tion. It is what he would call a fairy land : but a more 
 Christian designation would be, a celestial land. 
 
 On Monday it was cloudy, and the phenomena present- 
 ed no new aspect. On Tuesday, there was a storm of fine 
 rain and snow, and the beautiful transparency of the icy 
 coat was changed into the aspect of ground glass. This 
 gave to the trees a new and more delicate appearance. 
 They resembled enchased work, formed of pure unbur- 
 nished silver ; and had the sun shone upon them, they 
 must have been intensely beautiful. I now supposed 
 that the most brilliant part of this scene, its golden pe- 
 riod, had passed : and that the silver period of Tuesday, 
 
 11 
 
118 THE SPLENDOR CONTINUES 
 
 would soon be succeeded b} the usual iron reign of win- 
 ter ; especially as there fell several inches of snow, du- 
 ring the night. But the cold restored the ice upon the 
 trees to more than its original transparency, and the sun 
 rose on Wednesday morning upon a cloudless sky ; and 
 a wind scattered the snow from the branches, and all the 
 phenomena opened upon us with more than their Sabbath 
 day glories. 
 
 " 'Tis winter's jubilee, this day 
 His stores their countless treasures yield. 
 See how the diamond glances play 
 In ceaseless blaze from tree and field. 
 
 A shower of gems is strewed around, 
 The flowers of winter, rich and rare ; 
 Rubies and sapphires deck the ground, 
 The topaz, emerald, all are there." 
 
 As the sun approached the meridian, one had only to 
 receive his rays at a certain angle, refracted through the 
 crystal covering of a tree, in order to witness gems more 
 splendid than art ever prepared. Four fifths of them 
 were diamonds : but the sapphires were numerous ; the 
 topaz and the beryl not unfrequent ; and occasionally the 
 chrysolite and the hyacinth shone with intense brilliancy. 
 There was wind also on that day ; and as the branches 
 waved to and fro, these various gems appeared and van- 
 ished and re-appeared in endless variety ; chaining the 
 eye to the spot, until the overpowered optic nerve shrunk 
 from its office. But the rich vision did not cease through 
 
BY DAY AND BY NIGHT. 119 
 
 all that cloudless day. Nor did it terminate when the 
 sun went down. For then the full orbed moon arose, and 
 gave another most bewitching aspect to the scene. Du- 
 ring the day the light had often been painfully intense. 
 But the softness of moonlight permitted the eye to gaze 
 and gaze untired, and yet the splendor seemed hardly 
 less than during the day. Most of the bright points were 
 of a mild topaz yellow, and when seen against the hea- 
 vens, they could hardly be distinguished from the stars ; 
 or when seen in the forest, especially as one passed rap- 
 idly along, it seemed as if countless fire-flies were moving 
 among the branches. Yet occasionally I saw other col- 
 ors of the spectrum, especially the bluish green of the 
 beryl. Through that live long night did these indescrib- 
 able glories meet the eye of the observer. And on 
 Thursday another cloudless morning and clear shining 
 sun brought back the glories of Wednesday ; Nay, to my 
 eye, this last day of the spectacle seemed the most splen- 
 did of all ; and one could hardly realize that he was not 
 translated to some celestial region. A second glorious 
 evening set in. But ere morning the clouds overspread 
 the sky, and the powerful rain of Friday and Friday 
 night left the trees without a vestige of ice, and conse- 
 quently ended the enchanting phenomenon, to be seen 
 again we know not when. In some places trees have 
 been injured by the weight of the ice ; and this feature is 
 noticed and complained of by men. But taste and piety 
 
120 WHAT A WORLD THIS, 
 
 might well be contented to see the vegetable world deci- 
 mated, if necessary to so enchanting an exhibition. 
 
 Exegetical writers upon the Bible, sometimes tell us of 
 what they call an&$ izyo^va; that is, words used only 
 once in the whole Scriptures. In human life too, there 
 are events, which we may call a n^ (patvo^ra , that is, ap- 
 pearing only once during a generation. He who has 
 seen one transit of a planet over the sun, or one Novem- 
 ber shower of meteors, or one splendid comet, or one Lu- 
 nar Iris, or one volcanic eruption, may be satisfied, and 
 cannot hope for a second sight. I reckon this glacial 
 phenomenon among these unique revelations of nature, 
 whose repetition may be reserved for posterity. To 
 those who have not witnessed all the features of this ex- 
 hibition which I have described, I may seem enthusiastic 
 and extravagant in my estimates. But there are those 
 present, I trust, who can testify that they are not exag- 
 geration ; and on whose memories they have made as in- 
 delible an impression as a total eclipse of the sun, or a 
 splendid comet, or the transit of Yenus, or Mercury ; and 
 will be looked back upon as a pleasant oasis along the 
 journey of life** 
 
 * Since the period of the glacial phenomenon described in the 
 text, I have seen only one analogous exhibition, and that partial, 
 and far inferior to the first On Mount Holyoke, however, there was 
 a very splendid display of the gems ; but the ice was mostly confined 
 to the mountain. 
 
