is, whether we are exactly aware of it or not, in an anticipation of what it is to result in. And though as we have said, there is much for uncomplacent presentiment in beholding the bloom, animation, and unfolding faculties of early life, yet they who are affectionately interested in the sight, are insensibly carried forward in imagination to the virtues and accomplishments which they are willing to foresee in the mature and advanced states. It may be added, as one more point in this parallel, that the rapid passing away of the peculiar beauty of spring, gives an emblem of the transient continuance of the lively and joyous period of human life.

We have seen that they are not all pleasing ideas that arise in the contemplation of the vernal season. There is one of a profoundly gloomy character, that of the portentous general contrast between the beauty of the natural, and the deformity of the moral world. A correspondence seems to be required in things which are associated together. Survey then the fair scene (such as on this day) and think what kind of beings, to correspond to it, the rational inhabitants ought to be; (not a few, a small intermingled portion, but the general race.) Would not the conception be,-innocence, ingenuousness, all the kind and sweet affections, bright refined thought, spontaneous advancement in all good, piety to heaven? But now look on the actual fact and that, without going so far off as those fine tracts of the earth where man is the most cruel and ferocious of the wild beasts that infest them. See in these more civilized regions, the coarse debasement-the selfishness-the ill tempers and malignant passions-the hostile artifices -the practices of injustice-the obstinacy in evil habits— the irreligion, both negative and daringly positive! Within the memory of many of us, how much of the vernal beauty of Europe, every year, has been trodden down under the

feet, or blasted by the ravages of hostile armies! how many a blooming bower has given out its odours mingled with the putrid effluvia of human creatures killed by one another! Such is the correspondence of the inhabitants to the beautiful scenery of their dwelling-place! The fair luxury of spring serves to bring out, more prominently, the hideous features of the moral condition!

But even if we could keep out of view this directly moral contrast, there are still other circumstances of a gloomy colour. Amidst this glowing life of the vernal season, there are languor, and sickness, and infirm old age, and death! While nature smiles, there are many pale countenances that do not. Sometimes you have met, slowly pacing the green meadow or the garden, a figure emaciated by illness, or feeble with age; and were the more forcibly struck by the spectacle as seen amidst a luxuriance of life. For a moment you have felt as if all the living beauty faded or receded from around, in the shock of the contrast. You may have gone into a house beset with roses and all the pride of spring, to see a person lingering and sinking in the last feebleness of mortality. You may have seen a funeral train passing through a flowery avenue. And the ground which is the depository of the dead, bears, not the less for that, its share of the beauty of spring. The great course of nature pays no regard to the particular circumstances of man, no suspension, no sympathy!

We will note but one more grave consideration. To a person in the latter stages of life, if destitute of the senti ments and expectations of Religion, this world of beauty must lose its captivations; it must even take a melancholy aspect; for, what should strike him so directly and forcibly as the thought, that he is soon to leave it? It may even appear too probable that this is the last spring season he shall behold; while he looks upon it, he

may feel

an intima

tion that he is bidding it adieu; his paradise is retiring behind him, and what but a dreary immeasurable desert is before him? This will blast the fair scene while he surveys it, however rich its hues and the sunshine that gilds it!

On the contrary, and by the same rule, this fair display of the Creator's works and resources will be gratifying, the most and the latest, to the soul animated with the love of God, and the confidence of soon entering on a nobler scene. "Let me," he may say, "look once more at what my Divine Father has diffused even hither as a faint intimation of

what he has somewhere else. I am pleased with this as a distant outskirt, as it were, of the paradise toward which I am going." Though we are not informed of the exact manner of a happy existence in another state, assuredly, there will be an ample and eternal exercise of the faculties on the wondrous works of the Almighty, and therefore a mode of perception adapted to apprehend their beauty, harmony, and magnificence. It is not for us to conjecture whether good spirits corporeally detached from this world, are therefore withdrawn from all such relation to it, or knowledge of it, as would admit of their retaining still some perception of the material beauty and sublimity displayed upon it by the Creator. But it may well be presumed that in one region or other of his dominions, the intellectual being will be empowered with a faculty to perceive every order of phenomena in which his glory is manifested. If we think of an angel traversing this earth, though he has not our mode of apprehending this fair vision of spring, it were absurd to suppose that therefore all this material grace and splendour is to him obliterated, blank, and indifferent. We shall not then believe that any change which shall elevate the human spirit, will by that very fact, destroy, as to its perception, admiration, and enjoyment, any of the characters on the works of God.

We hastily close the contemplation by observing, what an immensity of attainable interest and delight, of one class only (besides the sublimer,) there is, that may be lost, -and all is lost, if the soul be lost!

May 27, 1822.

LECTURE XI.

THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH.

GENESIS Xviii., xix.

"And the Lord appeared to him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day," &c.

WE just now read the nineteenth chapter of Genesis, containing the narrative of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and other cities of the vale of Siddim.

At our last meeting of this kind we made some reflections on the beauty spread over the earth, especially in the season of spring. And, as one of those reflections, it was very obvious to note the sad contrast between the beauty of nature, and the moral quality mingled through the scene. There is no need of ancient and foreign illustrations; but a very striking one is that Vale of Siddim. Lot had beheld it "as the garden of the Lord" (Gen. xiii. 10), and was so captivated, that he chose it for his sojourn, even with the certainty that "his righteous soul" must be "vexed."

Think of a region blooming and smiling in all the riches of nature;-on every hand something to raise the contemplative thought to the glorious Creator;-something, it might be supposed, to refine and harmonize the sentiments; -and a copious fertility of supply, to make every tract speak the bounty of Providence.

But amidst all this, what was MAN? A hideous assemblage of beings, "sensual-devilish,"-such as might almost be conceived to have been thrown up from the infernal realms, to go down again in an earthquake and