Page:Letters of Life.djvu/46

34 called to hold the young sapling steadily, while he transplanted it, and when it became a tree it was my friend. I understood not why such sweet sensations flowed from these simple employments. I had never learned why horticulture seemed to cause fresh blossoms to spring up in the heart's new soil. I knew not that health and cheerfulness walked with it, hand in hand. He knew, who made it the occupation of unfallen man in his Eden innocence. He knew, who so mysteriously conjoined the welfare of flesh and spirit, and placed the being that bore His own image in a "garden, to dress and to keep it."

The bounds of our own home domain to my childish mind seemed spacious, and sufficient for every satisfaction. I cannot recollect ever passing its outer gates without liberty, or having a wish to do so. To roam at will from garden to garden, to run at full speed through the alleys, to recline when wearied in some shaded recess, or to seat myself with a book, on a mow of hay in the large, lofty barn, where the quiet cows ruminated over their fragrant food, gave variety and fulness of delight to the liberal periods allotted for out-of-door rambling. I shall probably earn the contempt of bolder spirits, when I say that ambition never moved me to transcend these limits, or to thirst after other joys.

Not unfrequently I shared pleasant drives in our domestic equipage, a spacious, low English chaise,