 It may not be generally known, that there are two circumstances of 
 frequent occurrence, in which a person can see a beautiful, though 
 
HAD NOT SIN MARRED IT. 121 
 
 But let me hasten to consider some of the more stri- 
 king religious applications of the phenomena under con- 
 sideration. 
 
 In the first place, they lead us to infer what a splendid 
 world this might have been, even with the present laws of 
 nature, had sin never entered it. 
 
 When God foresaw that man would sin, he decreed 
 that death must follow in the train. Nor would it be con- 
 sistent with infinite holiness to place a sinful mortal be- 
 ing in a world as perfect and as full of splendid exhi- 
 bitions of divine skill, as might exist in the residence of 
 innocence and holiness. The laws and operations of na- 
 ture, therefore, must be so cramped and adjusted, that 
 while they would present many exquisite evidences of the 
 wisdom and benevolence of the Deity, they should not 
 bring out the most perfect and splenlid exhibition. This 
 world might easily have been so made, that its rocks 
 
 inferior exhibition of gems by the refraction of the sun's rays. One 
 such opportunity occurs in the morning, when the grass and the trees 
 are covered with frost work : and another, when a heavy dew or a 
 shower in the night has produced a multitude of drops of water. 
 The most favorable position to see the gems, is to face the rising 
 sun ; when the observer will perceive upon the grass before him, a 
 parabolic curve, strung with all the colored and uncolored gems des- 
 cribed in the text, though of smaller size. The same may be seen 
 upon the shrubs and trees. And they might be observed in other 
 directions, though more scattered. And one who will take the pains 
 to look out for this phenomenon, will be quite often gratified by wit- 
 nes-i ig a ric'i variety of diamonds, sapphires, bc-rj Is, topazes, &c., giv- 
 ing him a faint idea of the splendid example described in this volume. 
 
 11* 
 
122 THE AGENCIES OF NATURE, 
 
 should have been composed wholly of the most beautiful 
 gems, and every landscape have shone with the glory of 
 Eden. And it does seem as if God had so balanced and 
 adjusted the agencies of nature, that once or twice in a 
 generation he allows some splendid development of un- 
 earthly beauty to teach us what might perhaps have been 
 a settled order of things, had not sin impressed her harpy 
 fingers upon the face of nature. "While, therefore, we are 
 grateful for what is left us, so much superior to what we 
 deserve, let us be reminded, when we witness such exhi- 
 bitions as the one under consideration, how much more 
 glorious might have been our lot, had not sin brought in 
 death, and made the whole creation groan and travail tog eth- 
 er in pain until now. Let us loathe the hateful tyrant, 
 who has thus degraded us Let us break asunder his 
 chains, and wait in humble hope for the manifestation of 
 the sons of God, and for the glories of the new heavens 
 and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. 
 
 In the second place, with what exquisite skill must the 
 agencies ojf nature be balanced, in order to bring about 
 such an exhibition as we have witnessed ! 
 
 It was found necessary to allow the agents of atmos- 
 pheric changes some latitude, or oscillation, in their opera- 
 tion : and this is what gives such an appearance of con- 
 fusion and irregularity to meteorological phenomena: 
 and this also rendered it more difficult so to balance these 
 agencies, that they should bring about a certain result 
 with infallible certainty ; in a case too, where a great 
 
HOW WELL BALANCED! 123 
 
 many of them are concerned- Had any of these varied 
 in their intensity, by an infinitesimal quantity, it would 
 have been fatal in the present instance, to such results 
 as we have witnessed. Had the temperature varied du- 
 ring forty-eight hours, from what it was, a single degree 
 higher or lower, had it been higher at all, either at the 
 beginning or end of the storm, had the descent of the 
 rain been more rapid or in greater quantity, or in larger 
 drops, had the wind, as is common in storms, been high- 
 er ; or had the more recondite agencies that produce and 
 regulate storms, such as electricity, been in a slightly dif- 
 ferent state, some of the exquisite features of the phe- 
 nomena must have been marred, and the whole have re- 
 sulted in an ordinary case of rain, hail or snow. Job 
 speaks of the balancings of the clouds, as among the mys- 
 teries of ancient philosophy. But how much nicer the 
 balancing and counterbalancing of the complicated agen- 
 cies of the atmosphere, in order to bring out this glacial 
 miracle in full perfection ! What wisdom and power 
 short of infinite, could have brought it about ! And when 
 we may ask, shall it be witnessed again ! As easily 
 might we answer the question of one gazing on a splen- 
 did figure in the Kaleidoscope, when that precise exhibi- 
 tion will reappear in the course of its revolutions. It is 
 possible that the next turn of the instrument may pre- 
 sent it ; but almost certain that a whole life of labor, in 
 turning it round, would not bring it again. Nor can we 
 hardly dare hope again, during our short lives, to see the 
 
