The Prosaic Garland; Consisting of Upwards of Two-Hundred Pieces Selected from the Works of the Distinguished Writers of the Present Age (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: maker, or the binder. Von never did see them, you never will see them; and yet there is not one of yon who will think of disputing or denying the being of these men. 1 go farther, I affirm that yousee the very souls of these men in seeing this book, and you feel yourselves obliged to allow that, by the contrivance, design, memory, fancy, reason, and so on. In the same manner, if you see a picture, yon judge there was a painter; if you see a house, you judge there was a builder of it; and if you see one room contrived for this purpose and another for that, a door to enter, a window to admit light, a chimney to hold fire, you conclude that the builder was a person of skill and forecast who formed the house, with a view to the accommodation of its inhabitants. In thisman- ner examine the world, and pity the man who when he sees the sign of the wheat-sheaf, hath sense enough to know.- that there is a joiner, and somewhere a painter, but who, when he sees the wheat-sheaf itself is so stupid as not to say to himselfg " this had a wise and good Creator I" Robinson. A TREE THE EMBLEM OF LIFE. TlIIS object of Nature, which we meet with in every direction, is replete with instruction. The contemplative mind views it with peculiar interest, and derives from it no inconsiderable improvement. " AS I sat carelessly at my window and cast my eyes upon a large acacia which grew before me, I conceived that it might aptly repre- t'iit a euuutry divided into provinces, towns and families. The large branches might hold out the first- -the smaller branches counected with them, the second?and those combinations of collateral leaves, which specify the acacia might represent families composed of individuals. It was now late in the year, and the antumnal tints had taken possession of great pa...