Town and country.
--The country abounds with attractions at this season of the year.
Nature has assumed her greenest and brightest livery.
The vales are carpeted with grass, and the orchard trees, ladened with fruit, while they and their forest brothers abound with the richest foliage.
The air is ‘ "redolent with sweets,"’ the fountains leap with life and the many streams rush along merrily and joyously.
It is not well to confine the human form to the brick walls of a crowded city, with so many inviting temptations but a few miles away.
Yet there are hundreds and thousands who never visit the country.
City life has become a habit with them so fixed, that they plod on its rounds from day to day, and year to year, almost unconscious of the existence of emerald fields and shadowy woods within a few minutes' travel.
Of late years, however, the disposition to reside in the country, and especially within a few miles of the city, has greatly increased among our citizens, and the present war has not materially altered their inclinations in this respect.
It is wise and becoming occasionally to steal away from the heat and dust of city life, and ‘ "look up through Nature to Nature's God."’--The country has scenes and associations well calculated to chasten the spirit, and to induce appropriate reflections.
The bursting buds, the blooming flower and the ripening fruit — all have their lesson and their moral.
They all teach that ‘"the hand that made them is divine."’ They all point to the great first cause, the Creator, who breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of man; the
Mighty Architect who conceived and fashioned the vast and wonderful fabric of the Universe.
It is well, therefore, to sit down occasionally to the contemplation of objects like these.
‘"God made the country, but man made the town."’