124 HUMAN LIFE 
 
 time when all the requisite contingencies shall conspire 
 to bring this identical phenomenon before us, that we may 
 feast our eyes with its beauties. Let us be thankful that 
 we have seen it once ; and for so many days, and under 
 so many phases ; and let us not fail to learn from it a new 
 and impressive lesson of the infinite skill and benevolence 
 of the Author of Nature. 
 
 In the third place, how strikingly emblematical has this 
 scene been, of human life ! 
 
 As we set forward in the morning of our days, how 
 brilliant and enticing is the prospect before us ! The sun 
 of hope throws its full radiance over the landscape, and 
 the rays come reflected to us in rainbow colors ; and with 
 buoyant spirits and elastic step, we bound forward in pur- 
 suit of the splendid gems that glitter in our horizon. 
 Many a golden path opens before us, to fortune, to fame, 
 or to pleasure ; and though we hear behind us the warn- 
 ing voice of experience, bidding us moderate our expecta- 
 tions, and not centre all our hopes upon what may disap- 
 point and deceive us, we are too sure that the visions be- 
 fore us are realities, and can be obtained, to be willing to 
 falter in our course. Life seems to us as full of splendor 
 as the scenes of the last week ; and its honors and pleas- 
 ures as inviting as the gems that hung temptingly from 
 the trees. And, indeed the honors, emoluments and en- 
 joyments which are the objects of pursuit, are as much re- 
 alities as were the icy gems of nature. And in both cases, 
 they might be grasped. But when we took the icy mor- 
 
SYMBOLIZED. 125 
 
 sel into our hands, which, at a distance had dazzled us 
 with its splendor, how soon did its colors vanish, and it- 
 self melt away into a drop of water. So when we have 
 obtained the honors, reputation, and pleasures, after 
 which we aspire, how soon does their glory depart, and 
 the harpy fingers of envy and detraction, endeavor to 
 filch them from us ; and the cup of nectar which we have 
 seized, becomes changed into wormwood and gall ; and 
 we find that we have been raised to distinction, only to 
 become a fairer mark for the poisoned arrows of the world 
 to reach ; and we learn that instead of a crown of glory, 
 we have put on a crown of thorns. 
 
 Suppose that during the past week any of us had been 
 so fascinated by the fairy scene before us, that our su- 
 preme affections had become fastened upon it. What a 
 sense of desolation would have come over us, as we awoke 
 yesterday morning, and found not a single vestige remain-* 
 ing of the objects to which we had given our hearts. So 
 if in this life, we place our supreme desires or confidence 
 upon any worldly good, a single storm of adversity may 
 sweep away all our prospects and possessions, and leave 
 us utterly heart-stricken and overwhelmed. And sooner 
 or later such a storm will overtake every one and sink 
 him in utter desolation, who has not laid up treasures in 
 heaven, beyond the reach of all worldly changes. Does 
 my voice to-day fall upon any heart that has nothing to 
 trust in beyond this world ! Alas, how painful and peril- 
 ous its condition. ! 
 
126 MAN'S DISPLAYS 
 
 In the fourth place, we are taught by the phenomena un- 
 der consideration^ how meagre and insignificant, when 
 compared with nature, are the proudest human efforts at 
 ornament or display. 
 
