And last in the train comes winter, spreading his white mantle over the earth, hanging crystal pendants on tree and shrub, purifying the atmosphere, giving the sky a deeper blue, and the stars an iutenser lustre, filling the northern air with Auroral coruscations, and compelling the coldest heart to exclaim: " God hath made everything beautiful in its time!"

But is the world, indeed, one wide, unvarying scene of beauty? There are exceptions, certainly, to this general fact. In the animal and vegetable kingdoms, there are imperfect developments and deformities even. There are thorns and poisons as well as flowers and wholesome fruits. Barren deserts, vast marshes, and rocky wastes abound as well as fertile plains and blooming gardens. Tempests howl through the sky, the lightning smites the earth, volcanoes and earthquakes rend its bosom. Does not this mixed state of things indicate that something has happened to the earth since its creation? May it not be that the natural world sympathizes with its. chief inhabitant and lord, bearing part of the woe which has fallen upon him?

"O earth! dost thou, too, sorrow for the past Like man, thy offspring? * * *

* * * Dost thou wail For that fair age of which the poets tell, Ere yet the winds grow keen with frosts, or fire Fell with the rains, or spouted from the hills, To blast thy greenness?"

But, without pursuing this inquiry, it is obvious that the world is full of beauty: it surrounds man with a continual presence, and addresses his soul through every possible avenue. What, now, is the meaning of this beauty? It is not here by accident. The machinery of the universe might have been firmly constructed, and its parts closely fitted and properly lubricated, without being adorned with tracery, and set with gems. Why, then, did the Creator superadd the ornamental to the useful? We answer - why should he have done otherwise? It is hardly conceivable that the Divine Intelligence should manifest itself spontaneously in the way of deformity and ugliness. On the contrary, it seems proper to suppose that God made the world beautiful, because, in giving visible expression to the thoughts of his own perfect mind, he could not embody them otherwise than in forms of beauty.

Moreover, the earth so made contributes to the Divine happiness. Tell us not that the Almighty takes no pleasure in that on whose adornment he has lavished so much care, and which his own lips have pronounced "very good." The earth was not made as it is solely for man's enjoyment; else, what mean the thousand, thousand flowers which bloom and shed their fragrance amid untrodden forests and on inaccessible mountains? What mean the uncounted gems and precious stones which lie undiscovered on the bottom of the ocean and in the bowels of the earth? Untold wonders lay open to the Divine Eye before the invention of the microscope, and doubtless still greater remain undiscovered, which no perfection of human instruments will ever enable man to behold. The Infinite Mind sees all these things at once, the vast and the minute, and finds happiness in them.

No one will deny that the world so made promotes man's happiness. The brute creation cannot appreciate beauty, and hence their happiness was not taken into the account in this thing. An ox can detect poisonous herbs by their odors, but he never stops to admire a sunset; he has no passion for mignonette. A dog will trample down the finest parterre, in search of a bone. Man alone, of all creatures on earth, is permitted to share with the Divine Being in the enjoyment of the beautiful. And has not that Being deak toward man, in this respect, with a Godlike benevolence? He has made the earth a Paradise - not a prison-house. He has made it not simply endurable, but a place of delight.

These things being so, the beautiful in nature should receive attentive regard. Some men affect indifference to every form of beauty, and others associate a taste for such things with mental effeminacy. The fairest lily pleases them less than the blossom of a pumpkin vine, for it promises nothing really useful. The most charming river charms them only as it feeds canals, or drives machinery. The most stately tree excites only apprehensions of its injury to some growing crop, or suggests calculations as to its worth in firewood and lumber. Let such men hear the words of Channing: " Suppose that I were to visit a cottage, and to see its walls lined with the choicest pictures of Raphael, and every spare nook filled with statues of the most exquisite workmanship, and that I were to learn that neither man, woman, nor child, ever cast an eye at these miracles of art, how should I feel their privation? how should I want to open their eyes, and to help them to comprehend and feel the loveliness and grandeur which in vain courted their notice 1 But every dweller in the country is living in sight of the works of a diviner Artist; and how much would his existence be elevated, could he see the glory which shines forth in their forms, hues, proportions, and moral expression 1"

This love of the beautiful should be carefully fostered. Too often is it repressed and overshadowed by severely practical pursuits. Were it more assiduously cultivated, we should see less of that hard materialism and Epicureanism which now prevail, less of that perilous haste to be rich, less of that vulgar ambition for display, and more real culture of mind and simplicity of manners, more purity and contentment Happily, the means for its culture are confined to no class in society. Wealth and power may lock up many rare specimens of art from the common gaze, but they cannot monopolize the sunset, nor the thousand forms of beauty which fill the earth.

It hardly need be added here, that it is right to enjoy the beautiful. Did not the Perfect Man, as he trod the earth, delight to look upon its various, pleasing aspects? "Consider," said he, "the lilies of the field I * * Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these." Man might have lived a brute's life,subsisting upon roots and nuts, but God saw fit to endow him with a higher style of existence, and planned the world expressly to minister to hi* intellectual wants and tastes. Does it then become man to turn away from all these things as from things forbidden? They are a royal gift, and should be gratefully received. They are not a radical cure for the ills of life, but they are a most pleasing solace. They serve to refine and elevate the taste, to calm the passions, to soothe grief, and lighten heavy burdens.