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HARVEST, AND COLD AND HEAT, AND SUMMER AND WINTER, AND DAY AND NIGHT, SHALL NOT CEASE.

AMONG the great bleffings and won

ders of the creation, may be claffed, the regularities of times and feafons. Immediately after the flood, the facred promife was made to man, that feed-time and harveft, cold and heat, fummer and winter, day and night should continue to the very end of all things accordingly, in obedience to that promife, the rotation is conftantly prefenting us with fome useful and agreeable alteration; and all the pleafing novelty of life arifes from these natural changes; nor are we lefs indebted to them

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for all its folid comforts. It has been frequently the task of the moralift and poet, to mark, in polished periods, the particular charms and conveniencies of every change; and, indeed, fuch difcriminate obfervation upon natural variety cannot be undelightful; fince the bleffing, which every month brings along with it, is a fresh instance of the wisdom and bounty of that Providence which regulates the glories of the year. We glow as we contemplate, we adore, whilft we enjoy. In the time of feedfowing, it is the feafon of confidence; the grain which the hufbandman trufts to the bofom of the earth fhall, haply, yield its feven-fold rewards: fpring prefents us with a fcene of lively expectation; that which was before fown begins now to discover figns of fuccefsful vegetation: the labourer obferves the change, and anticipates the harvest he watches the progress of nature, and fmiles at her influence; while the man of contemplation walks forth with the evening, amidst the fragrance of flowers, and promifes of plenty, nor returns to his cottage

cottage till darkness, clofes the fcene upon his eye. Then cometh the harvest, when the large wish is satisfied, and the granaries of nature are loaded with the means of life, even to a luxury of abundance: The powers of language are unequal to the description of this joyous feafon it is the carnival of nature fun and shade, coolness and quietude, mirth and mufic, love and labour, unite to render every scene of summer enchanting. And the divifion of light and darkness is one of the kindeft efforts of omnipotent fagacity. Day and night yield us contrary bleffings, and, at the fame time affift each other, by giving fresh luftre to the delights of both. Amidst the glare of day and bustle of life, how shall we sleep? amidst the gloom of darknefs, how shall we labour?

How wife, how benignant, how like a Deity then, is the proper divifion! The hours of light are adapted to activity, and thofe of darkness to reft. 'Ere the day is paffed, exercise and nature prepare us for

the

the pillow; and by the time that the morning returns, we are again able to meet it with a fmile. Thus, every feason hath a charm, peculiar to itself, and every moment affords fome interefting innovation.

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