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cuse for devoting themselves to wordly objects; or, if they are in affluence, wealth, as well as poverty, brings with it many employments and many cares; and not less easily does the worldly mind, in this instance, find plausible excuses for neglecting the calls of religion. The difficulty, however, does not, in either case, really lie in want of opportunity to devote themselves to the service of their Divine Master; but in want of inclination. They are cumbered about many things," and forget that there is only one thing peremptorily and essentially needful. They take anxious thought only about "what they shall eat and drink," or how they may best obtain and enjoy the pleasures of life. But if they were to "seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness," and then apply, as a subordinate object, to the gaining of a provision for their families, Christ has himself declared, that this earthly blessing would be added to them; and unless they seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all the leisure and opportunities which may be afforded them, will be unavailing. The "good seed" will still fall among thorns, which will choke its growth, and render it unfruitful.

How thankless,-how heartless,-were the labours of the spiritual husbandman, if it were always thus,—if, after all, no fruit were to crown his toil! But, blessed be God, it is not so. Some seed also falls on good ground, -on ground, indeed, naturally overgrown with weeds, and therefore incapable of receiving it; but so prepared by previous culture, as to retain and nourish it, and, under the genial influences of Heaven, to bring the fruit to maturity. It is thus prepared by the hand of God himself;—no inferior hand could successfully prepare it.

And let it further be remarked, in following out the analogy of the parable, that whatever pains an agriculturist might take in cultivating his farm, it could never be made to produce a crop of itself. It would, after all, remain unproductive, without the genial influences of the seasons. The sun must smile upon it, and the clouds

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must interpose their grateful shade, to protect it from the sultry heat; and the dew of night must rest upon the tender blade, and the soft showers of heaven must bless the springing thereof. It is God who, with his own hand, covers our valleys with corn, and causes them to shout for joy." Just so it is in the spiritual world. Not only must our hearts be prepared, and the seed of the word sown in a good soil; but Heaven must shed its blessed influences from above; and the Sun of Righteousness must shine upon it; and the warmth of heavenly love must cherish it; and the dew of Divine grace must distil upon it; and even the clouds of adversity must frown, and the rain-drops of affliction must water it.

FOURTH WEEK-MONDAY.

TREES USED FOR OTHER PURPOSES THAN FOOD.

WE have seen what a vast variety of vegetable productions have been destined to be used as human food, adapted to all soils and climates, and capable of great increase and amelioration by culture. In this we have had occasion to recognize and adore the paternal care of an all-bountiful Creator. But it is not with a view to subsistence, and the gratification of taste alone, with the concomitant stimulus given to the exercise of the bodily powers and mental faculties, that a Father-God has bestowed the vegetable stores with which we are so profusely surrounded. These, indeed, are gifts of primary importance. But there are other provisions of no mean value, to which the productions of the vegetable kingdom have been made subservient. In the volume on Spring, I have adverted to various plants, used as articles of manufacture; but I have hitherto only incidentally taken notice of the uses, either in this or other re

spects, to which trees are applicable. These seem now to require some attention.

The first thing after food and clothing, to which man naturally looks, is a comfortable habitation, and for this he is mainly indebted to the trees of the forest. Even in his rudest state, it is among these that he seeks shelter, and as he gradually emerges to a higher grade, it is to the timber which they yield that he is indebted for his most useful materials, in constructing the lofty palace as well as the lowly cot. His implements of domestic life, and his instruments of husbandry, are from the earliest to the latest period of human improvement, essentially indebted to the admirably adapted material afforded by trees. For the machinery used in commerce and the arts, timber is equally essential; and, above all, it is to timber we owe the art of sailing, by which the dispersion of human beings over the surface of the habitable globe has been effected, and that intercourse has been kept up which has contributed so largely to the advancement of commerce, and the arts and comforts of civilized life.

It would be a curious subject of speculation to inquire what would be the character and condition of man, had it pleased Providence to withhold from him the advantages derived from trees, merely regarding them as affording the useful article of timber. Into this speculation, however, I shall not enter, further than to observe, that, as it is doubtless, by the possession of a material applicable to so many important, and indeed necessary, purposes, that man has been enabled to carry into effect almost all his plans of utility, of convenience, or of luxury, so far as they depended on the use of physical instruments; so, without it, talent and genius would have been most materially stinted in their means of action, and therefore in their growth; and although the human race might still have existed, they would have remained circumscribed in their locality by the extent of the island or continent where they were first called into being,

with views unenlarged and faculties unemployed. They would, in short, have been wild and unenlightened savages, rising, in all probability, no higher in the scale of existence, than the depressed Greenlander, or miserably degraded native of Australia. We have here another instance, to show that man depends for the improvement of the powers bestowed on him by his Maker, on the adaptations of external nature to his mental capacities; while to these capacities the necessary adaptations have been most strikingly made.

The varieties in the qualities of timber, by which it is made subservient to the diversified purposes of man's necessities or ingenuity, is another subject of grateful admiration. The strength and durability of the oak, so admirably calculated for ship-building; the straightness, the elasticity and lightness of the pine, united with the ease with which it yields to the moulding hand of the joiner, pointing it out as peculiarly useful in the construction of houses; and the remarkable combination of all these properties in the ash, which renders it, in an especial sense, the husbandman's tree,—are specimens of this accommodation, which may suffice to mark the kind of varied suitableness to which I allude.

But besides the uses of trees for timber, whether as these respect necessity, convenience, or ornament, there are many other useful properties possessed by different species of this class of the vegetable world. I have already spoken of the fruits, and other substances which they yield for the food of man; and I might also have mentioned their qualities in this respect, as regards some of the lower animals, and especially several of the insect tribes, to whom the leaf, the flower, the seed, the bark, and even the wood and pith, furnish each their own peculiar nourishment, and different tribes of which are useful to man.* But the bounty of the Creator is not

Of this latter kind is the Coccus ilicis, gathered in Spain from a species of dwarf oak, called Kermes, producing a beautiful scarlet dye; the silk-worm, which receives its nourishment from the leaves of the mulberry;

less conspicuous in having by the same means provided various other peculiar substances of essential use in the arts. Of this nature is the principle of tannin, residing in the bark of the oak, the larch, and very many other trees, so remarkable for its preservative qualities; the galls, extracted from an excrescence on the oak, produced by the puncture of an insect, for the purpose of depositing its eggs; the tar and turpentine manufactured from the pine; the various kinds of dye produced by the quercitron, the Brazil wood, the hiccory, the walnut, and the birch; the wax of the Brazilian and Andes palms; the tallow of the croton and piney trees; the gums from the acacias of Arabia and Senegal; the odoriferous gum resins from several trees of the East; besides numerous medicinal extracts, which add to the materia medica of all civilized nations.

ance.

These varied uses of trees form each a new example of Creative beneficence; and were it not necessary to hasten to other matters, it might be advisable, as it certainly would be interesting, to enter with some minuteness into the nature of the provisions by which such productions are elaborated. The subject, however, is far too extensive to make this compatible with our plan; and I must be satisfied with a distinct notice of only two or three kinds of product of the most general utility and importThese will occupy the four succeeding papers; and, meanwhile, I must call upon my readers to remark once more the astonishing exuberance of Divine bounty in the diversified properties of the substances produced in the vegetable world, for human use in the arts of life. I have already noticed a similar variety in the articles of food; and it cannot be doubted that the intention, in both instances, is the same; namely, to call forth, and afford a salutary excitement to the mental faculties, as well as to keep the bodily powers in healthy exercise. In both instances, too, the climates and localties so far

and the worm which the native Australians find in the pith of a tree of that country, and which they eagerly devour.