self entirely and confidingly on the protection of man, and ceases, in ordinary cases, to think or act for itself. Yet some of its instincts it continues to retain, and nothing can be more interesting than the tender regard it displays towards its young. "He who, in shearing time," says Captain Brown, "when the lambs are put up separately from the ewes, witnesses the correct knowledge they have of each other's voices; the particular bleating of the mother just escaped from the shears, and the responsive call of the lamb, skipping at the same moment to meet her; its startled attitude at the first sight of her altered appearance; and the reassured gambol at her repeated voice and well known smell ;-he who observes them at these moments, will not refuse them as great a share of intelligence as their ancient subjugation, extreme delicacy, and consequent habitual dependance on man, will allow.”*

The lamb has always been held as the emblem of innocence. In the Christian system it is more. It is employed throughout Scripture as a type of Him who was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.” There is no figure under which the Saviour is more frequently represented, and none employed in so many forms. It was used, under the Old Testament dispensation, in the typical sacrifices of the Israelites. In their morning and evening oblations, in their expiatory offerings, and in the sacrament of the Passover, lambs were sacrificed, to represent that " one sacrifice for sins," which Christ offered up, before he “for ever sat down at the right hand of God." Hence he is spoken of as the "Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world;" "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world;" 66 our Passover which was sacrificed for us;" and his blood shed on the cross is called "the blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better things than that of Abel." A thousand beautiful allusions to the pastoral life, of a different kind, occur in the Inspired Volume, which throw *Goldsmith's Animated Nature, vol. ii. p. 5, note.

a kind of sacred halo round that earliest of all professions. The pious mind irresistibly forms an association between the office of a shepherd and that of the “good Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep.”

TENTH WEEK-FRIDAY.

SHEEP-SHEARING.

ONE of the most laborious operations of those who rear sheep, and that in which all the members of a large family may find employment, is the shearing of their fleeces. The adoption of the proper season for that purpose is of great importance, as the quality of the wool in a considerable degree depends on it. The wool must be full grown, otherwise it is weak, and scarcely admits of being spun ; and if the time of cutting be too long protracted, it becomes yellow, felted, and imperfect. There never can be any difficulty in ascertaining the proper time for this operation, as Nature points it out, the separation of the old wool from the new being distinctly marked.

In the less advanced stages of society, there are seasons attended frequently with some degree of pomp and ceremony, in which people, by common consent, meet together for purposes of festivity and social enjoyment. The mind seems to court such a stimulus, and this propensity is probably one of the means by which the human powers are expanded, and the progress of society is advanced. The principal seasons of agricultural festivity are sheep-shearing and harvest-home.

In almost all pastoral countries, a sheep-shearing festival has in every period been customary; differing, however, in the mode of its celebration, according to the particular genius of the age, and the people among whom it was kept. The mind expands when it is overflowing

with a sense of prosperity; and in times of simple manners, there is a generous sentiment excited by the bounties of Providence, which induces their possessors to share them with others. This sympathetic feeling passes through whole communities, and hence the origin of such customs as that now under consideration.

These feasts, like all other great occasions of rejoicing, doubtless partook originally of a religious character; and the practice was not unsanctioned by revelation. Under the Mosaic dispensation, the Israelites had their religious feasts of the first-fruits and ingathering, which were obvious adaptations to this natural tendency. Sheep-shearing festivals, in particular, were very early introduced. Some intimations of the importance of the ceremonial attached to such occasions, are afforded as far back as the time of the Patriarchs; and there seems to be a hint of its religious character, contained in the information that Laban first became aware that his daughter Rachel had carried off his images when he "went to shear his sheep." Farther notice of this festival, with some particulars of its nature, as practised among the children of Israel, is given in the life of David. We are told that Nabal, at his sheep-shearing, "held a feast in his house like the feast of a king," and it should seem that on such occasions it was customary to send presents to friends and neighbours, and especially to those from whom obligations had been received. This supposition, at least, accounts for the message of David to that churl. It was 66 a good day," and he had reason to expect that his men, who had guarded the flocks, would be included among those who shared the bounty of the season.

In England this custom very early prevailed. It was a time of merry-making. The maidens, in their best attire, waited on the shearers, to receive and roll up the fleeces. A feast was made, and a king and queen elected; or else this honour was conferred somewhat in the manner in which Darius is said to have been elected king

of the Medes;-not, indeed, by the neighing of a horse, but by the fortunate production of the earliest lamb. In Drayton's Polyolbion, this simple rural festival, as it existed among our forefathers, is thus described :—

The shepherd king,

Whose flock hath chanced that year the earliest lamb to bring,

In his gay baldric sits, at his low grassy board,

With flawns, curds, clouted cream, and country dainties stored;

And, while the bagpipes play, each lusty jocund swain,
Quaffs syllabubs in cans, to all upon the plain;

And to their country girls, whose nosegays they do wear, Some roundelays do sing ;-the rest the burden bear. Thomson describes the same scene, not with more truth, but with more dignity and grace.

At last of snowy white, the gathered flocks
Are in the wattled pen innumerous press'd,
Head above head; and, ranged in lusty rows,
The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding shears.
The housewife waits to roll her fleecy stores,
With all her gay dressed maids attending round.
One chief, in gracious dignity enthroned,
Shines o'er the rest, the pastoral queen, and rays
Her smiles, sweet-beaming on her shepherd king.
A simple scene! Yet hence Britannia sees
Her solid grandeur rise; hence she commands
The exalted stores of every brighter clime,
The treasures of the sun without his rage.

What tends to render this simple festival peculiarly interesting, even to a refined mind, is not merely the sentiment which the poet so beautifully notices, that to her wool Britain is indebted for much of her superiority over other nations, in manufacturing industry and wealth; but also the feelings derived from the delightful season of the year with which it is associated. It is in June, the loveliest month of the year, that in Britain the employment of sheep-shearing is chiefly carried on.

This is the season of gay flowers, of sweet scents, of verdant lawns, and of leafy forests.

"Nunc frondent sylvæ, nunc formosissimus annus."

Let him whom business has pent up in a large city, now find his way into the country, and he will feel the bounties of Nature breathing around him, and shedding their delights over his inmost soul. As he walks along, by the bank of some woodland stream, musing in unwonted solitude, or enjoying the society of some intelligent companion, the whole scene is enchantment. The green pastures, where the sober cattle crop the sweet herbage as it springs luxuriantly beneath their feet, or recline on some sunny bank, or in some shady glade, chewing the cud in silent joy; the hills studded over with flocks of sheep, whence at intervals the bleating of the playful lamb is responded to by the voice of maternal affection; the neighbouring groves, in all the leafy pride of summer,

"Shade unperceived, so softening into shade,

And all so forming an harmonious whole,"

where music pours its "wood-notes wild," in a hundred varied cadences on the delighted ear; the flowers, which the earth flings in such profusion from her green lap, with their numerous forms and tints, always elegant and beautiful, and their mingled perfume so balmy, grateful, and refreshing,—all raise the well-constituted mind to the contemplation of the great source of this profusion of bounties,-Himself how bountiful!-In this frame of mind let the admirer of Nature, during his rural rambles, come suddenly on a party engaged in the preparatory employments of sheep-shearing, the most picturesque of all the pastoral operations; the bleating sheep, as they are one by one abstracted from the fold, and plunged into the clear stream, where sturdy hinds are stationed to receive them, and free their fleeces of their impurities; and the busy groups of men, women,