little transparent rivulet that ministers to our necessities; but the Nile, the Ister, the Rhine, or, still more, the ocean. We are never surprised at the sight of a small fire that burns clearly, and blazes out on our private hearth; but view with amaze the celestial fires, though they are often obscured by vapours and eclipses. Nor do we reckon any thing in nature more wonderful than the boiling furnaces of Etna, which cast out stones, and sometimes whole rocks from their labouring abyss, and pour out whole rivers of liquid and unmingled flame."

See how Burke has expanded and worked out this glimpse of the true view. He is full of the mighty influence of nature's sublime features. Her heights and depths, her horrors and glooms, the demonstrations of her grandeur and power in storms, earthquakes, and volcanoes. Infinity and eternity are all before him in their awful majesty, and furnish him with some of his deepest sources and most splendid illustrations of the sublime.

But the fact must be evident to

every one. A single glance from the ancients to the moderns, and what a contrast! Throughout all the writings of the most enthusiastic ancients, where are the burning, passionate longings after nature that are transfused through all our modern literature? Nature is not with us a thing incidentally alluded to; a thing to be voluptuously enjoyed when we find ourselves in the flowery lap of May: ours is a living, permeating, perpetual affection.

But it is through our poetry that the admiration of nature is diffused as one great soul. From Chaucer to the most recent poet it is the universal spirit. It would seem a contradiction now to say that a man is a poet, but that he has no ardent feeling for nature. In fact, a new language, a new kind of inspiration, distinguishes the modern poets from the ancients altogether. Great as each may respectively be, their object, their vision, their tone, in this particular, are widely opposed. When do we find one of the classical writers speaking thus of his youth?

"Like a roe

I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led; more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature

then

To me was all in all. I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms,,were then to me
An appetite, a feeling, and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrow'd of the eye."

WORDSWORTH.

To quote all that bears evidence of this wonderful revolution in the very heart of literature would be, not to quote indeed, but to take the whole mass of modern poetry. Powerfully as the spirit of the ancients was attracted by the sublimity of mortal passion and mortal fortunes; by the strife of families and nations, by the strife of emotions in the soul, and the outbursting of a blasting or a beneficent sublimity in the deeds of men; and magnifi cent as are the monuments of tragic or heroic grandeur they have erected on this foundation; so powerfully is the spirit of the moderns drawn, excited, and enflamed by the sublimity of nature, and beautiful and endearing are the strains it has elicited. And whence is this mighty change? Ay, that is the question. Whence is it that the love of nature has, in the latter ages, become so much more passionate, intense, engrossing, refined, elevated, etherealized? Is it because we see nature with different eyes? Is it that we see something in it which the classics did not? It is! It is to that omnipotent principle that has so utterly changed the whole system of human philosophy, morals, politics, literature, and social life, the hopes, the fortunes, the reasonings of men, that we owe it. IT IS TO CHRISTIANITY! The veil which was rent asunder in the hour that its divine Founder consummated his mission, was plucked away not only from the heart of man, not only from the immortality of his being, but from the face of nature. A mystery and a doubt which had hung athwart

the sky, like a vast and gloomy cloud, was withdrawn; and man beheld creation as the assured work of God: saw a parental hand guiding, sustaining, and embellishing it: and immediately felt himself brought into a near kinship with it, and into an everlasting sympathy with all that was beautiful around him; not simply for the beauty itself, but because it was the work of the one great Father, the one great Fountain of all life and blessing.

