CHAPTER IX.

NATURE.

When the Soul is kindled or enlightened by the Holy Ghost, then it
beholds what God its Father does, as a Son beholds what his Father
does at Home in his own House.--JACOB BEHMEN'S Aurora--Law's
Translation.


Margaret began to read Wordsworth, slowly at first, but soon with
greater facility. Ere long she perceived that she had found a
friend; for not only did he sympathize with her in her love for
nature, putting many vague feelings into thoughts, and many thoughts
into words for her, but he introduced her to nature in many
altogether new aspects, and taught her to regard it in ways which
had hitherto been unknown to her. Not only was the pine wood now
dearer to her than before, but its mystery seemed more sacred, and,
at the same time, more likely to be one day solved. She felt far
more assuredly the presence of a spirit in nature,

"Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air;"

for he taught her to take wider views of nature, and to perceive and
feel the expressions of more extended aspects of the world around
her. The purple hill-side was almost as dear to her as the fir-wood
now; and the star that crowned its summit at eve, sparkled an