Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Oh! exclaimed Georgiana, was there ever any thing so enchanting as this place! Surely no work of art could combine such striking beauties! Look, dear papa, how nature has adorned that projecting cliff with wreaths of wild roses. I would not strip it of its lovely decoration, yet amidst such luxuriant branches, I might take off some to carry home for mama's flower-pot.

Provided you could get at them, Georgiana! Before you make the attempt, however, consider the danger to which you would expose yourself in clambering the rock, in which expedition I am not sufficiently active to be your companion. Take my advice, be satisfied where you are; the path we are in, though narrow and thorny, is safe: the one for which you would forsake it is certainly broader, but much more hazardous; here you can scarcely escape a few scratches; there, every step would threaten destruction. Especially, papa, when compelled to

leave my support behind. I believe I had better remain in the narrow way with your dear arm to save me from falling.

You will think it the wiser course, Georgiana, when you reflect on the állurements which would draw you away; fading flowers no sooner plucked from their stem, than withered and gone! Oh! how many like my thoughtless girl grasp after a shadow, and lose the substance!

That, however, is not now my case, dear papa, for still I feel your supporting arm ; and I hear your parental voice which calls me back, when inclined to wander from the right path.

The path, my child, must first be pointed out to me, before I can direct you. O may he who is the way, and the truth, and the life, be your unerring guide and counsellor. May his everlasting arms be your shield, and buckler, and refuge; and his word a light to your feet, and a lantern to your paths in the way which leadeth unto life.

CONVERSATION II.

"By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens." Job xxvi. 13.

THE father and daughter had found a seat amongst the rocks, which afforded them shelter from the sun, and from the sudden fall of a shower, (which in that variable season was very common) and presented in front the magnificent prospect of the wide spread world of waters, reflecting the azure blue of the canopy above on its calm surface. On the right, the view was bounded by high peaked mountains, whose dark and craggy summits seemed to touch the bright vault of heaven. the left a clump of hawthorn, clothed in its freshest bloom, wafted fragrance around.

On

How delightfully has nature provided a seat for us! observed Mr. Alford.

Man's device could never have furnished us with the contemplation of such splendid objects, nor have planned so glorious a prospect. How many instructive lessons present themselves in all which surrounds us! Of what should the sun, shining in his brightness, remind us, Georgiana?

The sun is an emblem of the Almighty Creator himself, papa? And we should never behold him without reflecting on the magnificent six days' work which called into existence those lights in the firmament of the heaven which divide the day from the night, and are given for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years."

[ocr errors]

'Of all celestial bodies, first the sun

A mighty sphere he fram'd, unlightsome first,
Though of ethereal mould; then form'd the moon

Globose, and every magnitude of stars,

And sowed with stars the heav'n thick as a field.

First in the east the glorious lamp was seen,

Regent of day, and all th' horizon round,

His longitude through heav'n's high road: the gray
Dawn, and the Pleiades before him danc'd,
Shedding sweet influence.'

Milton's language is very poetic and beautiful, Georgiana. Before we hear of the creation of the sun, God said, "Let there be light, and there was light." Light must therefore have emanated from him who is its source, without the medium of that resplendent globe of light. Can you recollect any other applicable lines of Milton's?

Yes, papa.

'Hail! holy light, offspring of heav'n first-born,
Or of the eternal coeternal beam,

May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effulgence of bright essence uncreate,
Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell before the sun,
Before the heav'ns thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep
Won from the void and formless infinite.'

Observe, Georgiana, how concisely and emphatically all this is described in the sacred revelation! "The heavens and the earth were finished, and the host of

« AnteriorContinuar »