With genial influence can beguile "Almighty Lord, the sun shall fail, Thy Word shall shine in cloudless day, SIR ROBERT Grant. ISA. xxvii. 6. "He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root; Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit." ISA. XXXV. I, 2. "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them: and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon : they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God." ISA. lx. 22. "A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the Lord will hasten it in his time." DAN. ii. 45. "Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure." MATT. xiii. 31, 32. "Another parable put He forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." JOHN xii. 24. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." "On the mountain's top appearing, God Himself shall loose thy bands. "Has thy night been long and mournful? Zion still is well-beloved! God, thy God, will now restore thee; All thy foes shall flee before thee; Zion's King vouchsafe to send ! "Enemies no more shall trouble; All thy wrongs shall be redress'd; For thy shame thou shalt have double, In thy Maker's favour bless'd; All thy conflicts End in everlasting rest!" THOMAS KElly. THE HANDFUL OF CORN. Ps. lxxii. 16. "There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth." : N the kingdom of nature the greatest results frequently proceed from apparently the most insignificant beginnings. The oak, the pride and glory of the forest, grows from a small acorn. The mighty river, which gradually expands its bosom towards the ocean, and incessantly pours into it the tribute of its many waters, springs at first from an insignificant rivulet. The wide-spread conflagration is often enkindled by a small spark. The philosopher, whose views extend from one end of nature to the other; the orator, on whose lips listening senates hang; and the hero who leads thousands on to victory, each enters life at first as a "naked, helpless, weeping child." So is it frequently seen, also, in the kingdom of providence. Out of events the most trivial have arisen consequences the most important. It seemed but a trifling circumstance, that Abram should be called to leave his native country, and to go he knew not whither; yet that was but the preliminary step to his becoming the father of a great nation, with whom God should enter into covenant, who should hold the deposit of the truth, and from the midst of whom should arise One in whom all the nations of the earth should be blessed. It appeared a small matter that Joseph should, in consequence of the envy and hatred of his brethren, be sold as a slave into the land of Egypt; yet that circumstance became the means of his elevation and their subjection, and led eventually to the preservation of the lives both of themselves and of the Egyptians. It was apparently but a trivial incident, that the daughter of Pharaoh should discover an ark of bulrushes floating on the waters of the Nile; yet the weeping babe who was found deposited therein, became the renowned |