New England Religious Herald

FOR THE N. E. R. HERALD.

God's Power and Wisdom in Renewing the Earth.

To the lover of nature and the works of God there is the choicest field for intellectual and moral improvement, when God "renews the face of the earth." How can a man be an Atheist—be sceptical, be blind, or unfeeling or ungrateful, when he beholds such evidences of God's wisdom, power and goodness! Can he explain the manner in which a single leaf is nourished and expands; or solve the mystery of the seed dying in the earth and reproducing its kind, and clothing the earth with its rich harvests. Can he look upon this process, when the birds are filling the air with their melody, and all the natural world is rejoicing in the refreshing influence of spring, and not feel that God is loudly calling for a devout acknowledgement of his wisdom, and a heartfelt impression of his goodness?— "O, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men"! But however men may recognize God in this, all are pleased to behold his wonderful works, though they trace them not to their first and benevolent cause. The renewal of the face of the earth is pleasant to the eye.

When you look out upon the earth in its spring time and its budding beauties, you are ready to exclaim, Oh! this is a beautiful, beautiful world, which God hath made! It is so. And would be far more so, if sin had not marred it, and this having entered "brought death and all our woe." Now your thoughts are saddened by the reflection that all its life and beauty are transient. You see death written upon everything around you; upon the earth, with its rich verdure; upon the leaves, with their beautiful greenness; upon the flowers, in all their variety and fragrance! They are all hurrying to a common tomb. They receive their very vitality and nourishment from the decay and death of things as beautiful as themselves. And ere long they shall die only to reproduce their kind and afford nourishment for other objects of organized life, which shall have their brief space of being and be forgotten. Decay! Death! Forgetfulness! Thus it is with human life. We are all passing away! But thanks to God, there is a better and a brighter world, where that which is really fair and beautiful shall never die! There is a world of unfading beauty. There are regions of perpetual sunlight. There is an atmosphere always loaded with fragrance and vocal with perfect melody. There is a mansion and a home, where the very image of death and thoughts of sadness are forgotten!

R.