The very introduction to the Hebrew literature in the Old Testament must have produced a deep and delightful change in human feeling. The contrast between the sentiment and the very language of nature, as addressed to man in the literature of the Greeks and that of the Hebrews, was startling, warming, and wonderful beyond measure. The beauty of natural objects was no longer a thing apart, a thing to be admired on its own account: it was allied to a deep sentiment; it became linked to the life of our inner nature. Waters were beheld as the bountiful blessing of Him "who giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the field." They became the emblem of that inward purity of which the noblest Pagan could form no adequate conception, but which the God of the Hebrews required. They symbolized many of the evils as well as the refreshments of life. Now they typified "brethren that deal deceit fully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks that pass away; which are brackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid." Now they were as the billows of affliction; scenes of trouble: "All thy billows have gone over me." And now they were as the refreshment of a thirsty soul. The greenness of the grass and of the branch pointed to the beauty, the fleeting beauty of life; and now to the insecure prosperity of the unjust: he is green before the sun, and his branch shooteth forth in his garden; his roots are wrapped about the heap, and he seeth the place of stones. If he destroy him from his place, then it shall deny him, saying, I have not

seen him. Behold, this is the joy of his way, and out of the earth shall others grow."

Every thing in nature, the flower, the wind, the spider's web, darkness and light, calm and tempest, drought and flood, the shadow and the noon-day heat, a great rock in a weary land, every thing about us, and above us, acquired in this splendid and inimitable literature a new and touching meaning; a meaning bound up with our lives; a worth coequal with our highest hopes, our most fervent desires. Every thing became a moral and a warning, They were made to illustrate not only the operations of Providence, but to cast a new light upon our intellectual being. They did not indeed speak out as to the exact value stamped upon them by the Deity; but they gave intimations more profound and startling than any thing in the whole round of pagan philosophy. And then there was an undertone of sorrow, a voice of plaintive regret over man, a delicacy and tenderness of phrase that wonderfully attracted and endeared. What ineffable melancholy is there in these following sentiments! What an intense longing after life; and yet, what a longing after death! What a vivid feeling of the grinding evils of mortal being; and what images of the fulness of peace in the grave! "Why died I not from the womb? For now should I have lain still and been quiet; I should have slept: then had I been at rest, with Kings and counsellors of the earth, which had built desolate places for themselves; or with Princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver: or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw the light. There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary are at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and the great are there; and the servant is free from his master. Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul; which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid

treasures; which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?" (Job iii. 11-22.)

But this new alliance with nature, this new and spiritual beauty cast upon every thing, was not all. The magnificence of creation and its phenomena were made tenfold conspicuous; and still beyond this, men were no longer left to suppose, or even to contend, that the world was the workmanship of Deity. They were no longer left to bewilder themselves among a host of imaginary gods. The universe in its majesty, and God, the one sublime and eternal Founder and Preserver of it, were flashed upon the spiritual vision in the broadest and brightest light. Here was seen the clear and continuous history of creation. God, the sole and immortal, sate upon the circle of the world, and its inhabitants were as grashoppers before him. The sun, moon, and stars were of his ordaining and appointing; night and day, times and seasons, revolved before Him; His were the cattle upon a thousand hills; His all the swarming tribes of humanity. The prophetic writings proclaimed his Deity, his power and attributes, in language unparalleled in splendour, and with imagery which embraced all that is glorious, resplendent, beautiful, and soothing, or dark, desolate, and withering in

nature.

Such was the effect of the Old Testament and then came the New! then came Christ! The Old showed us the Deity in unspeakable majesty; his creation as beautiful and sublime. Christ proclaimed him the FATHER OF MEN; and in those words poured on earth a new light. The words which guaranteed the eternity of our spirits chased a dimness from the sky which had hung there from the days of Adam. They rent down the curtains of death and oblivion; and let fall upon earth such a tide of sunshine as never warmed it till then. The atmosphere of heaven gushed down to earth. From that hour a new and inextinguishable interest was given us in nature.

It

was the work of our Father. It was the birth-place of millions of ever

lasting souls. Its hills and valleys then smiled in an ethereal beauty; for they were then to our eyes spread out by a mighty and tender Parent for our happy abodes. The waters ran with a voice of gladness; the clouds sailed over us with a new aspect of delight; the winds blew, and the leaves fluttered, in it, and whispered every where of life, eternal consciousness, eternal enjoyment of intellect and of love. Through all things we felt a portion of the divine paternal Spirit diffused; and "the wilderness and the solitary place" thenceforth had a language for our hearts full of the holy peace and the revelations of eternity. Then the musing poet felt what it has been reserved for one in our day only fully to express :

"A presence that disturb'd him with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts, And rolls through all things. Therefore is he still

A lover of the meadows, and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth: of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half create
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of his purest thoughts; the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of his heart, and soul
Of all his moral being."