 The love of display is one of the strongest passions of 
 the human heart ; as the history of every age testifies. 
 In the rudest conditions of society, it exhibits itself in 
 painting the body and the dress with gaudy colors, and 
 on public occasions especially, in exhibiting a profusion 
 of ornaments, derived from the skins of quadrupeds, the 
 feathers of birds, and the shells of molluscs ; and with 
 trinkets of glass, or tin, or brass. The more civilized 
 man smiles at such coarse and gaudy displays ; and yet 
 he shows a passion equally strong for brilliant exhibi- 
 tions of ornamental objects, more costly and in better taste. 
 Strip off the waving plume of the warrior, and his golden 
 epaulette from his shoulder, and the glittering star from 
 his breast, and his gold and diamond-hilted sword from his 
 side ; strip off the trappings of his steed, and send him forth 
 to the campaign with only coarse garments and naked steel, 
 and you have robbed his work of half its attractions. De- 
 prive him of the hope of witnessing the splendid gala day 
 on his return from war, of riding in full military costume 
 in the elegant barouche, beneath the triumphal arch, or 
 amid huzzaing crowds, and I fear that much which goes 
 by the name of patriotism would be found to be only a 
 love of distinction. 
 
COMPARED WITH NATURE'S. 127 
 
 But it is not the warrior alone who exhibits the 
 strength of this passion. Through all the grades of soci- 
 ety a constant strife is going on for the palm in external 
 show. Each man endeavors to excel his peers and to ape 
 his superiors, in dress, in equipage, and in entertaiments. 
 The more wealth the greater the means of display ; but 
 the passion seems almost equally strong in the peasant as 
 the prince. When men are divided into parties, each side 
 strives to excel its rival in the parade and decorations of 
 its public occasions ; and in religion, it is well known how 
 widely and fatally meretricious forms of worship have 
 smothered its vitality, and left for Jehovah only the gild- 
 ed but defunct carcase of devotion. In this land of repub- 
 lican simplicity, we see, indeed, only comparatively fee- 
 ble manifestations of this passion. But where arbitrary 
 governments exist, and wealth and titles are hereditary, 
 and where church and state are linked together, not for 
 the purpose of supporting religion, but of supporting each 
 other, costly displays of dress and equipage, stars and rib- 
 bons, crowns and coronets, and other paraphernalia of 
 royalty, form most essential means of feeding national 
 pride, and making the poor forget their degradation : al- 
 though the expenditures requisite are so enormous, that 
 if applied in charity, they would send food and raiment, 
 education and happiness, into all the hovels of poverty. 
 
 Would now that the costliest decorations that ever 
 pride has put on, and the most splendid pageants which 
 the world has ever seen, could have been gathered to- 
 
128 PRIDE AND FASHION 
 
 gether upon New England soil during the last week, and 
 been brought into comparison with the simple exhibition 
 of nature which has passed before us I would that all 
 the crown jewels and other decorations of all the mon- 
 archs of Europe and Asia had been here, as well as 
 their possessors ; nay, that all the splendors of their coro- 
 nation could have been exhibited. I would have had 
 brought hither the decorations of the most splendid pala- 
 ces and castles, and the gold and silver, and precious 
 stones of all the famous processions and gala days, mili- 
 tary, political, and religious, of the old and the new 
 world ; and I would that individuals, who delight in dis- 
 play, had brought forward their proudest ornaments. 
 All these I would have placed by the side of one of our 
 forests, and there, under the full beams of the meridian 
 sun, or the full moon, I would have bid the world look on, 
 and see how comparatively meagre and insignificant was 
 the collected artificial splendor of earth, in comparison 
 will i the glories of that single forest, decked in one day 
 by the magic hand of nature. And I would have bid 
 them remember, that a thousand forests of New Eng- 
 land were at the same moment emitting splendors equally 
 magnificent. Could the monarchs of the old world, 
 could any who have devoted their time and property to 
 the pageantry of office, or party, or sect, or to gratify 
 personal ambition, could they ever have forgotten, how 
 nature, on these bleak shores, and in the midst of barren 
 winter, infinitely outshone them all? Oh it would have 
 
THROWN INTO THE SHADE 129 
 
 been one of the best schools that pride ever entered ; and 
 as the assembled multitudes went back to their various 
 spheres of fashion and folly, even though they might 
 have resumed the contest for the superiority over one 
 another, in dress, equipage, entertainments, and dwel- 
 lings, they would never henceforth have hoped to equal 
 the glories of a New England winter. 
 Would too that she, whom Cowper calls 
 
 Imperial mistress of the fur clad Kuss, 
 
 who constructed a palace of ice, had witnessed this scene* 
 The project was indeed a magnificent one ; and it is well 
 described by the poet: - 
 
 " No forest fell 
 
 When thou wouldst build : no quarry sent its stores 
 T' enrich thy walls : but thou didst hew the floods 
 And make thy marble of the glassy wave. 
 In such a palace poetry might place 
 The armory of winter ; where his troops 
 The gloomy clouds, find weapons, arrowy sleet, 
 Skin-piercing volley, blossom-bruising hail, 
 And snow that often blinds the traveler's course, 
 And wraps him in an unexpected grave. 
 Silently as a dream the fabric rose ; 
 No sound of hammer or of saw was there ; 
 Ice upon ice, the well adjusted parts 
 Were soon conjoined, nor other cement asked 
 Than water interposed, to make them one. 
 
