s where the water fell, it
did not appear that a breath of wind had ever blown. The thin edges of
the great leaves of the Banana, damp with spray, were unbroken, instead
of being, as is so generally the case, split into a thousand shreds.
From our position, almost suspended on the mountain-side, there were
glimpses into the depths of the neighbouring valleys: and the lofty
points of the central mountains, towering up within sixty degrees of the
zenith, hid half the evening sky. Thus seated, it was a sublime
spectacle to watch the shades of night gradually obscuring the last and
highest pinnacles."[218]

This scene must have been one of surpassing sublimity and loveliness.
Few doubtless have ever beheld anything that can be compared with it.
But perhaps many have felt--I have, often,--that there are occasions in
which the sense of the beautiful in nature becomes almost painfully
overpowering. I have gazed on some very lovely prospects, bathed perhaps
in the last rays of the evening sun, till my soul seemed to struggle
with a very peculiar undefinable sensation, as if longing for a power to
enjoy, which I was conscious I did not possess, and which found relief
only in tears. I have felt conscious that there were elements of
enjoyment and admiration there, which went far beyond my capacity of
enjoying and admiring; and I have delighted to believe, that, by and by,
when, in the millennial kingdom of Jesus, and, still more, in the
remoter future, in the dispensation of the fulness of times, the
earth--the "_new_ earth,"--shall be endowed with a more than
paradisaical glory, there will be given to redeemed man a greatly
increased power and capacity for drinking in, and enjoying the augmented
loveliness. Doubtless the risen and glorified saints, sitting with the
King of kings upon His throne, will have the senses of their spiritual
bodies expanded in capacity beyond what we can now form the slightest
conception of; and as all then will be enjoyment of the most exquisite
kind, and absolutely unalloyed by interruption or satiety,--the eye will
at length be satisfied with seeing, and the ear be satisfied with
hearing. "_I shall be satisfied_, when I awake up with thy likeness."

It is in _Flowers_ that the beauty of the vegetable world chiefly
resides; and I shall now therefore select a few examples from the
profusion of lovely objects which the domain proper of Flora presents to
us.

That very curious tribe of plants, the _Or