"the length of Ophiucus huge In the Arctic sky, and, from his horrid hair,"
was supposed to shake "pestilence and war!" As, therefore, he who cannot see beyond the stars as they appear to the sense, must lose by far the highest pleasure which they are adapted as objects of taste to give; so he who knows the physical structure of the universe, and who yet does not see in it, and behind it, an infinite and beneficent Intelligence, cannot have connected with his view those conceptions which awaken the highest emotions of beauty and sublimity.
The relations of man to nature are much less intimate than those of God, and yet our emotions in view of nature are greatly modified by the view which we take of _His_ dignity and moral character. It was when Hamlet supposed there was foul corruption and a general want of principle in society, that "this goodly frame, the earth," seemed to him but "a steril promontory;" "this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament," why, it appeared no other thing to him "than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors." It was when her inhabitants were oppressed and degraded, that the natural beauty, which is still as bright as ever on the shores of Greece, seemed in the eye of the poet but as
"The loveliness in death That parts not quite with parting breath, But beauty with that fearful bloom, That hue which haunts it to the tomb, So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, We start, for life is wanting there." "'Twas Greece, but living Greece no more."
We must all have felt that a shade of sadness was cast over the face of nature when we have thought of the passions, and wars, and lust, and rapine of man, in connexion with her quiet scenes. On the other hand, were the moral state of the world what we trust it shall one day be,--did universal purity, and goodness, and love reign,--would not the sun seem to shine with a more benignant radiance; instead of the thorn, would there not come up the fir-tree: would not the mountains and hills break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field clap their hands?
And if the emotions of taste are thus modified by our views of man, how much more must they be by those respecting God! How must a blank atheism hang the heavens in sackcloth, and cover the earth with a pall, and turn the mute promisings of nature into a mockery, and make of her mighty fabric one great charnel-house of death, without the hope of a resurrection! On the other hand, how must the beauty and sublimity of nature and of the universe be heightened, the moment we perceive them in their connexion with God! Nothing is more common than to hear those, who emerge from that practical atheism in which most men live, speak of the new perceptions of beauty and sublimity with which they look upon the works of nature:--