The day book. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 1857-1867, 1857-11-30
The Mira Giles of Nature.

A celebrated sceptical philosopher of
the last century-the historian Hume
thought to denolsh the credbility of the
Christian Revelation by the concise argyll
ment. 1t is contrary to experience that a
miracle should be true, but not contrary
to experience that testimony should be
false. The last part Of the proposition,
especially in free country, on the eve of
a popular election, is unhappily. too well
founded: but in what book worms dusty
cell, tapestried with the cobwebs of ages,
where the light of real life and nature
never forced it's way-iri what pedants
school, where deaf ears listen to dumb
lips, md blind followers are lead by blind
guides-did he learn that it is contrary to
experience that miracle should be true?
Most certainly he never learned it from
mower Or reaper-trom dumb animal, or
rational man connected with husbandry
Poor Red Jacket, off here on Buffalo creek.
if he could have comprehendcd the terms
of the proposition. would have treated it
with scorn. Contrary to experience that
phenomena should exist which we cannot
trace to causes perceptible to the human
sense, or conceivable by human thought !!
1t would be much nearer the trust to say
that within the husbandnlan's experience
there is no phenomena which can be ra-
tionally traced to anything but the instant
energy of creative power.
DID this philosopher ever contemplate
the landscape at the close of the year,
when seeds, and grains, and fruits have
ripened, and stalks have withered, and
leaves have fallen, and winter has forced
her icy curb even into the roaring jaws vi
Niagara. and sheeted half continent in
her gIittering shroud, and all this teelu-
ing vegetation and organized life are
locked in cold and marble obstruction;
and, alter week upon week and month
upon month have swept, with sieet, and
chilly rain, and bowling storm over the
earth, and riveted their crystal bolts uPoli
the door Of natures sepulchre;-whel the
sun at length begins to wheel in higher
circles through the sky, and softer winds
to breathe over melting snows-did he
ever behold the long-hidden earth at
length appear, and soon the timid grass
peep forth, and anon the autumna Wheat
begin to paint the field, and velvet leaflets
to burst from purple beds. throughout
the reyiving forest; and then the mellow
soil to open its fruitful bosom to every
grain and seed dropped from the planters
hand, buried but to spring up again,
clothed with a new mysterious being; and
then, as more fervd suns intlame the air,
and softer showers distil from the clouds,
and gentler dews string their pearls on
twig and tendrill, did he ever watch the
ripening grain and fruit, pendent from
stalk and vine, and tree; the meadow,
the field, the pasture, the grove, each
after his kind arrayedin myriad tinted gar
ments, instinct with calculating life; seven
millions of counted leaves on single tree
each OF which is a system whose exqui-
site complication puts to shame the shrew-
dest cunning Of the human hand; every
planted seed and grain which had been
loaned to the earth, compromising its pi-
Gus usury thirty, sixty, a hundred fold, -
all harmoniously adapted to the susie
nance of living nature,-the bread of a
hungry world; here titled cornfeld,
whose yellow blades are nodding with
the food of man; there an implanted will
derness,-the great Fathers FARM
where he 'who hears the ravens cry" has
cultivated, with his OWN hand, his merci-
full crop of berries, and nuts, and acorns,
and seeds, for the humber families of an
mated nature; the solemn elephant, the
browsing deer, the wild pigeon, whose
futtering caravan darkens the sky; the
merry squirrel who bounds from branch
to branch, i'll the joy of his little life 3
has he all this,-does he live, and move
and hreathe and think in the atlnOSnhere