Fragments from the Study of a Pastor Author:Gardiner Spring 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: No. III. THE INQUIRING MEETING. " Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooki, " Sermons in stones, and good in every thing." During one of tho... more »se seasons of religious attention with which the churches in New England have been visited by the Holy Spirit, I employed a few weeks in the interior of the country. It was the month of August. The early harvest still waved in rich and brown luxuriance over hill and vale, and formed a delightful and welcome contrast to the heated wallSjburning pavement, and arid atmosphere of a crowded city. Mountain and river, the vivid verdure and refreshing breezes of a rural sky, the dense, dark forest, with emphasis and sweetest harmony seemed to say, Marvellous are thy works, Lord, God, Almighty, in wisdom hast thou made them all! There was every thing in the scenery that invited to heavenly contemplation. Why, thought I, are not the dwellers in these tranquil and inviting regions all the devoted children of God ? What is there here to allure the soul to fellowship withearth ? I knew indeed that human nature is the same every where, arid that the same general virtues and vices are to be found in both city and country. But the febrile excitement, the stimulated intercourse, the wealth, luxury and dissipation, the pomps and vanities of the world, the refinements of philosophy, and the gross vices which exert so powerful and melancholy an influence in populous cities, seemed here to have no power. The rural Christian is placed in circumstances most favourable to his best moral habits and feelings. His trains and associations of devoted thought seem to spring up and flow spontaneously, like the stream that flows from a fountain of living water. Love to God—communion with God— devotedness to God seem almost natural to such exemption fr...« less