and the reason, rule over the instincts and the passive faculties ; the soul over the body; man over nature. In the frozen regions man also contends with Nature, but it is with a niggardly and severe Nature; it is a desperate struggle—a struggle for life. With difficulty, by force of toil, he succeeds in providing for himself a miserable support, which saves him from dying of hunger and hardship during the tedious winters of that climate. High culture is not possible under such unfavourable conditions. The man of the tropical regions is the son of a wealthy house. In the midst of the abundance which surrounds him, labour too often seems to him useless; to abandon himself to his inclinations is more easy and agreeable. A slave of his passions, an unfaithful servant, he leaves uncultivated and unused the faculties with which God has endowed him. The man of the polar regions is the beggar overwhelmed with suffering, who, too happy if he can but gain his daily bread, has no leisure to think of anything more exalted. The man of the temperate regions, finally, is the man born in ease, in the golden mean, which is the most favoured of all conditions. Invited to labour by everything around him, he soon finds, in the exercise of all his faculties, at once progress and wellbeing. Thus, if the tropical regions have the wealth of nature, the temperate regions are the most perfectly organized for the development of man. They are opposed to each other, as the body and the soul, as the inferior races and the superior races, as savage man and civilized man, as nature and history. Of this contrast, so marked as it is, the history of human societies will give us the solution, or, at least, will enable us to obtain a glimpse of the truth. GUYOT. HYMN TO THE CREATOR. THESE are thy glorious works, Parent of good! Thus wondrous fair; thyself how wondrous then! In these thy lowest works; yet these declare Him first, him last, him midst, and without end! If better thou belong not to the dawn,- Thou sun! of this great world both eye and soul, In mystic dance, not without song, resound And nourish all things; let your ceaseless change Ye mists and exhalations! that now rise From hill or steaming lake, dusky or gray, His praise, ye winds! that from four quarters blow, Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye pines, With every plant, in sign of worship, wave. Fountains! and ye that warble, as ye flow, Join voices, all ye living souls! Ye birds, To hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade, MILTON. HEAVEN TRANSCENDENTLY GLORIOUS. I PRAISED the earth, in beauty seen, I praised the sun, whose chariot rolled I praised the moon, whose softer eye O God, O good beyond compare! PART II. THE LAND WE LIVE IN. OLD ENGLAND. OLD England! thou hast green and pastoral hills, And living voices of harmonious rills Sound in thy silvan vales. Under the shadow of primeval trees, 'Mid whisp'ring of green leaves, Stand cheerful groups of white-walled cottages, And thou hast loving hearts, both high and low, And little children that rejoicing go By flowery streamlet sides. And thou hast many a hill and forest glade, That to the past belong; Many a brown moor and crumbling ruin, made Imperishable by song; And way-side wells, that broad leaves overshadow, Where pilgrims knelt of old; And winding paths through many a pleasant meadow, 'Mid flowers of blue and gold, Winding through woods where the sweet wilding's blossom Puts forth in carly spring, |