As the one, flashing with intolerable brightness, descended, the other, with equal radiance, advanced to meet him, mocking his pomp and splendour, and giving him hue for hue, light for light, gloom for gloom, and glare for glare. And now they were near each other, and the mighty collision was at hand; but no hostile shock was visible, no contending crash of thunder broke on the ear.

When they met on the confines of the skies, each entering his dark cloud, the glowing effulgency, the living light, the glittering hues of yellow, purple, and crimson were silently withdrawn, and the ethereal pageantry passed away, leaving me a grateful reveller, bewildered with the spectacle on which I had been privileged to gaze.

Often does the sterile and the secluded affect the heart as forcefully as the romantic and the beautiful. It was on a dreary day that I stood beside an ancient cairn of gray misshapen stones, erected on a barren wild. Not even a blasted tree gave variety to the scene, but all was lorn and lonely. No sunny gleam lit up the sky, no grateful verdures gladdened the earth, and no carolling lark warbled in the air; but as I stood, for a moment in love with desolation, a solitary seagull came winnowing her way heavily above my head. In such a place the heart soon longs for society,

and feels that it is not formed to beat alone. In such a scene we see the beauty of the words, "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose," Isa. xxxv. 1.

Once I was present at what might be called a furious battle between the winds and the woods. Few things are more exciting to many minds than a high wind swaying to and fro the giant stems of forest - trees, when the conflicting branches strike one against another overhead, and the dry leaves rustle beneath the feet. The stormy blast came from the north, pouring its rage on the skirt of the wood occupying the high bank, at no great distance from the river. As I stood under an oak that seemed, on account of its massy bole and stunted growth, to promise me security, the scene was wondrously impressive. The larger trees writhed in their struggle with the tempest, those of lighter stem bent as pliantly as the rush on the brink of running waters, and a tall elm, at no great distance from me, absolutely groaned again, oppressed by the fury of the blast. When the wind prevailed among the dry pines, the sound was ke the rattle of musketry; and when it won its way among the massy oaks, with their broad branches and thick foliage, it resembled the roar of distant artillery. The scene was wild and im

pressive in the extreme, and not unattended with danger; for while I stood, now gazing on the sky that was fitfully visible, and now regarding with intensity of interest the swaying trees, a sudden blast, more turbulent than any which had preceded it, swept through the woods. A flight of dry leaves whirled in the air, the oak under which I stood received a stunning blow, and a towering elm, torn up by its roots, fell with a fearful crash on the trees that grew beneath it. The whole wood trembled as if persecuted with the tempest and made afraid by the storm.

Not long ago, I was standing near the brink of a wild, precipitous crag, from whose sharp edge I could have leaped a hundred fathoms to the green slope below, that shelved down to the running river. The crag, with its deep rifts, was garlanded with creeping plants and flowers. The wind blew towards the crag, and the paper, thrown by me from the summit, came flying back again far above my head. The peaked mountains rose up on the right, with their keen outline against the sky, while those in the distance lost themselves in the sunny heavens. The snow-white clouds, with their shining edges, were piled up height above height, and what with the plain below and the glittering stream, the everlasting hills, and the whole prospect extended before me, angels might

have looked down with admiration from the battlements above, on His almighty workmanship who created the "Heaven and the earth, and the sea, and all that in them is." I revelled in the exciting scene, and the language of my heart and tongue was,

"To Him whose temple is all space;

Whose altar, earth, sea, skies;
One chorus let all being raise,

All Nature's inossee ricei”

ON A SPRAINED ANKLE.

IT has been said that "a good horse is never of a bad colour;" but I am somewhat led to doubt the truth of the adage. Whether it be the natural wilfulness of my disposition that leads me to hesitate in admitting many things which others regard as axioms, I cannot say, but it seems to me that if we are frequently sceptical when we ought to believe, we are sometimes credulous when we ought to question. I not only believe that a good horse may be of a bad colour, but also that a good book may have a bad title.

When an author takes " a sprained ankle ” for his subject, his readers will not expect from him much entertainment or originality. Such a subject, however, like a horse of a bad colour, if not attractive, may be rendered useful. Let us see what we can make of it.

It may be, reader, that you have endured the torture of a violent sprain of the ankle, with its attendant inflammation, swelling, and discoloration. You may be familiar with hot fomentations, lotions, cold water, embrocations, and

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