 12 
 
130 THE ICE PALACE. 
 
 So stood the brittle prodigy j though smooth 
 And slippery the materials, yet frost bound 
 
 Firm as a rock ; a scene 
 
 Of evanescent glory once a stream, 
 As soon to slide into a stream again." 
 
 But had the imperial Catharine been permitted to en- 
 ter such a temple as Nature has built of the same materi- 
 al, among the hills of New England, how would she and 
 her architects have shrunk from the enterprise, with such 
 a model before them. 
 
 " Thus nature works as if defying art ; 
 And in defiance of her rival powers, 
 By these fortuitous and random strokes, 
 Performing such inimitable feats, 
 As she with all her rules can never reach." 
 
 Vain, however, is the wish to bring hither the princes, 
 the nobility, or the fashionables, of other lands, or even of 
 our own, to teach them a lesson of humility. Few of 
 them will ever hear of the magnificent scene so lately 
 around us. But let not us, who have feasted upon it so 
 many days, suffer it to pass without instruction. We 
 have the same unholy desire, as they, to outstrip others 
 in the unhallowed chase after fashionable show and ex- 
 ternal decorations : and we owe it to circumstances and 
 Divine restraints, if we have not gone to the same excess 
 of vanity. When tempted again to chase the phantoms, 
 let us turn to the realities of nature and be satisfied. 
 
IMPARTIAL BENEVOLENCE. 131 
 
 This leads me to remark, in the fifth place, that the scene 
 under consideration furnishes a striking example of that 
 impartial benevolence of the Deity, which has so widely 
 diffused the richest gifts of nature, that they cannot be 
 monopolized, but are the common property of the whole hu- 
 man family. 
 
 Men endeavor to monopolize whatever they can, to 
 themselves, or families, or party, or sect. As soon as the 
 wealthy and the fashionable find that the community gen- 
 erally are able to obtain an article of dress, or ornament, 
 or luxury, which they supposed was exclusively theirs, 
 they cease to desire it, and go in pursuit of something 
 new. But mark how different is the impartial benevo- 
 lence of God ; and how it rebukes this contemptible 
 spirit of self-aggrandizement and self-appropriation. The 
 most valuable of nature's bounties are the common prop- 
 erty of all. The air, the water, the beauties of the sea- 
 sons, the glories of morn, noon, and evening, the delight- 
 ful prospects above, around, and beneath, can never be 
 monopolized. Men may map off the earth's surface : they 
 may surround this portion and that, with moats and walls, 
 and call it their own ; and there they may erect stately 
 mansions, and add to the natural scenery, all the charms 
 of art. But they cannot shut up the lungs of the hum- 
 blest individual who is a freeman, so that he shall not in- 
 hale the pure atmosphere : nor close his eyes to the beau- 
 ties of heaven and earth ; nor his ears against the sweet 
 
132 NO MONOPOLY 
 
 symphonies of nature. Nay, if that poor man's heart 
 has been warmed by the love of nature and of nature's 
 God, he has a more real and substantial property in the 
 fields and habitations around him, than the nominal pos- 
 sessor, with all his legal titles. 
 
 " His are the mountains, and the vallies his ; 
 And the resplendant rivers. His to enjoy, 
 With a propriety that none can feel, 
 But who, with filial confidence inspired, 
 Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye, 
 And smiling say, u my Father made them all." 
 Are they not his by a peculiar right, 
 And by an emphasis of interest his, 
 Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy, 
 Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind 
 With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love, 
 That plann'd and built and still upholds, a world 
 So cloth'd with beauty for rebellious man.'* 
 
 One of the objects which the wealthy and the titled 
 have hitherto succeeded most effectually in monopolizing, 
 is the most splendid of the gems dug out of the earth ; 
 leaving only the smaller specimens, or imitations in glass, 
 for the community at large. And because these larger 
 specimens are very few, and therefore have assumed an 
 enormous factitious value, princes and others of great 
 wealth, have succeded in keeping them in their hands : 
 and by bringing them out only on great occasions, they 
 
