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LANGUAGE OF NATURE.

attention which their sacred import demands; and mark if the Saviour himself does not make nature the constant subject to illustrate those divine truths which He taught. The constancy with which this is done, is of itself one of the strongest proofs of the truth of his sacred mission. Well may it be said of him, that he "spake as never man spake." He spoke the whole Godhead-God the Creator, God the Redeemer, and God the Sanctifier, in one unbroken and unbreakable harmony. Man, however God has endowed him, and implanted in his breast desire, and afforded to him opportunity for the acquirement of knowledge, must necessarily fall short of this glorious example, but the commandment to all of us is "that we should follow his steps," how great soever may be the distance.

A very little reflection will show that the language of nature is the only language in which a general address could be delivered to the human race, in every age, every nation, and possessing every degree of mental acquirement. Addressed to fallen man for the purpose of bringing him to God, it is necessary that the words of invitation should be not only intelligible, but inviting to those who have yet no spiritual discernment. This could not be done by anything merely human; for the habits, the tastes, and the occupations of men are so continually varying, and also so varied at different places, that illustrations drawn from them could have no permanent or general effect; and, consequently, the only subjects of illustration which remain, are the productions of nature, and the laws or general principles, in virtue of which they put on their several appearances.

DEFINITION OF SPRING.

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Bearing these few remarks in mind, and they are necessary to be carried along with us in all our contemplations, we shall turn to the leading phenomena of the Spring, and the substances and agencies engaged in the production of those phenomena.

The phenomena, as we have said, do not admit of general description in such a manner as to be useful; and therefore we must come to the details of them, prepared with some general principles which shall enable us to link them to our memories, and use them for pleasure and for profit. The most general description that we can give of the Spring, is that it is a revival of nature in all those parts of it which have growth or life, or any way minister to one or to both of these. But the revival is so grand, and so different in its results at different stages of it, that it will not describe, but must be observed. This gradual passage from one state to another is found in every movement of nature, whether that movement lasts for a season, a moment, or a long period of years. In every case where it is not too rapid for our observing it as any thing like a continuous duration, its individual steps are always too fine for our observing, or our counting. Some plants will shoot up to the height of several inches in the course of twenty-four hours; but were we to watch them every moment, we should not find the slightest difference between the two consecutive momentary states. It is the same with ourselves. Our mirrors, our friends, and as life ebbs away, our infirmities, admonish us that we are getting old; but we never have a spontaneous feeling to the same effect: so far

from it, we attempt to drive age onward before us, and within ourselves, we question or doubt the truth of the monitors. Life, in short, is our passage from the cradle to the grave, the details of which must be sought in our daily conduct. In like manner Spring finds the world in the gloom of Winter, and conducts it to the full blown beauty of Summer; but the steps of this progress must be observed by every one for himself in his own locality. This revival of the Spring, shows itself to us only in the result of motion of some description or other, whether the successive steps of that motion, or the actual progress of it, be or be not discernible by our senses or our instruments.

The leading motions, or more strictly speaking, the leading substances which are moved, for we can observe motion, or the effect of motion only in a moving or moved substance, form the simplest parts into which we can analyze or separate our very vague and general notion of the revival of the Spring. The doing of this is attended with considerable difficulty; because we hardly know anything of some of the elements, and our knowledge of some of them is partial. There is one fact, however, which limits our consideration to its proper sphere. The appearances and phenomena of the Spring, and of every season of the year, are entirely terrestrial, taking place on the earth itself, and not in any way affecting or influencing the sun, the moon, the planets, the stars, or any other celestial bodies. It is true that the light and heat of the sun are the grand stimuli to the revival of the Spring, but the sun is not lighted up anew, in order to prank our meadows with flowers, clothe our

SOURCES OF DECEPTION.

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groves with verdure, delight our ears with songs, and sinew our frames with vernal breezes. The sun is in itself exactly the same at every period of our year; and for aught that we know, it has not undergone any change since the Almighty set a tabernacle for it in the heavens, and will not undergo any change until the same power shall quench it in utter darkness.

How, then, some may ask, is the varying action of the sun, the cause of all the vicissitudes of the changing year? The answer is a short one; but as there is some general instruction in it, it may be well to dwell a little upon it, and consider how much of the appearance of things depends on the things themselves, and how much on our position with regard to them This page, we shall presume, is legible at a moderate distance, varying with the age of the reader, or the natural form of the eye. Lay it close on the nose and forehead, or remove to the distance of a yard or two from it, and not a single word will be made out or a letter seen. But the page is all the while exactly and identically the same, and if you bring it back into the original position it is just as legible as at the first. Hold your finger upright, and as close to your eye as you can distinctly see it, and look towards a tall tree, a high steeple, or even a lofty mountain; and the finger will appear to outmeasure each and all of them, and to outmeasure them the more as they are further distant. Walk up to any of them and apply the finger, and see how different the felt reality is from the visible appearNow the eye, the finger, the tree, the steeple, or the mountain, are exactly the same in the one case

ance.

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SOURCES OF ERROR

as in the other; and the only thing that has shifted, is the relative position of the observer. This faculty of the eye, by means of which it tells us a different story with every change of our position, is a necessary result of the structure of the eye as a material organ, and of the properties of that light which is the medium of vision. This led the late Dr. Edward Young to place in his garden a very striking, though somewhat quaint, lesson. There was an object placed there, painted so skilfully, that seen from a distance, it appeared an arbour with a most inviting seat; but upon walking up to it, it proved to be nothing but a painted board, inscribed with words to the following effect: "Unseen things never deceive us."

We need not multiply instances, or give any in the case of the other senses, or of the action of any other natural causes, of whatever kind they may be; but the general truth is worth remembering :-The effect which any one body or substance in nature produces on another may be changed, either by changing the relative situation of the object, or the power of the actor. Upon this principle the changes of the seasons can be just as readily produced by changes in the situation of the earth, as by changes in the sun; and that they are so produced, may be found demonstrated in any work on astronomy to which the reader pleases to refer.

This, as we have hinted, very much lessens the range of our inquiry into that general action which produces and characterizes the Spring. It enables us to regard the sun as a constant power, which not being changed in any seasonal or other changes upon earth, may be