branch waved, it was toward me; and if a leaf

fluttered, so did my heart.

It was as though my

spirit of the woods.

spirit had melted into the

Then I would sit down and wonder at myself in awe, and joy, and tears. And the awe in my spirit would deepen, and the joy too, and my tears would fall faster, till I felt as the child Samuel may have done in the temple, while waiting for the Lord to speak. And there was speech from God to me at those times; because, from my feelings then, I am now sure, even of myself, of the blessedness with which God is to be felt by the pure in heart.

MARHAM.

There are many of the feelings of childhood little understood, and some of which, I do not doubt, are vague yearnings after God.

AUBIN.

On the Rhine, and overhanging it, is the Lurleiberg, a rock. One evening in August I sat upon it. Up and down the river, on one side, were vineyards, and on the other, thick trees, and across it was the little town of Bingen; but from where I was, it seemed to contract into nothing, as I looked at it, and so did my worldly thoughts. And into my soul slid the calmness of the scene, and then the sublimity of it. The air was like a living presence about me, and the rock underneath me was like that of my salvation; and from

above, it was as though there were descending into my soul an exceeding weight of glory.

MARHAM.

Some seeds of glory fell into your soul then, no doubt. For the invisible things of God are to be understood from the things that are made.

AUBIN.

And there is an enjoyment of heaven, for which our joy in nature is a preparation. And there is a love of the beautiful arts, which a man will be the better for, hereafter. Beauty is of God, as much as love is, or truth.

MARHAM.

It must be ; and the earth and the skies are the school in which for us to learn it.

AUBIN.

I shall die without having looked on the Mediterranean in the Bay of Naples, and without having known the magic effect of a Milanese atmosphere. I have not seen the valley of Chamouni, in the Alps, nor had a look from the Pyrenees. The gloom, and the grandeur, and the worship of American forests have not been felt by me; nor have I ever rejoiced in the flowers, and the luxuriance, and the deep green of the West Indies. I have never heard Niagara roar, nor, at sight of the Mississippi, thought of God, and been devoutly glad, as I should have been if I had ever seen it; for the sight of any great power in nature

is to me like God's felt presence; and during thunder and lightning, I cannot so well pray as sing hymns.

MARHAM.

The powers of nature are the almightiness of God; and so they are what can be triumphed in.

AUBIN.

I have never seen the Southern Cross, nor felt the beauty and the mystery of the Northern Lights. These things I shall die without having known. There are picture-galleries, in the neighbourhood of which I should like to have lived a little while. There are books of engravings that I wish I could have owned years ago. And Athens and Rome I wish I had had opportunities of visiting. But I shall die, my soul not enriched by the greater marvels of the world, and poor in beauty.

MARHAM.

Not poor, though not as rich as it might have been. And sometimes, Oliver, I think, under other circumstances, the world might have been the better for you. Such things as you have been speaking of are to be seen for money. Now, as I know myself, one pecuniary prospect you declined, on account of your scruples of conscience. And you were right in doing so, feeling as you do. There are grand and lovely sights in the world, and some of them you might have had the

means to visit, if you had not been quite so scrupulous. You might have seen more than you have seen; but, Oliver, I cannot think that your sense of beauty will prove to be the weaker for such actions as have strengthened your conscience.

AUBIN.

There is in the world fearful wonder, that we have never thrilled to; but before us, there is the great mystery of death, which we shall not miss of. Then what is beauty in nature? It is God; so that it is what we shall feel more sublimely hereafter, than we could anywhere at present. The greatest loveliness of this earth we may never see; for we are here so short a time, and we are so restrained by circumstances; but the beauty of the everlasting and ever brightening heavens, we are sure not to fail of.

We trust to see it.

MARHAM.

AUBIN.

And we shall not only see it, but feel it, and enjoy it. That we certainly shall do, though in this world we may not have been much refined by the study of art, or by travel; for he who is sensible to the beauty of a moral life wants little towards loving well and wisely all beauty else. In the neighbouring town there are many saints, in whom taste has never been cultivated, because necessity has kept them laboring at one spot, as

though in chains, and poverty has shut them out from the doors of many opportunities. While among them there is one, perhaps, with an eye like Raphael's, and another with feeling like what Turner has; and there is another, perhaps, whose mind would be like Bryant's, only there are no woods in which for the man to strengthen his soul. But now, in these laboring saints, will God let the feeling of beauty become extinct? No, never. Nor is there any chance of its dying out in them, because they feel the beauty of holiness. Beauty is manifold in form, but in spirit it is one; it is one and the same in poetry, music, art, nature, and character. Out of primitive rudeness, he who has fashioned a soul after the Christian model is an artist, not for one age of flattery, nor many years of wonder, nor for time at all, but for eternity.

MARHAM.

And so in that way, and often, many that are first will be last, and the last be first.

AUBIN.

There are rich owners of statues and pictures, and who besides can talk about them critically; yet they have less of the eternal essence and soul of beauty in them than there is in some herdsman on their grounds. Pictures will perish, and the science of them; so alas for him who does not feel most the beauty of the human soul !