THOUGHTS ON NATURE.

HAPPY if full of days-but happier far,
If, ere we yet discern life's evening star,
Sick of a service of a world that feeds
Its patient drudges with dry chaff and weeds,
We can escape from custom's idiot sway,
To serve the Sovereign we were born ť obey.
Then sweet to muse upon his skill displayed,
(Infinite skill,) in all that he has made!
To trace, in Nature's most minute design,
The signature and stamp of power divine;
Contrivance intricate, expressed with ease,
Where unassisted sight no beauty sees.
The shapely limb, and lubricated joint,
Within the small dimensions of a point,
Muscle and nerve miraculously spun,
His mighty work, who speaks and it is done,
The Invisible, in things scarce seen revealed,
To whom an atom is an ample field:

To wonder at a thousand insect forms,

These hatched, and those resuscitated worms,
New life ordained, and brighter scenes to share,
Once prone on earth, now buoyant upon air;
Whose shape would make them, had they bulk and size,
More hideous foes than fancy can devise;
With helmet-heads, and dragon-scales adorned,
The mighty myriads, now securely scorned,
Would mock the majesty of man's high birth,
Despise his bulwarks, and unpeople earth.
Then with a glance of fancy to survey,
Far as the faculty can stretch away,

Ten thousand rivers, poured at His command,
From urns that never fail, through every land;
These like a deluge with impetuous force,
Those winding modestly a silent course;
The cloud-surmounting Alps, the fruitful vales;
Seas, on which every nation spreads her sails;
The sun, a world, whence other worlds drink light;
The crescent moon, the diadem of night;
Stars countless, each in his appointed place,
Fast anchored in the deep abyss of space;

At such a sight to catch the poet's flame,
And with a rapture like his own exclaim,

These are Thy glorious works, thou Source of good!
How dimly seen, how faintly understood!
Thine, and upheld by Thy paternal care,
This universal frame, thus wondrous fair;
Thy power divine, and bounty beyond thought,
Adored and praised in all that Thou hast wrought.
Absorbed in that immensity I see,

I shrink abased, and yet aspire to Thee;
Instruct me, guide me to that heavenly day,
Thy words more clearly than Thy works display,
That while Thy truths my grosser thoughts refine,
I may resemble Thee, and call Thee mine!-Cowper.

FLOWERS.

EACH chapter of the creation is equally divine, equally the emanation of its omnipotent Author. The minutest particle of it is too great for the puny intellect of man to grapple with: how, then, shall it comprehend the whole? The earth clothed with an endless variety of animal and vegetable life; and even the mould beneath its surface inhabited by beings adapted to their state of existence: oceans and rivers peopled with shoals of living things, to the shapes and instincts of many of which we are strangers: and, to descend to minutiæ, the air itself animate with congregated myriads of imperceptible creatures: the liquids we make use of, but masses of animation; an animal almost imperceptible is the theatre and support of millions which are entirely so. How is the mind swallowed up and lost in the immensity which it vainly attempts to fathom: but, even on the surface of which, it is tossed and driven about like a feather on the ocean. But, perhaps, amid this apparently boundless variety, there is no class of created things more calculated to delight our senses than that of flowers.

What a beauteous and odorous populace burst into existence beneath the footprints of creative Spring, as she walks over the earth clothed with beauty as with a garment. Then advances Summer, in the full pride of maturity, and deluges its whole surface with prodigal and

