a respectful reception, and a continued and increasing appreciation; and though we cannot expect that it will make, to the diligent and faithful scholar by whom it has been prepared, any adequate return for the amount of learning and of labor which he has devoted to it, we trust that it will gain for him an honored place among those who have devoted years of toil to the illustration of the sacred volume. ART. IV.- THE DIVINE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. A Vacation Sermon. Preached in the Boston Music Hall, Sept. 19, 1869. "Doth not even Nature itself teach you?"-1 Cor. xi. 14. WHEN a generous man on a winter night sits in his comfortable house, snugly sheltered from the elements, and hears the tempest rattle against the window-panes and howl over the chimney-tops, he cannot but feel a pang of commiseration for the homeless wanderers in the storm, and the poor families through whose dilapidated dwellings the rain oozes on bed and hearth. When friends crowd around him with cordial words and smiles, and every load is lifted and every sorrow sweetened by social kindness, the heart of such a man will ache for the outcasts who go on their way bleeding and fainting, with none to stanch their wounds or speak the words of pity for which they sigh. So the man who is privileged to lead a blessed inner life of books, meditation, philosophy, and sentiment, when he thinks of his favored lot, must feel unutterable gratitude for such prerogatives, and be sensible of an obligation, in return, to do something for those who are shut out from these high ranges of thought and beauty, this ideal world of truth and emotion. Contemplating the great multitude doomed to sweat under the hardships of physical labor, he instinctively asks himself, By what right am I thus exempt from the yoke of muscular drudgery and the cares of business? How is it, that, while so many others are enslaved in the anxious routine of the world, I, without one vexing thought of outward traffic or toil, am lapped in elysian studies and dreams of order, truth, beauty, and goodness; soaring beyond the heaven of heavens in imaginative contemplation, kneeling before the throne of God in visionary worship, thrilled with rapture at the prospect of human redemption and blessedness in the happy ages far ahead? Evidently for no merit of his is he so distinguished; and the duty is consciously borne in on him that he ought to distribute whatever of peace, delight, ideal glory, soothing belief, and helpful wisdom, these peculiar advantages may afford him, to soften what is hard, to enrich what is meagre, and to elevate what is low in those on whom the harsher work and weariness of the world have fallen. Many a time has this vein of feeling risen in me, my friends, during these last golden weeks which have flown so swiftly and are ended now so soon. When I have sat on some cliff overhanging the sea, and looked on the mystery of its blue glancing wastes, or listened to the monotonous plash with which its everlasting ripple kisses the strand, when I have stretched myself in the clover while the hand of God cooled my brow, taking the fragrant breeze of summer for his fan, -when I have climbed to a mountain-top, and gazed for hours. on the fields and ponds and villages of our dear free New England spread smilingly below, when, spellbound in the study of the upper chamber and gorgeous upholstery of the atmospheric powers, I have watched the ineffable pomp of clouds, lazily marching, gathering, floating, dissolving against the intense azure ceiling of noon, I have said to myself, How else so well can I repay my people for the kindness which allows me to enjoy these luxuries of unbroken quiet and unveiled nature, while the most of them stay at their tasks in the hot and noisy city, what better can I do than describe to them the stainless pleasures I have enjoyed, recount to them the holy lessons I have learned, that they may take home to themselves the same instruction, and thus share in the profit I have known? Accordingly, the subject of my sermon this morning is the Divine Teachings in Na -- ture, or Country Lessons for the city: a Pastor's Vacation Sheaf. And if any conventional hearer object to this style of preaching as sentimental and unevangelical, perhaps his objection will vanish when he remembers that it was the Christ himself who set the example of this very mode and substance of instruction, in exhorting his auditors to consider the moral lessons afforded by the fowls of the air, the lilies of the field, the trees, the grass, the wind, the hen and her chickens. The disciple may well afford to be sentimental and unevangelical in the steps of the Master, and, like him, fall back on the authority of God in nature, who rules the rain and the sunshine, and feeds the young ravens. The striking question asked of the Corinthians by the Apostle Paul, "Doth not even Nature itself teach you?" may be applied in a wider sense than he intended. In this wider sense let us now understand it, and take it as a key-note for our meditations. Nature being the handiwork of infinite wisdom, the veil of the ever-living God, the medium in which he works and silently registers his attributes, is capable of teaching endless lessons to all who are fitted to learn them. But never is Nature so forcible a teacher as when seen in contrast with the artificiality of society. And never