_Nature_, employed in her allotted place, Is hand-maid to the purposes of Grace; By good vouchsafed, makes known superior good, And bliss not seen, by blessings understood. _Cowper._ He looks abroad into the varied field Of _Nature_; and though poor, perhaps, compared With those whose mansions glitter in his sight, Calls the delightful scenery all his own. His are the mountains, and the valleys his, And the resplendent rivers; his to enjoy With a propriety that none can feel, But who, with filial confidence inspired, Can lift to Heaven an unpresumptuous eye, And smiling say, “My Father made them all!” _Cowper._ By swift degrees the love of _Nature_ works, And warms the bosom; till, at last sublimed To rapture and enthusiastic heat, We feel the present Deity, and taste The joy of God to see a happy world. _Thomson._ From _Nature’s_ constant or eccentric laws, The thoughtful soil this general inference draws-- That an effect must pre-suppose a cause. _Prior._ All _Nature_ is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good. _Pope._ Read _Nature_; _Nature_ is a friend to truth: _Nature_ is Christian; preaches to mankind; And bids dead matter aid us in our creed. _Young._ How faint is language when we strive to sing The beauties of the Almighty hand! Each year upon our outward sense they win, With all increasing and still varying force; The seasons, days, months, years, incessant bring Contrasting changes! First seeds, leaves, expand As the young years with tender warmth begin, Then bloom and fruit, and life bursts from its source, In animated _Nature_, then decays, And with revolving time is still renew’d. Thus hope’s bright beam the distant scene displays Where no repelling shadow’s may intrude; So life may joyous be, and genius dwells In new awaked fires, and fresh enchantment spells. _Sir E. Brydges._ Almighty Father! such the lesson is That in these cool and venerable woods, I con to-day; and firmer in my breast, By every syllable, these truths are fixed That Thou art the Beginning and the End Of all this glorious work, and that Thy love Pervades the universe; and that Thy smile Seeketh all hearts, to sun them; and that Thou, In every glorious thing we here behold, Declarest and reveal’st Thyself to be The Majesty Supreme--Eternal God. _W. D. Gallagher._