LECTURE X.

THE SPRING AND ITS MORAL ANALOGIES.

PSALM civ. 30.

"Thou renewest the face of the earth."

SOME time since we were endeavouring to describe certain states or moods of feeling, which might be called seasons of the mind; and to show in what manner these might by a judicious and determined exercise of thought, be turned to an advantageous account.

The seasons of external nature, in the course of the year, are a part, and a considerably interesting part, of what makes up our condition during our sojourn on this earth; and good men, from the psalmist downward, have not been content that the effect of these seasons upon them should be confined to the mere external material condition, but have been desirous that the vicissitudes of nature should minister to the welfare of the mind.

The spring season especially has been regarded as fertile of what might afford salutary instruction in a pleasing vehicle. We are now in the very midst of this genial season; and before its flowers and bloom are past, we might do well to endeavour to draw from it something not quite so transient.

The vast importance to us, that this season should regularly and infallibly return in its time, is obvious the instant it is mentioned. But it is not so instantly recollected how entirely we are at the mercy of the God of nature for its return. We are in our places here on the surface of the

earth, to wait in total dependence for Him to cause the seasons to visit our abode, as helpless and impotent as particles of dust. If the Power that brings them on, were to hold them back, we could only submit, or repine-and perish! His will could strike with an instant paralysis the whole moving system of nature. Let there be a suspension of his agency and all would stop; or a change of it, and things would take a new and fearful course! Yet, we are apt to think of the certainty of the return of the desired season, in some other light than that of the certainty that God will cause it to come. With a sort of passive irreligion we allow a something, conceived as an established order of nature, to take the place of the Author and Ruler of nature, forgetful that all this is nothing but the continually acting power and will of God; and that nothing can be more absurd than the notion of God's having constituted a system to be, one moment, independent of himself.

Consider next, this beautiful vernal season: what a gloomy and unpromising scene and season it arises out of! It is almost like creation from chaos; like life from a state of death. If we might be allowed in a supposition so wide from probability, as that a person should not know what season is to follow, while contemplating the scene, and feeling the rigours of winter, how difficult it would be for him to comprehend or believe that the darkness, dreariness, bleakness, and cold—the bare, desolate, and dead aspect of nature, could be so changed. If he could then, in some kind of vision, behold such a scene as that now spread over the earth-he would be disposed to say, "It cannot be;" "this is absolutely a new creation, or another world!"

Might we not take an instruction from this, to correct the judgments we are prone to form of the divine government? We are placed within one limited scene and period of the great succession of the divine dispensations-a dark

and gloomy one-a prevalence of evil. We do not see how it can be, that so much that is offensive and grievous, should be introductory to something delightful and glorious. "Look, how fixed! how inveterate! how absolute! how unchanging! is not this a character of perpetuity ?" If a better, nobler scene to follow is intimated by the spirit of prophecy, in figures analogous to the beauties of spring, it is regarded with a kind of despondency, as if prophecy were but a kind of sacred poetry; and is beheld as something to aggravate the gloom of the present, rather than to draw the mind forward in delightful hope. And so we allow our judgments of the divine government,-(of the mighty field of it, and of its progressive periods,)-to be formed very much upon an exclusive view of the limited, dark portion of his dispensations which is immediately present to us! But such judgments should be corrected by the spring blooming around us, so soon after the gloomy desolation of winter. The man that we were supposing so ignorant and incredulous, what would he now think of what he had thought then?

Again, how welcome are the early signs, and precursory appearances of the spring; the earlier dawn of day;-a certain cheerful cast in the light, even though still shining over an expanse of desolation,-it has the appearance of a smile; a softer breathing of the air, at intervals ;-the bursting of the buds; the vivacity of the animal tribes; the first flowers of the season;-and by degrees, a delicate dubious tint of green. It needs not that a man should be a poet, or a sentimental worshipper of nature, to be delighted with all this.

May we suggest one analogy to this? The operation of the Divine Spirit in renovating the human soul, effecting its conversion from the natural state, is sometimes displayed in this gentle and gradual manner, especially in youth. In

many cases, certainly, it seems violent and sudden (resembling the transition from winter to spring in the northern climates); but, in the more gradual instances, whether in youth or further on in life, it is most gratifying to perceive the first indications,-serious thoughts and emotions— growing sensibility of conscience-distaste for vanity and folly-deep solicitude for the welfare of the soul-a disposi tion to exercises of piety-a progressively clearer, more grateful, and more believing apprehension of the necessity and sufficiency of the work and sacrifice of Christ for human redemption. To a pious friend, or parent, this is more delightful than if he could have a vision of Eden, as it bloomed on the first day that Adam beheld it.

But we may carry the analogy into a wider application. It is most gratifying to perceive the signs of change on the great field of society. How like the early flowers, the more benignant light-the incipient verdure, are the new desire of knowledge, and the schemes and efforts to impart it—the rising, zealous, and rapidly enlarging activity to promote true religion; we may add, the development of the principles and spirit of liberty. In this moral spring, we hope we are advanced a little way beyond the season of the earliest flowers.

The next observation on the spring season is, how reluctantly the worst gives place to the better! While the winter is forced to retire, it is yet very tenacious of its reign; it seems to make many efforts to return; it seems to hate the beauty and fertility that are supplanting it. For months we are liable to cold, chilling, pestilential blasts, and sometimes biting frosts. A portion of the malignant power lingers or returns to lurk, as it were, under the most cheerful sunshine; so that the vegetable beauty remains in hazard, and the luxury of enjoying the spring is attended with danger to persons not in firm health. It is too ob

vious to need pointing out, how much resembling this there is in the moral state of things;-in the hopeful advance and improvement of the youthful mind,-in the early, and indeed the more advanced stages, of the Christian character-and in all the commencing improvements of human society.

We may contemplate next, the lavish, boundless diffusion, riches, and variety of beauty in the spring. Survey a single confined spot, or pass over leagues, or look from a hill; infinite affluence every where! and so you know, too, that it is over a wide portion of the globe at the same time; it is under your feet; extends all around you, spread out to the horizon. And all this created within a few weeks! To every observer the immensity, variety, and beauty are obvious. But to the perceptions of the skilful naturalist all this is indefinitely multiplied. Reflect, what a display is here of the boundless resources of the great Author. He flings forth, as it were, an unlimited wealth— a deluge of beauty, immeasurably beyond all that is strictly necessary; an immense quantity that man never sees, not even in the mass. It is true, that man is not the only creature for which the gratification is designed. But it is man alone, of the earth's inhabitants, that can take any account of it as beauty, or as wisdom, and power, and goodness. Such unlimited profusion may well assure us that He who can (shall we say) afford thus to lavish treasures so far beyond what is simply necessary, can never fail of resources for all that is or ever shall be necessary.

May we not venture to think that this vast superfluity of pleasing objects conferred on this temporary abode of cur feeble and sinful existence, may be taken as one of the intimations of a grand enlargement of faculties in another state? We may assume that in any world to which good men shall be assigned, there will be an immense affluence of the wor