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How beautiful is the dew on a calm summer morning! It freshens every thirsty plant, washes every delicate flower, and gives new lustre to its finest tints. It cools and refreshes the whole surface of the ground. And as soon as the sun's earliest beams shoot forth from the eastern horizon, its innumerable drops twinkle in the golden light, like a fallen shower of diamonds. As the sun ascends, they disappear before his beams, partly absorbed by the plants on which they lay, and partly evaporated by the increasing heat. At night, the moisture that composed them may form new globules, and invigorate the vegetation of other fields. Thus, in every department of Nature, there is an endless series of movements and transmutations. On the earth's surface, all is activity and unceasing play; all is subservient to the supporting in life and beauty the animal and vegetable world. The watery particles, in particular, display the most useful volatility. They ascend into the air by evaporation; they thence fall in the shape of dew, mist, rain, or snow. they reascend, or, incorporated with the waters of rivers, visit the ocean. But even there they feel the solar influence, and again mount on high to visit the fields and mountains they watered before, or haply to bedew the plants of another hemisphere.

Thus, in the appearance and effects of dew, we find the beautiful conjoined with the useful. In its formation we discover the most exquisite contrivance; in the times and places of its appearance, the most striking adaptation to the economy of vegetables. Yet by no intricate or peculiar arrangements is it produced; it forms no exception to the simplicity of Nature. Its varied and beautiful phenomena are the results of but three general laws, the radiation of heat, and the condensation of vapor by cold, combined with the moulding power of corpuscular attraction, which forms it into globules. Here, therefore, let us admire and adore that Divine Wisdom which, by means the most simple, produces the most wonderful effects, and which is every where rendered subservient to the designs of an unbounded good

ness.

J. D.

SECOND WEEK-SUNDAY.

ON THE SCRIPTURAL ALLUSIONS TO THE DEW.

Most of the grand phenomena and aspects of Nature are mentioned in Scripture, and so applied as to teach or illustrate some important lesson. They are spoken of as declaring the glory of God in creation; they are employed to represent his dealings with the children of men. The snow, the hail, the thunder, and the storm, are appealed to as grandly showing forth his power and terrible majesty; the wind, that "bloweth where it listeth," the early and the latter rain, and the gently dropping dew, are used as appropriate images of the blessings continually showered down from on high, and especially of the influence of the Holy Spirit upon the soul. The Bible, designed to be an intelligible record of Divine instruction, abounds in imagery borrowed from material nature, and expressly adapted to arrest and charm the attention. It contains many beautiful allusions to the phenomena of dew, a few of which we propose making the subject of this day's paper.

The beneficial effects of dew, in reviving and refreshing the entire landscape, have already been adverted to. How frequently do we observe the aspect of the fields and woods improved by the dew of a single night. In the summer season, especially, when the solar heat is most intense, and when the luxuriant vegetation requires a constant and copious supply of moisture, an abundant formation of dew often seasonably refreshes the thirsty herbs, and saves them from the parching drought. In Eastern countries, like Judea, where the summer is fervid and long continued, and the evaporation excessive, dew is both more needed, and formed in much greater abundance, than in our more temperate climate. There it may be said to interpose between the vegetable world

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and the scorching influence of a powerful and unclouded sun, to be the hope and the joy of the husbandman, the theme of his earnest prayer and heartfelt gratitude. Accordingly, the sacred writers speak of it as the choicest of blessings wherewith a land can be blessed; while the want of it is with them almost synonymous with a curse. Moses, blessing the land of Joseph, classes the dew among "the precious things of heaven ;"* and David, in his lamentation over Saul and Jonathan, poetically invoking a curse upon the place where they fell, wishes no dew to descend upon the mountains of Gilboa. Almighty, Himself, promising, by the mouth of one of his prophets, to bless his chosen people, says, "I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon." Here the refreshing and fertilizing effects of dew beautifully represent the prosperity of the nation which God specially favors and protects. The dew is also employed, by the prophet Micah, to illustrate the influence of God's people in the midst of an evil world, where he says, that "the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people, as a dew from the Lord." What emblem more expressive of that spiritual life, in some of its members, which preserves a people from entire corruption and decay!