Thus, then, is dissipated the mystery of the more intense love of nature evinced by the moderns than the ancients. It is but part of that gift of divine revelation which has endowed us with so many other advantages over those grand old philosophers of antiquity, who, in the depth of their hearts, darkened and abused by many an hereditary superstition, yet found some of the unquenched embers of that fire of love and knowledge originally kindled there by the Creator, and cherished and fanned them into a noble flame. Had they heard from heaven these living words pronounced,GOD IS LOVE!-had they seen the great ladder of revelation reared from earth to heaven, and been permitted to trace every radiant step

to surprise itself. But how unwise we are in looking for the entire sanctification of our nature without the cross, and sufferings, and death of all which opposeth and exalteth itself against Christ!

When the hill-top is gained it will repay all the labour of the ascent; and even while we are going up there is much to refresh us at every step of the way. But too many of us lie down at the bottom after a few heartless attempts to climb the steep, and rest contented with having made the trial, not calling to mind that word of wisdom, "The sluggard desireth, and hath nothing." It is only by a constant course of self-denial, and subjection to the will of Christ, that we can hope at length to gain the summit where all is green, and fair, and flourishing, and the soul, like those on Tabor, is called to enter the cloud, and sit at the feet of Jesus, and hear what is unspeakable, and taste a joy altogether divine, and find itself far removed from all that is earthly and sensual, base and grovelling. When indeed any one is faithful to the calls of the Holy Spirit, and, allured by his sweet influences, is led to give up all; when only attentive to an inward monitor, such a soul is careful to please him by a cordial reception of whatever may come from his hand; when, in obedience to Christ, and from love to him, it is heartily willing to suffer the loss of every thing but his favour, and endure any thing but his frown; then is it in the way to make a great conquest, and insure a noble victory, and have a glorious triumph, and meet with an unfading crown: "for he that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city."

Yet how few are seized with a noble ambition to overcome themselves, and lead captive the powers of the soul, and bring every thought into subjection to the will of Christ, and make full proof that they are the children of the Most High! They suffer themselves to be amused by a variety of things which concern them not, while they neglect the one thing needful. They are,

VOL. XVII. Third Series.

through their heedlessness, entangled in a multitude of cares, from which they cannot get free. They are diligent in business, but do not join with it fervency of spirit. They serve the time, but in serving it forget to serve the Lord. In works and labours they are most abundant; but in a great measure faith and love are wanting to give the highest finishing, and render what is done acceptable to him who looks at the heart. In all that relates to doctrines and duties, rites and ceremonies, they are most observant and particular; but, alas! that which alone can put force and efficacy, spirit and reality into all these, is passed by and forgotten. And yet without the living soul of obedience, love to Christ, what are we, but eyeservants?

But in many of those who truly love our Lord Jesus Christ, how little of it appears in their life or conversation! How grievously it is cramped up and straitened by many unmortified affections! How much it is obstructed and weakened through their daily intercourse with the world! How heedless and unobservant they are as to what would tend to its growth and perfection! And yet an hour is running with speed to meet us, in which all these things will appear in no other light than acts of rebellion against Christ. What stout chains must be broken, what strong bands must be loosened, what brazed walls must be rent asunder, what heaps of rubbish must be consumed, before the spirit can rise to the embraces of its Father God! We are so apt to look on all that is seen, as all that is painful, and humiliating, and afflictive in death; but the complete emancipation of the heaven-born spirit, from earthly principles and prejudices, affections and desires, is not seen; and yet must be dreadfully afflictive, for a wounded spirit who can bear?" The dropping of the body cannot perfect the soul in goodness. The mere change of place will produce no change in the mind, and heart, and will. And yet it is only the pure spirit, the holy soul, the perfect man in Christ, that can see AUGUST, 1838. 2 Q