IN NATURE. 133 
 
 have been able to attract the attention and excite the ad- 
 miration of the multitude. But the inhabitants of New- 
 England at least, have now, for many days, had placed 
 before them, an exhibition of nature's gems, which casts 
 into the shade all the crown jewels of Europe and Asia, 
 Had they all been suspended upon a single tree in our 
 forests, they would scarcely have been noticed amid the 
 profusion of glories poured forth by richer gems around 
 them. Henceforth should any of us have an opportunity 
 to witness a coronation, or triumphal procession, or carni- 
 val feast, in Europe, or any of the public pageants in our 
 own land, which are yearly becoming more imposing, and 
 ape regal splendor more and more, we must feel how 
 wretched an imitation they all are, of that splendid coro- 
 nation season, when God's own hand placed the crown, 
 which his infinite skill had constructed, upon the hoary 
 brow of winter. Said a Roman emperor, near the close 
 of life, " I have been all, and all is nothing :'' so when any 
 of us have seen the richest exhibitions of mere human 
 skill which man can offer, we can say, " We have seen 
 all and all is nothing, compared with that coronation sea- 
 son of nature." 
 
 In the sixth place, the subject teaches us how grateful we 
 should be, for the rich and exhaustless source of happiness 
 that is opened before us, in the study of the works of God. 
 
 The phenomenon under consideration is one that lay 
 open to the observation of all, though it required some 
 
 12* 
 
134 THE STUDY OP NATURE 
 
 careful examination to bring out all his glories ; and its 
 novelty and brilliancy could not but excite general admi- 
 ration. But really, this is only a sample of the novelties 
 and beauties that are almost continually rewarding the 
 researches of him, who devotes his time to the careful 
 and minute study of the works of God, aided by the light 
 of modern science. The casual and general observer 
 soon ceases to be interested, because he looks only at the 
 surface, and soon exhausts all the novelties. He merely 
 stands on the outside of the temple of nature, and after 
 gazing for a time at its noble proportions, and splendid 
 columns, his interest subsides. But he who really studies 
 the works of God, because he loves them, is admitted into 
 the Penetralia ; and there ten thousand new objects re- 
 ward his search : opening continually before him, until he 
 reaches the very Holy of Holies, and becomes a conse- 
 crated priest. He has acquired a relish for objects that 
 always delight, but never satiate. Henceforth he possess- 
 es a source of happiness of which the fluctuations of life 
 cannot rob him. The world may frown upon him, and 
 prove false ; and he may turn away with loathing from its 
 vanities. But nature is ever the same : and her sweet 
 voice always falls with soothing power upon the forlorn 
 and disconsolate heart of her votaries ; because it points 
 them to the Author of Nature ; and in the marvelous 
 developments of his skill and benevolence, which she un- 
 folds, she shows theto how safely they may trust in Him, 
 
A RICH SOLACE. 135 
 
 to carry them through their earthly pilgrimage ; and what 
 new and higher developments they may hope for in another 
 state, to give them nobler employment and more extatic 
 enjoyment forever. Having thus cast themselves upon 
 the bosom of nature and nature's God, it will be in vain 
 that the storms of the world beat upon them, and the 
 waves of affliction roll over them. Their anchor will not 
 quit its hold till life does : and even amid the frosts of 
 ages, like the volcano surrounded by polar snows, the 
 flame of sanctified Christian love for nature, will throw a 
 brighter radiance over the wastes of time. 
 
 Can there be a doubt, now, but God intended that man 
 should find in the study of his works, a rich and substan- 
 tial source of happiness here, and a means of preparation 
 for happiness hereafter. For not only has he laid open 
 before all classes and conditions, a most inviting field, but 
 he has implanted in the young heart susceptibilities al- 
 ways awake to natural beauty : and the child always 
 loves nature enthusiastically. But alas, in civilized soci- 
 ety, how early are artificial objects crowded in between 
 him and nature, until factitious wants and desires supplant 
 those that are natural ; and he is put upon the hot race 
 after the conventional distinctions of life. Even as early 
 as his school boy days, certainly as early as the quadren- 
 nial period of college, nature has been almost forgotten in 
 his thoughts and affections ; and his desires have become 
 concentrated upon elegance of personal appearance and 
 
