"I hate these scenes, Orlando angry cried; And these proud farmers, yes, I hate their pride; See that sleek fellow, how he stalks along, Strong as an ox, and ignorant as strong. These deep, fat meadows I detest; it shocks One's feelings there to see the grazing ox;-- For slaughter fatted--as a lady's smile Rejoices man, and means his death the while." And if mere disappointment, without a consciousness of guilt and remorse, could produce such effects, what must we expect when the mind is not at peace with itself? Tendencies are shown by extreme cases, and it is in perfect consistency with the nature of things that Milton makes Satan exclaim, on seeing Eden in its united innocence and beauty, "O hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold!" Who can imagine a miser, even, to say nothing of a thief, or a drunkard, lifting his eyes from his buried heaps, and enjoying the scene before him, however beautiful? While he who performs a deed of charity at the end of his walk, will find nature wearing a richer dress on his return. The mind conscious of rectitude is at peace with itself, and is in that calm state which permits it to enjoy whatever is pleasing. But not only, as in the cases now mentioned, is a right state of moral feeling favorable to taste, but the emotions of taste also tend to introduce moral ideas and emotions. It is, as I conceive, chiefly from this fact that nature has a tendency to lead the mind "up to nature's God;" for we must all be conscious that when we view nature as beautiful or sublime, this tendency is strongest. No one can have stood by Niagara, or upon the White Mountains, without feeling this. Hence the groves and the high hills were the first places of worship. Hence the Indian sacrifices to the Great Spirit when he passes through the wild rapids. And as we associate the beauties of nature with the wisdom and goodness of God, so do we, in many cases, instinctively infer from the displays of taste in man, something of his moral character. Who, for example, in travelling through a solitary forest, if he should come, as there are many such, to a neat log-house, with a trellised woodbine at the door, and with every thing orderly and clean about it, would not expect to pass by unmolested, or, if he should call, to be civilly and kindly treated?--whereas, if every thing bore the appearance of filth and dilapidation, and the only signs of taste were those which indicated a taste for rum, he might well quicken his pace for fear he should be waylaid. No one expects to find indications of taste about the dwelling of a drunkard, or of one abandoned to any low vice. I appeal to any one who hears me, whether he has not felt that it was an indication of a good moral character, and an encouragement to charity, when he has entered some poor dwelling and found that there was still kept alive, in the midst of poverty, a susceptibility to the emotions, and a regard to the requisitions of taste.