“Now, too, a single rain-storm, like the above, breaks up all the paths and ways at once, and makes home no longer ‘home’ to those who are not obliged to leave it; while it becomes doubly endeared to those who are. What sight, for instance, is so pleasant to the wearied woodman, who has been out all day long in the drenching rains of this month, as his own distant cottage window seen through the thickening dusk, lighted up by the blazing fagot that is to greet his sure return at the accustomed minute?” While we watch the effects of the various rains, and their beneficial influence on the earth, there is also much to excite our gratitude and admiration; for among the many beautiful contrivances in creation, none is more remarkable than the means by which the earth is watered and refreshed by rain. The oceans, seas, lakes, and other waters of the earth supply the air with moisture, which, rendered elastic and invisible by the heat of the sun and of the earth, rises to various heights in the atmosphere, where it forms clouds in all their wonderful beauty and variety. These are borne by the winds to places far inland, to which water in sufficient quantity could not come by any other means, and where moisture is most required; and here the water is poured down, not in cataracts and water-spouts, but in the form of drops of various sizes. If the rain-clouds threw down, at once and suddenly, all the water contained in them, not only would vegetation be destroyed by the force of the fall, but we should be constantly liable to floods and other inconveniences. Clouds also serve to screen the earth from the fierce heat of the sun by day; and, by night, they serve to maintain the heat which would otherwise escape by radiation, and produce great cold even in summer. Clouds thus have great influence in regulating the extremes of heat and cold, and in forming what is called the “climate” of a country. Clouds also supply the hidden stores of fountains and the fresh water of rivers; and, as a pious old divine well remarks, “So abundant is this great blessing, which the most indulgent Creator hath afforded us by means of this distribution of the waters I am speaking of, that there is more than a scanty, bare provision, a mere sufficiency; even a plenty, a surplusage of this useful creature of God, the fresh waters afforded to the world; and they so well ordered, as not to drown the nations of the earth, nor to stagnate, stink, and poison, or annoy them; but to be gently carried through convenient channels back again to their grand fountain the sea; and many of them through such large tracts of land and to such prodigious distances, that it is a great wonder the fountains should be high enough, or the seas low enough, ever to afford so long a conveyance.” {18}