136 THE NATURAL TASTE 
 
 equipage, upon the acquisition of property, or civic hon- 
 ors, or what is worse, upon sensual gratifications. Even 
 the study of the works of God, "as science developes 
 them, so fascinating to the unsophisticated mind, has be- 
 come to him an unpleasant task, to which he must be 
 drummed up by rigid rules. He lives, indeed, in the 
 midst of nature's magnificent museum ; but remains most 
 profoundly ignorant of its contents : for his attention is 
 devoted to the gewgaws and trinkets, the puppet shows 
 and histrionic feats, which fashion, and ambition, and 
 sensuality have surreptitiously introduced there. With 
 these he becomes familiar ; and as a consequence, it may 
 be, he attains that distinction in the fashionable or politi- 
 cal world, which he seeks, and that amount of wealth 
 which enables him to gratify his largest desires after show 
 and equipage, and sensual indulgence. While the hey- 
 day of life lasts, these objects are sufficient to satisfy him : 
 but as its autumn advances, these artificial pleasures 
 begin to pall upon the senses ; and becoming disgusted 
 with fashionable and public life, he flees to retirement for 
 relief. Alas, he has no relish for the only thing that can 
 make retirement pleasant, viz : the study of nature : and 
 it is now too late to acquire new affections. He must, 
 therefore, try to quiet his restless spirit, as well as he 
 can, with the same husks on which he has been feeding. 
 Political intrigues, and party politics and the rivalries 
 and slanders of social life, must still be his resource. 
 
PERVERTED.. 137 
 
 And if the possession of religion does not inspire 
 with hope beyond the grave, wretched indeed must be 
 the remainder of his pilgrimage. But did he possess a 
 love of nature, sanctified by a love of nature's God, the 
 God of redemption, -how sweetly might the evening of 
 his days pass : and when his sun went down at last, how 
 short would be the night, and how bright the morning 
 that would follow ! 
 
 Do I seem extravagant in representing the substitution 
 of artificial for natural tastes and desires and pursuits in 
 society, to be so general and so injurious ? But to refer 
 to the case in hand : how many there are, who have not 
 noticed the splendid phenomenon that has passed before 
 us, as any thing worth remembering ! How many, who 
 would take an hundred times more interest in the tinsel 
 glitter of a public entertainment, or a ball-room, or a po- 
 litical procession, er a theatre, than in the splendors, 
 which ta an unperverted taste, have made all artificial 
 displays tame and insignificant ! How many, who would 
 cross the Atlantic to witness a coronation, or a military 
 parade, but who have not felt interest enough in these far 
 richer exhibitions, to go out of their dwellings ! How 
 many, who, when standing upon the banks of Niagara, 
 would see only a great mill dam : OF who, when looking 
 down into the deep and fiery crater of Kirauea, would 
 think of nothing but a great forge : or whose most im- 
 portant inquiry, when looking abroad from the highest 
 
138 THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 mountain peak in North America, would be, what 
 use could ever be made of so much wild land : or whose 
 admiration, when first seeing the moons of Jupiter, or the 
 ring of Saturn, or the lunar mountains, through a tele- 
 scope, or a planet crossing the Sun's disc, or a total 
 eclipse at noon day, whose admiration, I say, would rise 
 no higher, than the utterance of some contemptible joke. 
 Now when God has crowded the world in which we live 
 with an endless profusion of the most attractive and 
 astonishing wonders, for the very purpose of leading us 
 to study and admire them ; and when I know that that 
 study would exert a most salutary influence upon the 
 social, moral, and religious character of all classes and all 
 ages ; how can I, without the deepest pain/see so many of 
 the community manifest an almost sottish indifference to 
 all these wonders, and follow with infatuated eagerness 
 after those artificial vanities, which are many of them 
 most hurtful, and all of them as inferior to nature, as 
 man is to the Deity ! 
 
 In the seventh place, the phenomenon we have been con- 
 templating) affords us a more vivid conception of several 
 objects of interest described in scripture, than we could 
 obtain in any other way. 
 
 What Christian has not meditated with deep interest, 
 upon the bush which the patriarch saw in the desert of 
 Sinai, burning with fire, yet unconsumed, from which 
 there came forth the voice of God, saying, put off thy 
 
ILLUSTRATED. 139 
 
 shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon tliou standest is 
 holy ground. Yet during the last fortnight, we have 
 had many vivid resemblances to that burning bush. At 
 the rising and setting of the sun, whole forests seemed to 
 be lighted up almost into a blaze. But to my own eye, 
 a representation of this miracle, equally striking, was 
 seen at the rising of the full moon, which threw a more 
 golden splendor over the boughs of tree and shrub, than 
 had been done by the sunlight, whose reflection had a 
 more silvery aspect. And was there no divine voice 
 issuing from the bush, thus lighted up by God's own 
 hand ? The ear of sense could not hear any, as it did 
 upon Sinai : but to the ear of faith it came in distinct 
 accents, saying, put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the 
 place whereon thou standest is holy ground. The whole 
 scene, indeed has been full of God, and stupid must be 
 that heart which did not realize his presence. 
 
