It Does Not Strike The Traveller In The Wilderness, Amongst Desert Scenes And Hostile Indians, As Necessary That He Should

Desire the neighbourhood of a temple, or even be in a continual state of prayer, yet we worship Nature, or

The God of Nature, in our own way; and although we have no chapel or church to go to, yet we are always in a temple, which a Scottish poet has so beautifully described as "The Temple of Nature." He says: -

"Talk not of temples; there is one, Built without hands, to mankind given; Its lamps are the meridian sun, And the bright stars of heaven. Its walls are the cerulean sky, Its floor the earth so green and fair; Its dome is vast immensity: All nature worships there."

We, of a surety, have none of the grander features of Nature to admire; but the same Almighty Power which smote out the vast Andean Ranges yet untrod, has left traces of its handywork here. Even the great desert in which we have so long been buried must suggest to the reflecting mind either God's perfectly effected purpose, or His purposely effected neglect; and, though I have here and there found places where scanty supplies of the element of water were to be found, yet they are at such enormous distances apart, and the regions in which they exist are of so utterly worthless a kind, that it seems to be intended by the great Creator that civilised beings should never re-enter here. And then our thoughts must naturally wander to the formation and creation of those mighty ships of the desert, that alone could have brought us here, and by whose strength and incomprehensible powers of endurance, only are we enabled to leave this desert behind. In our admiration of the creature, our thoughts are uplifted in reverence and worship to the Designer and Creator of such things, adapted, no doubt, by a wise selection from an infinite variety of living forms, for myriads of creative periods, and with a foreknowledge that such instruments would be requisite for the intelligent beings of a future time, to traverse those areas of the desert earth that it had pleased Him in wisdom to permit to remain secluded from the more lovely places of the world and the familiar haunts of civilised man. Here, too, we find in this fearful waste, this howling wilderness, this country vast and desert idle, places scooped out of the solid rock, and the mighty foundations of the round world laid bare, that the lower organism of God's human family may find their proper sustenance; but truly the curse must have gone forth more fearfully against them, and with a vengeance must it have been proclaimed, by the sweat of their brows must they obtain their bread. No doubt it was with the intention of obtaining ours, thus reaping the harvest of unfurrowed fields, that these natives were induced to make so murderous an attack upon us.

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