PREFACE. 'HE object of the book is sufficiently indicated in its title. Intended as a companion for the Christian tourist in scenes and circumstances where the cares of business are thrown aside for mental and physical recreation, it contains nothing that need tax the mental powers, but much, perhaps, that may amuse, interest, and instruct; and while it beguiles the hours of his temporary sojourn in field and forest, sea or shore, may elevate his thoughts from Nature up to Nature's God, and leave upon his mind a healthier impression than the frothy fictions retailed from the circulating libraries of our fashionable inland and seaside resorts. The chapters are of unequal length because they are intended to be adapted to unequal circumstances. The solitary rambler, reclining on the sea shore and lulled by the dreamy music of the waves, or musing in some forest glade where the trees are nursing their own twilight, may take up the book and read chapter after chapter till he has completed the round of its pages, and yet perchance find something to which he may turn back again with pleasure. By those, on the other hand, to whom "two are company and three are none," the book may be taken as a companion-unobtrusive, silent-which after babbling for awhile of trees and leaves and running brooks, may be at any moment dispensed with, and relegated to the background, without a murmur. To the young and thoughtful it may possibly act as a stimulus to research in fields of investigation which will amply repay them for whatever labour they may bestow; while to those over whom the autumn of life is quietly stealing, it may present facts and fancies, musings and meditations, adapted to that season of existence. Finally, the author lays claim to very little originality in these pages, but has pleasure in confessing his indebtedness for many of the thoughts, facts, illustrations, and in some cases, whole paragraphs, to various authors, of whom the principal are Robert Hunt (author of Panthea), Erindon, Charles Bucke, Groves (Correlation of the Physical Forces), M'Cosh (Typical Forms in Creation), and the authors of Phases of Faith and the Eclipse of Faith, &c.; and the author makes this admission here, to avoid encumbering the pages with foot-notes and references. The poems scattered through the bookwhere not otherwise indicated-are original, and were published by the author in a volume of fugitive pieces many years since. If the reader should find that some of the thoughts, or illustrations are repeated more than once, the author hopes that the different connections in which they occur, will exonerate him from the charge of tautology. MALVERN, May, 1883. |