iritual nature. Therefore is
nature glorious with form, color, and motion, that every globe in the
remotest heaven; every chemical change from the rudest crystal up
to the laws of life; every change of vegetation from the first
principle of growth in the eye of a leaf, to the tropical forest and
antediluvian coal-mine; every animal function from the sponge up to
Hercules, shall hint or thunder to man the laws of right and wrong,
and echo the Ten Commandments. Therefore is nature ever the ally
of Religion: lends all her pomp and riches to the religious sentiment.
Prophet and priest, David, Isaiah, Jesus, have drawn deeply from
this source. This ethical character so penetrates the bone and marrow
of nature, as to seem the end for which it was made. Whatever
private purpose is answered by any member or part, this is its public
and universal function, and is never omitted. Nothing in nature is
exhausted in its first use. When a thing has served an end to the
uttermost, it is wholly new for an ulterior service. In God, every end
is converted into a new means. Thus the use of commodity, regarded
by itself, is mean and squalid. But it is to the mind an education in
the doctrine of Use, namely, that a thing is good only so far as it
serves; that a conspiring of parts and efforts to the production of an
end, is essential to any being. The first and gross manifestation of
this truth, is our inevitable and hated training in values and wants, in
corn and meat.

It has already been illustrated, that every natural process is a version
of a moral sentence. The moral law lies at the centre of nature and
radiates to the circumference. It is the pith and marrow of every
substance, every relation, and every process. All things with which
we deal, preach to us. What is a farm but a mute gospel? The chaff
and the wheat, weeds and plants, blight, rain, insects, sun,--it is a
sacred emblem from the first furrow of spring to the last stack which
the snow of winter overtakes in the fields. But the sailor, the
shepherd, the miner, the merchant, in their several resorts, have each
an experience precisely parallel, and leading to the same conclusion:
because all organizations are radically alike. Nor can it be doubted
that this moral sentiment which thus scents the air, grows in the
grain, and impregnates the waters of the world, is caught by man
and sinks into his soul. The moral influence of nature upon every
individual is that amount of truth