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No, here is the temple of our Divinity. Around us and above us rise sun and system, cluster and universe. And I doubt not that in every region of this vast empire of God, hymns of praise and anthems of glory are rising and reverberating from sun to sun, and from, system to system, heard by Omnipotence alone, across immensity, and through eternity.
[Footnote 63: An astronomer, and a favorite lecturer on the science; a native of Kentucky.]
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WRITERS ON NATURAL HISTORY, SCENERY, &c.
=William Bartram, 1739-1813.= (Manual, p. 490.)
From the "Travels through the Carolinas," &c.
=253.= SCENES ON THE UPPER OCONEE.
At this rural retirement were assembled a charming circle of mountain vegetable beauties…. Some of these roving beauties stroll over the mossy, shelving, humid rocks, or from off the expansive wavy boughs of trees, bending over the floods, salute their delusive shade, playing on the surface; some plunge their perfumed heads and bathe their flexile limbs in the silver stream; whilst others by the mountain breezes are tossed about, their blooming tuffts bespangled with pearly and crystalline dew-drops collected from the falling mists, glistening in the rainbow arch. Having collected some valuable specimens at this friendly retreat, I continued my lonesome pilgrimage. My road for a considerable time led me winding and turning about the steep rocky hills: the descent of some of which was very rough and troublesome, by means of fragments of rocks, slippery clay and talc: but after this I entered a spacious forest, the land having gradually acquired a more level surface: a pretty grassy vale appears on my right, through which my wandering path led me, close by the banks of a delightful creek, which sometimes falling over steps of rocks, glides gently with serpentine meanders through the meadows.
After crossing this delightful brook and mead, the land rises again with sublime magnificence, and I am led over hills and vales, groves and high forests, vocal with the melody of the feathered songsters; the snow-white cascades glittering on the sides of the distant hills.