and virtue, on the whole, is a fund of varied, as well as of perpetual enjoyment, to him who hath imbibed its spirit, and is under the guidance of its principles. He feels all to be health and harmony within; and without he seems as if to breathe in an atmosphere of beauteous transparency-proving how much the nature of man and the nature of virtue are in unison with each other. It is hunger which urges to the use of food; but it strikingly demonstrates the care and benevolence of God, so to have framed the organ of taste, as that there shall be a superadded enjoyment in the use of it. It is conscience that urges to the practice of virtue; proof of a moral (purpose, and therefore of a moral) character in God, so to have framed our mental economy, that, in addition to the felt obligation of its rightness, virtue should of itself, be so regaling to the taste of the inner man. but it serves to enhance the Chalmers. NATURE is the system of laws by which the Almighty governs the universe. THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. How happily, how happily the flowers die away! The gay and glorious creatures! they neither "toil nor spin;" Yet, lo! what goodly raiment they are all apparell'd in: No tears are on their beauty, but dewy gems more bright Than ever brow of Eastern queen endiadem'd with light. The young, rejoicing creatures! their pleasures never pall; Nor lose in sweet contentment, because so free to all! The dew, the showers, the sunshine, the balmy blessed air, Spend nothing of their freshness, though all may freely share. The happy careless creatures! of time they take no heed; Nor weary of his creeping, nor tremble at his speed; Nor sigh with sick impatience, and wish the light away; Nor when 'tis gone, cry dolefully, "Would God that it were day!" And when their lives are over, they drop away to rest, Unconscious of the penal doom, on holy Nature's breast; No pain have they in dying-no shrinking from decay Oh! could we but return to earth as easily as they! Miss C. Bowles. THE ATMOSPHERE. THE Atmosphere is an element which we cannot see, but which we feel investing us wherever we go; whose density we can measure to a certain height; whose purity is essential to existence; whose elastic pressure on the lungs, and on and around the frame, preserves man in that noble attitude which lifts his head towards the skies, and bids him seek there for an eternal home. The atmosphere is neither an evaporation from earth nor sea, but a separate element, bound to the globe, and perpetually accompanying it in its motions round the sun. Can we, for an instant, imagine that we are indebted for the atmosphere only to some fortuitous accident? If there were no atmosphere, and if we could possibly exist without one, we, should be unable to hear the sound of the most powerful artillery, even though it were discharged at the distance of a single pace. We should be deprived of the music of the sea, the minstrelsy of the woods, of all the artificial combinations of sweet sounds, and of the fascinating tones of the human voice itself. We might make our wants and our feelings perceptible to each other, by signs and gesticulations, but the tongue would be condemned to irremediable silence. The deliberations of assemblies of men, from which laws and the order of society have emanated, could never have taken place. The tribes of mankind would wander over the earth in savage groups, incapable of civilisation, and the only arts which they could ever know would be those alone that might enable them to destroy each other. Anonymous. Ir was not the frost of winter that chilled her nor was it the heat of summer that withered her it was the power of her virtue, her humility, and her truth, that ascending into heaven, moved the Eternal Father to call her to Himself, seeing that this miserable life was not worthy anything so fair, so excellent. Dante. |