_acre_ is man's. God has
made us like Himself, to be pleased by the universal beauty of the
world. He has made provision in nature, in society, and in the family,
for amusement and exhilaration enough to fill the heart with the
perpetual sunshine of delight.

Upon this broad earth, purfled with flowers, scented with odors,
brilliant in colors, vocal with echoing and re-echoing melody, I take
my stand against all demoralizing pleasure. Is it not enough that our
Father's house is so full of dear delights, that we must wander prodigal
to the swine-herd for husks, and to the slough for drink?--when the
trees of God's heritage bend over our head and solicit our hand to pluck
the golden fruitage, must we still go in search of the apples of Sodom,
outside fair and inside ashes.

Men shall crowd to the circus to hear clowns, and see rare feats of
horsemanship; but a bird may poise beneath the very sun, or flying
downward, swoop from the high heaven; then flit with graceful ease
hither and thither, pouring liquid song as if it were a perennial
fountain of sound--no man cares for that.

Upon the stage of life, the vastest tragedies are performing in every
act; nations pitching headlong to their final catastrophe; others,
raising their youthful forms to begin the drama of existence. The world
of society is as full of exciting interest, as nature is full of beauty.
The great dramatic throng of life is bustling along--the wise, the fool,
the clown, the miser, the bereaved, the broken-hearted. Life mingles
before us smiles and tears, sighs and laughter, joy and gloom, as the
spring mingles the winter-storm and summer-sunshine. To this vast
Theatre which God hath builded, where stranger plays are seen than ever
author writ, man seldom cares to come. When God dramatizes, when nations
act, or all the human kind conspire to educe the vast catastrophe, men
sleep and snore, and let the busy scene go on, unlocked, unthought
upon.... It is my object then, not to withdraw the young from pleasure,
but from unworthy pleasures; not to lessen their enjoyments, but to
increase them, by rejecting the counterfeit and the vile.

* * * * *

From "Norwood."

=_50._= LIFE IN THE COUNTRY.

It was this union of seclusion and publicity that made Norwood a place
of favorite resort, through the summer, of artists, of languid scholars,
and of persons of quiet tastes. There was company for all that shunned
solitude, and