The Arkansas advocate., 1830-06-16

! TaIns KH0wfeGEe anr 'eepecIaify fcfeiitflIs; knowledge.a q knowledge ofsuch things as the air, and the light, and the stars, an ideal good, bubble atthe outset,a thing that cannot be put on the file of bonds and deeds, nor served up in the feast TOT
 7lsde any thing of iii any way,--wiit, says our wise man, the project is chi Imericali And And forthwith lie begins to talk about Utophia, and Oceana, Area dla, and sundry other things that have no real existence.p
 The annexed extract is beautifully descriptive.
 "Take singlyy the phenomena ofyege- tation-what a secret world of won ders is there in every plant2 It seems unfortunate that any man should pass through one spring season, and under stand nothing of these most curious and beautiful processes, that are going on all round him. Growth, vegetable growth, which to the ignorant is bare and na ked fact, to the scientific eye is 3 hiisstte hiisstte ", whole history of things, the most interesting to every intelligent mind. Surveyit through from its foundation silently and Hnysteriotisly wrought iB the dark and senseless earth. till if rises np to the stately plant, or the towering for est tree; examine its interior structure; trace the firm and tough flores that give it strength b resist the storms amidst which it fourishes; observe the duets and channels carefully laid in t, to con vey streams from the rich fountains of life below; mark its numerous cells, those secret laboratories of nature, and then consider the liquid sustenance car ried to its topmost hough and its outer most leaf, with no forcing pump to raise it, and conveying each particle to the exact place and position where 1t is need ed by process of secretion that seems ike mystery, and mystery if is:-sufyey this exquisite workmanship, and who We ask, would not know something of all this? ,? Who would not give little time to procure so great a satisfaction? Who can be content to pass through the world in ignorance of these works ofhis Crea- tor.''
 Another extract is all we have room for.
 Nature. too. is as trnly amanifestion from Heaven as the scriptures. Iris elderScripturewritb by Gods ownhand. The knowledge of il could scarcely fail to be most powerful means of deyo- lion. Itis worthy of remark, that these philosophers, il general, who have been students Of nature, have been distin- guished by a pious reverence for the au- thor of nature. How without that madness which the poet charges upon. the uadeyout astronomer, could they escape it2 It follows as inference from premises, as cause from effect. 4 man who reads a work of genius, if he com prehends it, unavoidahly adnifes its-ssu- thor. How could similar, but loftier sentiment fail to arise from q study of the volume of nature!
 But this volume has an advantage, in one respect over all other volumes. It is as we have already intimated ever open before us, and we may read it at our leisure.' Nay, we must read it, if we understand its language, almost in spite of ourselves. Its line is goue out through all the earth, and its words to the end of the world Now of this va rious, unceasing omnipresent communi- cation, knowledge, knowledge we re- peat, is the great interpreter. It would make the world new sphere to us, a sphere of new and nobler influences Nothing that we remember, besides the direct effect of religious emotion, ever so effeetually and entirely placed us in a snew world,' as the simple philosophi- cal history of vegetation. Knowledge would write lessons of piety on every leaf. Every turf would be fragrant |shrine.' The earth in its light would rear ten thousand altars around us.- The air we breathe would be incense. And heaven, beyond towering arch or temples dome, would bear us to con- temptations, glorious, sublime, unspeak- able, of the adorable Creator"
 The New Monthly Magazine has the following account of the vexations prac- tised by the Custom-house Officers in