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TALKS FOR THE TIMES.
ters, and teach some of us more than we can learn?
from books. Nature calms, cools, and invigo¬
rates us. She renders the mind more serene, more
cheerful."
In the life and teachings of Christ there is nothing"
that stands out in bolder relief than his evident love
of nature, his sympathy with it, his frequent allusion
to it. His life, indeed, is inseparably associated with
mountains and gardens and trees and brooks and
rivers and seas. When "despised and rejected of
men," when spurned and persecuted with malignant
hate, He seemed to retire almost instinctively into the
warm bosom and loving embrace of nature. When¬
ever he desired to communicate something solemn or
important to his disciplies, He usually withdrew from
the haunts of men. His famous sermon, unapproached
and unapproachable in the fullness, sweep, and depth
of its meaning, was preached on a mountain, so that it
has taken its name from the place where it was deliv¬
ered. To those who were slaves to Mammon, those
who, as we would say now, have an eye to business,.
who are so absorbed in scraping up and getting mate¬
rial gains, that they may lay up treasure upon earth and
secure the "meat that perisheth," He said : " Take no»
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