 In the next place, who could help noticing in this whole 
 scene, a resemblance to the scriptural representation of 
 the New Jerusalem. Her light, says John, was like unto 
 a stone most precious ; even like a jasper stone, clear as 
 crystal : And had a wall great and high, and had twelve 
 gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written 
 thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the 
 children of Israel : On the east, three gates : on the north, 
 three gates : on the south, three gates : and on the west, 
 three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve founda- 
 
140 THE NEW JERUSALEM 
 
 lions, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the 
 Lamb. And the building of the wall of it was of jasper : 
 and the city was of pure gold like unto clear glass. And 
 the foundations of the wall of the city wet e garnished with 
 all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was 
 jasper : the second, sapphire : the third, a chalcedony : the 
 fourth, an emerald: the fifth, a sardonyx: the sixth, sar- 
 dius : the seventh, crysolite : the eighth, beryl : the ninth, a 
 topaz : the tenth, a chrysoprasus : the eleventh, a jacinth : 
 the twelfth, an amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve 
 pearls; every several gate was of one pearl; and the 
 street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent 
 glass. This description is not, indeed, to be understood 
 literally. But what richer group of objects could be 
 brought together, in order to give us some idea of the 
 splendor and glory of the future residence of the right- 
 eous. Yet how imperfect an idea of that splendor, after 
 all, do most men obtain from this description, because 
 they have never seen the rich gems here put as repre- 
 sentations of heavenly glory. And although I had often 
 seen them, in the discharge of professional duties, yet I 
 confess that my conceptions too, were faint and feeble 
 compared to what they now are. We have had before 
 us, from day to day, a far richer exhibition of these very 
 gems, than all the lapidaries on earth can furnish, 
 although I fear that very few have seen the full glory of 
 this part of the exhibition : But sure I am, that those 
 
SYMBOLIZED. 141 
 
 who did see it, must have a far livelier apprehension of 
 the purity and glory of Heaven than he had before. 
 And if even in the present world of sense and sin, God 
 permits nature occasionally to put on so splendid a dress, 
 what overpowering magnificence may even the material uni- 
 verse assume, in that world where she will be no more 
 fettered and darkened, and where the human soul will 
 need no organic sensorium ! Oh what Christian's heart 
 does not reach forth after that nobler state of being, and 
 pant for deliverance from that sin and imperfection, 
 which can never dwell in so resplendent an abode ! 
 
 John closes his description of the New Jerusalem, by 
 saying, / saw no temple therein, for the Lord God 
 Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And so 
 would I say in regard to the scene which has been de- 
 scribed. For wherever one stood in looking upon it, 
 
 " So like a temple did it seem, that there 
 
 A pious heart's first impulse would be prayer." 
 
 And so impressively present did God seem, that all na- 
 ture was converted into a fane, and every object into an 
 altar. 
 
 Finally, this scene gives us an impressive idea of the 
 value of that fear of the Lord which is ivisdom, and of 
 that departing from evil, ivhlch is understanding. 
 
 Where, says Job, shall wisdom be found, and where is 
 the place of understanding ? Man knoiveth not the price 
 
 13 
 
142 WISDOM 
 
 thereof. It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver 
 be weighed for the price thereof. It cannot be valued with 
 the gold of Ophir^ with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. 
 The gold and the crystal cannot equal it, and the exchange 
 of it shall not be for jewels, or fine gold. No mention 
 shall be made of coral, or of pearls : for the price of wis- 
 dom is above rubies. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not 
 equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold. And 
 to assure us what he meant by wisdom and understand- 
 ing, Job adds, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and 
 to depart from evil^ that is understanding. 
 
 Here too the sacred writer chose the most costly and 
 splendid productions of nature, to show how worthless 
 they all are when compared with true piety. Suppose 
 now, that all the ice drops which have covered our for- 
 ests, had been real gems, and might have been gathered 
 like fruit, and converted into money. How poor, accord- 
 ing to the Scriptures, would be the possessor of them all, 
 if wanting in supreme love to God. 
 
 " O thou most bounteous giver of all gifts, 
 Thou art Thyself of all thy gifts the crown. 
 Without Thee we are poor, give what thou wilt : 
 And with Thee rich, take what thou wilt away." 
 
 Are any of my hearers destitute of this boon, which 
 all the treasures of earth cannot purchase ! Let them be 
 
SYMBOLIZED, 143 
 
 assured that Jesus Christ offers it to them without money 
 and without price ; having purchased it at an infinite 
 sacrifice. Oh ! think of the final remorse and agony of 
 that soul, which shall refuse the priceless gift, and be 
 lost, lost, lost, forever. 
 
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