Another beautiful application of the dew in Scripture, is its being made to represent the influence of heavenly truth upon the soul. In the commencement of his sublime song, Moses employs these exquisite expressions:

"My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew; as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass." Similar passages might be quoted from the sacred writers, wherein, by a felicity of comparison that all must at once acknowledge, the word and ordinances of God are likened to the dew of the field. How strikingly the reviving effects of dew upon the parched and thirsty vegetation of the sunscorched plain typify the moral and spiritual freshness diffused by the word preached in its purity, and received

* Deut. xxxiii. 13.

+ Micah v. 7.

+ Hosea xiv. 5.

§ Deut. xxxii. 2.

with faith and love. As the dew of a night will sometimes bring back beauty and bloom to unnumbered languishing plants and flowers, and spread a pleasant freshness over the fields, so will some rich and powerful exposition of revealed truth, or some ordinance, dispensed with genuine fervor, not unfrequently enliven and wholly refresh a Christian congregation, or even spread a moral verdure over a large portion of the visible church. If the soul be stained in its intercourse with the world,if, like the grass on the way-side, that is covered with dust, it contract impurity in the beaten paths of life, the word of God falls upon it with a refreshing influence, like the dews of night upon that grass, to wash it, and to wipe away all marks of contact with surrounding corruption. If it be scorched by the withering sun of persecution, and pine for spiritual nourishment and support, that same word bedews it with the sweetest influences, and affords it sustenance, in richness and salubrity like that of the heavenly manna itself.

But let us not forget, that the word of God sheds a healing influence only when it is rendered effectual by the Spirit of all truth. The Spirit worketh through the instrumentality of the word; silently, secretly, and powerfully worketh; falling gently, operating unseen, and diffusing refreshment around, like the balmy dews of night. Of the Spirit's agency the dew is, indeed, the finest and aptest illustration. As dew to the parched and drooping flower, so is the Spirit shed upon the Christian's soul; as the "dew of Hermon," or the dew that descends upon the mountains of Zion," spreading freshness and beauty over the whole surface of the ground, so is the same Spirit poured out in rich abundance upon the church, the spiritual Zion, in times of reviving and refreshing from the Lord.

As we spring from our couch, therefore, on the bright summer morning, and walk joyfully forth into the fragrant fields, to breathe the inspiring air, feast our eyes upon the glowing mixture of colors in which all Nature is arrayed, and listen to the sweet and various music that ascends from every grove, let us not fail to derive a high

spiritual lesson from the dew that is so thickly strewn upon the grass beneath our feet. Distilled in the silent night by the reciprocal influences of heaven and earth, it bathes and refreshes each blade and flower with its stainless moisture. Let us regard it as the chosen image of God's choicest blessing, the cleansing and sanctifying influence of His Spirit upon the heart of man.

J. D.

SECOND WEEK-MONDAY.

ADAPTATIONS OF THE FACULTIES OF LIVING BEINGS TO THE PROPERTIES OF LIGHT AND AIR.

THE fluids which surround our globe, so remarkable and so diverse in their properties, have already been considered in various aspects and relations, both as respect themselves and organized existences. There are, however, some striking adaptations of the animal creation to these fluids, which have not yet been considered. Among these, the conformation of the organs of sight and hearing are particularly worthy of notice.

Light possesses very peculiar qualities. Its rays dart with inconceivable rapidity; they are of different properties, and are either reflected in all possible directions from the objects on which they strike, or absorbed by these objects, or otherwise they pass through them. Now, there is a very artificially formed instrument in living bodies, obviously and most beautifully adapted to these qualities. That instrument is the eye. I cannot stop to enter into a minute examination of this curious and complicated machine. This has already been done, very effectively, by Paley; and I must refer my readers to his ingenious comparison between the eye and the telescope, as one of the most interesting and triumphant arguments for Designing Wisdom which can easily be conceived. I must, however, request the reader to observe, that without the eye, light would be of no use to

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