Bertha's Visit to Her Uncle in England; vol. 2 [of 3]

by Mrs. Marcet

I begged of my uncle to shew me the difference between the oats and wheat; for though there is a great difference in their appearance when in ear, yet I had not learned to distinguish the young plants.

My uncle pulled up a plant of each, and shewed me that the oat shoots upwards, with scarcely more than two leaves, which are much rounder at the end than those of wheat; but that the plant of wheat produces three or four pointed leaves, which, instead of being directed upwards, are, at first, inclined to spread. After my aunt had returned home, we walked into some of Farmer Moreland’s fields. He is very busy sowing late oats, and planting potatoes in drills, which are made with as much regularity, and the seeds dropped in as equally, as if the distances had been measured by compasses.

The bees have been about for some days, a sure mark, my aunt says, of the arrival of spring. They began to venture out of their hives about the middle of this month; and their coming abroad is a sign that the flowers from which they gather honey are already opening.

The gooseberry trees are growing green, and I can distinguish the flower-buds enlarging daily; so are those of the currant, which in autumn I saw closely folded up in little scaly buds. The larch trees are shewing their gay green tinge, the spurge laurel is in bloom; and every tree, and plant, and bird, are rapidly advancing toward the perfection of summer.

I said to my aunt this evening, that I thought the appearance of all nature wakening, as it were, from the torpor or death of winter, seemed to be peculiarly suitable to the hopes of that glorious change in ourselves which this period so forcibly brings to our minds. She replied, that it was one of those striking points of connexion between natural and revealed religion which must make a deep impression on every reflecting mind; and she agreed with me that nothing could afford a better subject for a hymn.

26th, Easter Day.—As soon as breakfast was over, my uncle said he was going to address a few words to us on the great Christian festival which we were going to celebrate.

“It is most satisfactory,” said he, “to know that whether we consider the number, the means of information, or the veracity of the witnesses, no testimony can surpass that which was borne by the Apostles to the fact of our Lord’s resurrection.

“That wonderful event was the accomplishment both of the ancient prophecies, and of his own predictions; it was a miraculous declaration on the part of God, that the great atonement was accepted; it was the Divine attestation to the truth of our Saviour’s doctrines; a full confirmation of the promises he had already held out to his followers, and consequently a perfect security to them for the ultimate completion of those further promises which it had been one great object of his mission to offer to mankind. We have reason, therefore, to be thankful that, in the first preaching of the Gospel, Providence ordained that a fact of such importance should be accompanied with irresistible evidence; evidence of such a nature as requires no nice examination to adjust, but such as imparts conviction to every one who can read the Bible.

“The Jews were disappointed that Jesus did not shew his power by coming down from the cross; but he shewed his power more fully, by rising from the grave. They saw him taken dead from that cross, and laid in a sepulchre, which was scooped out of the rock, which was accessible only at the entrance, and which was guarded by sixty soldiers. Yet while the soldiers watched, he burst those feeble barriers, and rose from his tomb, to shew his followers that those who die in Him shall rise, as he did, to triumph over death.

“After his resurrection,” continued my uncle, “there was a wonderful change in our Lord. Previously to this event, it was in power, and in wisdom, that he had shewed himself divine; but afterwards, every thing concerning him seems miraculous and mysterious. This first appears in the manner of his resurrection. He evidently had left the sepulchre before it was opened; the women who are named by St. Matthew, saw the angel appear, and roll away the stone; but he was already gone. ‘To Mary Magdalene,’ he said, ‘touch me not,’ as if there was that divine spirituality about his person which forbade the near approach of human frailty. And twice, when his disciples were assembled and the doors fastened, for fear of the Jews, he appeared in the midst of them; but to Him who had departed from the unopened sepulchre, it was no difficulty to enter a barricadoed house. From these, and other concurring circumstances, it is evident that his body had undergone a change, ‘the corruptible had put on incorruption;’ it was no longer the human body in its mortal state—it was the body raised to life and immortality, and united to the Deity.