eir devotions in every breeze. He could not
help acknowledging, as, indeed, must all who have ever been under the
influence of such a scene, that in this, more properly and perfectly
than in any other temple, may the spirit of man recognise and hold
familiar and free converse with the spirit of his Creator. Here, indeed,
without much effort of the imagination; might be beheld the present
God--the trees, hills and vales, the wild flower and the murmuring
water, all the work of his hands, attesting his power, keeping their
purpose, and obeying, without scruple, the order of those seasons, for
the sphere and operation of which he originally designed them. They were
mute lessoners, and the example which, in the progress of their
existence, year after year, they regularly exhibited, might well
persuade the more responsible representative of the same power the
propriety of a like obedience.

A few fallen trees, trimmed of their branches and touched with the adze,
ranging at convenient distances under the boughs of those along with
which they had lately stood up in proud equality, furnished seats for
the now rapidly-gathering assemblage. A rough stage, composed of logs,
rudely hewn and crossing each other at right angles, covered, when at a
height of sufficient elevation, formed the pulpit from which the
preacher was to exhort. A chair, brought from some cottage in the
neighborhood, surmounted the stage. This was all that art had done to
accommodate nature to the purposes of man.

In the body of the wood immediately adjacent, fastened to the
overhanging branches, were the goodly steeds of the company; forming, in
themselves, to the unaccustomed and inexperienced eye, a grouping the
most curious. Some, more docile than the rest; were permitted to rove at
large, cropping the young herbage and tender grass; occasionally, it is
true, during the service, overleaping their limits in a literal sense;
neighing, whinnying and kicking up their heels to the manifest confusion
of the pious and the discomfiture of the preacher.

The hour at length arrived. The audience was numerous if not select. All
persuasions--for even in that remote region sectarianism had done much
toward banishing religion--assembled promiscuously together and without
show of discord, excepting that here and there a high stickler for
church aristocracy, in a better coat than his neighbor, thrust him
aside; or, in another and not less offensive form of pride, in the