is man so docile a learner as when taken directly from the fever and complexity of society, and confronted with the staidness and simplicity of the ways of Nature. The city is full of contrivance, pretence, haste, and change: every thing there speaks of man, ambition, care, disappointment, or luxury and triumph. The country is aboriginal, sincere, stable: every thing there speaks of the eternal God, of serenity, imperturbable order and fulfilment. He who lives constantly in the country is apt to become blunted by familiar habit, and the want of any sharp foil, become blunted-to the peculiar lessons of Nature. But when the denizen of the city, harassed by social emulation, pierced by envious arrows, bruised by the cast-iron hearts amidst which his own is tossed, emerges from the crowd where he has been stung and stifled until unconscious of every thing except the thronged thoroughfare, the tramping multitude, and the smoke and roar, when he emerges into the sacred privacy of the country, the untrodden grass, the green trees, the sailing clouds,- nature breaks upon him with a charmed surprise. It seems an undestroyed paradise, still saturated with the Divine Presence. And in the cool of the day he almost hearkens for the voice of the Lord to break the spell, and audibly speak his will in the oracles of leaf and lake, bird and breeze and blossom. The first country lesson for the city which I shall specify, is the lesson of repose taught by the quiet of the landscape. As soon as we leave the town-limits behind us and get fairly into the country, how still every thing seems! In contrast with that incessant trample of feet, rumble of wheels, clash of hammers, multitudinous buzz of business, to which we have grown accustomed, how primeval, sober, and serene, is all around us here! One might imagine that the world had fallen into slumber, or that there was a general pause in life, the great pulse of creation standing still awhile. But on closer inspection we find that the apparent hush comes from no lack of varied industry and energy, only from the harmony of the whole, and the patient regularity with which it goes on. Is it not a fine admonition to us so to adjust our aims and passions as to avoid frictions and jars, and carry our plans forward with a melodious execution that appears resting while it advances, as the top, when really moving with the most effective force of evenness and speed, seems to sleep motionless. It is profoundly impressive to pause in mid-forest or meadow, where the horrid discord of the steam-engine never reaches, when not so much as the wing of an insect or the rustle of a leaf dispels the enchanted repose, and reflect how much vaster and deeper quiet is than noise. The deafening turmoil of the city rages; but, a little way out, eternal stillness broods. The roar and dash of waves vex the surface of the sea; but, a little way down, everlasting calm prevails. Whirlwinds, volcanoes, battles, convulse for a moment their petty centres on our globe as it rolls along in its orbit; but, all around it, and far abroad through boundless space, not a breath is up, and the stars smile in perfect silence for ever. So should our fret and care, our grief and fear, ever be lost in an all-containing perception of beneficent law which brings beneath and over our whole experience of sorrow and of doubt an unbroken quietude of trust and cheer. As the ceaseless heave and fret of the city are set in the embosoming quiet of the country, so, let us feel, our ignorance is overswept by the knowledge, our weakness underlaid by the strength, our little restlessness surrounded by the infinite repose of God. Nature herself, then, by the universal serenity which invests the broad aspects of the general landscape, teaches us not to worry. When duly impressed with this teaching, we stroll off into the woods, and there learn our second lesson, which is the duty of trustful resignation. In the woods, Nature takes us to the innermost recesses of her confidence, as it were into her very bosom and beart. Here we are at the farthest possible remove from the city, in the utterest contrast with all its mechanical structures, affected pictures, and forced habits. There is no falsehood here, no hypocrisy, no rebellion; nothing overstrained or artful here. All is true and simple. Every thing is in keeping. Nothing here was made or is compelled: every thing grew, and is spontaneously what it is. Among these mosses and brambles there is no jostling or heart-burning. That elder-berry on the edge of the swamp is not anxious to be yonder barberry beside the stone-wall. This lichen clings with fond tenacity to its own place on the rock. These chestnuts and those walnuts show no dissatisfaction with their respective quality and situation. An expression of content reigns supreme in the forest. There is no complaining nor resistance. Every thing accepts the nature given it and the corresponding destiny assigned it, with a graceful acquiescence, and never is one sour murmur heard. This is the fine lesson the woods have for man, - unrepining submission to his allotted fate. The trees stand in the places where God plants them, send their roots down to drink in the water-courses of the earth, lift their leaves up to drink in the upper veins of the air, sway and yield to every wind that beats them, drop their yellowed foliage, and, at last, fall and mix |