mind and spirit, acting simultaneously. We do not deny that the senses perform their part; yet these would be imperfect and evanescent, but that some higher collective power lays up a store of images and pictures, which is never destroyed. Let us exult in this divine privilege; for who shall measure this power, who despoil it? It is kept by the hands of angels and archangels.
Cowper pourtrays this creative faculty of the mind thus:—
"How fleet is the glance of the mind!
Compared to the speed of its flight,
The tempest itself lags behind,
And the swift-winged arrows of light.
When I think of my own native land,
In a moment I seem to be there;
But alas! recollection at hand,
Soon hurries me back to despair."
Or, as an earlier English poet (Denton) says:—
"Thus, the lone lover, in the pensive shade,
In day-dreams wrapt, of soft extatic bliss,
Pursues in thought the visionary maid,
Feasts on the fancy'd smile and favoured kiss.
"Thus the young poet, at the close of day,
Led by the magic of some fairy song,
Through the dense umbrage winds his heedless way,
Nor hears the bubbling brook that brawls along."
Such exercises and powers are never appreciated by the superficial observer; his powers are but temporary and transient, and he can secure no ideas as his permanent associates for reasoning and reflection. In his retirement he can summon none of the affianced spirits of sublimity; whilst even his social amenities can bear none of the mysterious graces which illumine the brow of the philosopher—he knows that some of our most pleasing convictions
