the sermon with the greater pleasure and profit for the sight. It
is characteristic of the preaching of a really able man, preaching
what he himself has felt, that all he says appears (as a general
rule) in harmony with all the universe; while the preaching of a
commonplace man, giving us from memory mere theological doctrine
which has been drilled into him, and which he repeats because he
supposes it must be all right, seems inconsistent with all the material
universe, or at least quite apart from it. Yet, even listening to
that excellent sermon (whose masculine thought was very superior to
its somewhat slovenly style), I thought, as I looked at the beautiful
tree rising in the silent churchyard,--the stately sycamore,
so bright green, with the blue sky all around it,--how truly John
Foster wrote, that when standing in January at the foot of a large
oak, and looking at its bare branches, he vainly tried to picture
to himself what that tree would be in June. The reality would be
far richer and finer than anything he could imagine on the winter
day. Who does not know this? The green grass and the bright leaves
in spring are far greener (you see when they come back) than you
had remembered or imagined; the sunshine is more golden, and the
sky more bright. God's works are better and more beautiful than
our poor idea of them. Though I have seen them and loved them now
for more than thirty summers, I have felt this year, with something
of almost surprise, how exquisitely beautiful are summer foliage
and summer grass. Here they are again, fresh from God! The summer
world is incomparably more beautiful than any imagination could
picture it on a dull December day. You did not know on New Year's
day, my reader, how fair a thing the sunshine is. And the commonest
things are the most beautiful. Flowers are beautiful: he must be
a blackguard who does not love them. Summer seas are beautiful, so
exquisitely blue under the blue summer sky. But what can surpass