The Same Thought Has Struck Me, When I Have Entered The Meeting-
House Of My Respected Friend, Dr. Price.
I am surprised that the
dissenters, who have not laid aside all the pomps and vanities of
life, should imagine a noble pillar, or arch, unhallowed.
Whilst
men have senses, whatever soothes them lends wings to devotion; else
why do the beauties of nature, where all that charm them are spread
around with a lavish hand, force even the sorrowing heart to
acknowledge that existence is a blessing? and this acknowledgment is
the most sublime homage we can pay to the Deity.
The argument of convenience is absurd. Who would labour for wealth,
if it were to procure nothing but conveniences. If we wish to
render mankind moral from principle, we must, I am persuaded, give a
greater scope to the enjoyments of the senses by blending taste with
them. This has frequently occurred to me since I have been in the
north, and observed that there sanguine characters always take
refuge in drunkenness after the fire of youth is spent.
But I have flown from Norway. To go back to the wooden houses;
farms constructed with logs, and even little villages, here erected
in the same simple manner, have appeared to me very picturesque. In
the more remote parts I had been particularly pleased with many
cottages situated close to a brook, or bordering on a lake, with the
whole farm contiguous. As the family increases, a little more land
is cultivated; thus the country is obviously enriched by population.
Formerly the farmers might more justly have been termed woodcutters.
But now they find it necessary to spare the woods a little, and this
change will be universally beneficial; for whilst they lived
entirely by selling the trees they felled, they did not pay
sufficient attention to husbandry; consequently, advanced very
slowly in agricultural knowledge. Necessity will in future more and
more spur them on; for the ground, cleared of wood, must be
cultivated, or the farm loses its value; there is no waiting for
food till another generation of pines be grown to maturity.
The people of property are very careful of their timber; and,
rambling through a forest near Tonsberg, belonging to the Count, I
have stopped to admire the appearance of some of the cottages
inhabited by a woodman's family - a man employed to cut down the wood
necessary for the household and the estate. A little lawn was
cleared, on which several lofty trees were left which nature had
grouped, whilst the encircling firs sported with wild grace. The
dwelling was sheltered by the forest, noble pines spreading their
branches over the roof; and before the door a cow, goat, nag, and
children, seemed equally content with their lot; and if contentment
be all we can attain, it is, perhaps, best secured by ignorance.
As I have been most delighted with the country parts of Norway, I
was sorry to leave Christiania without going farther to the north,
though the advancing season admonished me to depart, as well as the
calls of business and affection.
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