Poverty in the country--however poor it may be, however low it may have fallen--is still surrounded with a few fragments of the Paradise which was once man's possession. There we see the blue of the sky bending and resting upon the dim rim of the horizon, or losing itself in the twilight of other worlds. The bladed green of the refreshing earth lies below like a rich velvet carpet which God hath diapered with flowers of "all hues," and thrown down for man to tread upon. The solemn avenue of stately trees rises like a tall temple, roofed in by his mighty hand; and as we gaze upward, we feel the heart worshipping Him unawares, and walk along surrounded with the awe of an old religion. Every rounded pebble beside which the stream plays and murmurs, sends up its tiny voice through the bubbling silver, and fills up the pause in the great anthem which Nature hymns in His praise. In the greenless and sunless streets of the busy city we see not this God-created life, this old world, which has lived on ever since a broad leaf waved; long perchance before Eve planted her white and naked foot on the rounded daisies that blowed in Eden, when the voice of God was heard "walking in the garden in the cool of the day" (Genesis iii. 8). The visions which St. John the Evangelist obtained of heaven were of a city whose golden gates were never closed; of a river clear as crystal, and trees bending beneath their load of fruit. Isaiah also saw there "the glory of Lebanon: ... the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of [his] sanctuary." And in our own dreams of those immortal realms, we but catch dim glimpses of what is beautiful on earth--a peaceful country, green and flowery; and over the sunshine which sleeps thereon the shadows of angels are ever passing. Those who never see the beauties which God hath scattered over the face of the earth, can scarcely imagine any thing of heaven, or dream of delights beyond the worship which they join in here below. Our forefathers were a holiday-loving people. With what delight they set out to bring home May! Herrick has told us, in undying verse: they hung a green bough on every door, and suspended from window to window, in the centre of the streets, endless garlands of flowers. The dance under the May-pole was surely preferable to reeling out of a gin-shop; and the archers practising in the cool of a summer evening, under the trees in Moorfields, much better than a stifling skittle-ground, reeking with tobacco, gin, and beer. If the country is a little farther from London than it was in those days, we are enabled to reach it as soon as they did, when linked to that space-cleaving thunder-bolt, a railway engine; and quick and far away as the flowers have flown, we can still overtake them in a few minutes.