luxuriant fertility. Lovely are the variegated fruit-blossoms, the beauteous cradles of the little germs which are soon to ripen into those coloured and sunny balls, which shall bow down the branches in Autumn! Beautiful are the gay inhabitants of the garden! the gorgeous and queen-like rose-purity's emblem, the fair lily-the lofty and clustering lilac-the white snow-drop (a little billet flung from the delicate hand of Spring, to command the departure of winter)—the fringed pink-the lowly heartsease the climbing and odorous honeysuckle, entwining itself around, and adorning the object by which it is upheld (lovely emblem of the affection and devotedness of woman)-the rainbow-headed tulip; and many beside, too many to be enumerated. But, do these alone possess beauty and impart delight? Does not the field, the hedge-row, the river's brink, and, indeed, every spot accessible to the silver shower, or the creative sunbeam, present the mind with volumes to amuse and instruct it? Are the exquisite flowers of the violet, blue and white (like constancy and purity), inferior to any of the minions of cultivation? Is there not beauty in the asphodel? Does not the simple and modest daisy begem the fields and the lawns almost entirely throughout the year? Hath not the meadow its golden wealth of cowslips; the hedge its hawthorn; the heath its blue-bells? And low as they may be ranked in the scale, are not even the lichens and mosses, which clothe the most desolate places, replete with sweetness and with beauty?

The time at which flowers appear, varies according to their species, and hence we have some in blow, of one kind or another, throughout the year. The hour of day, also, at which they expand is various. Some burst from their confinement in time to meet the dawn; some, as the water-lily, do not expand until noon; and others, not till the western star sweetens with her beams the soft and dewy hour of twilight. Other plants, again, expand their flowers only in the night: such is the great night-flowering cereus, which spreads its large blossoms for a few hours, and then they close to open no more.

Flowers are the jewels of nature-the poetry of the earth! yet how dull and insensible are we to the moral

which they inculcate; how deaf to the language which they convey. While the sensitive and intellectual few, of all ranks, perceive and enjoy in their sublimities, the unfortunate, whose orbs of vision are sealed in darkness, are not more blind to them than are the great majority of mankind. Anon.

THE NIGHT-BLOWING CEREUS.
CAN it be true? so fragrant and so fair!
To give thy perfume to the dews of night?
Can aught so beautiful shrink from the glare,
And fade and sicken in the coming light?
Yes, peerless flower! the heavens alone exhale
Thy fragrance; while the glittering stars attest,
And incense, wafted from the midnight gale,
Untainted rises from thy spotless breast.
Sweet emblem of that faith, which seeks, apart
From human praise, to love and work unseen;
That gives to heaven an undivided heart—
In sorrow steadfast, and in joy serene!
Anchored on GOD, no adverse cloud can dim;
Her eye, unaltered, still is fixed on him!-Anon.

PARENTAL SOLICITUDE.

PARENTAL affection is one of the most powerful instincts in human nature. At the time of our infancy every bodily ailment, every helpless cry, awakened at once the solicitude and apprehensions of our parents; yet their cares and labours for us then were inconsiderable in comparison to those which they afterwards exert in the education of our minds, and in the direction of our conduct; and as life advances, the cares of our parents increase with it; as they have toiled for us from our earliest years, so do they continue to toil, that we may be well and honourably established in the world; all their powers and their interest are employed for our advantage; and remember that all these things are done by a parent from pure, disinterested affection; they have in them no reflex views of self-interest; for the sake of his children, and for their sake alone, are these cares supported, and these labours undergone; the parent asks but to see his offspring happy, and he is rewarded.

No one who has not felt it, knows the exultation and transport which a parent experiences in the virtuous behaviour and discreet conduct of a beloved child. He has the ordinary satisfaction which arises from success in the pursuit in which he has been engaged; but he has infinitely more; it is not only that his pains are rewarded, that his toil of education and instruction is repaid, but it is that his beloved child is esteemed, approved, and honoured; that he is fulfilling all the hopes that parental affection had formed of him; that he is treading that path which will lead him through present honour, and respect among men, to the happiness of eternal life.

After a certain period, parents may be said to live in and for their children; their hopes of happiness in this world rest, next to God, upon them; their labours and cares are chiefly upon their account; the greatest joy which they can feel from earthly things is to know that they are prudent, respected, and happy; and the sharpest affliction that can befall them, is to see or hear of their misconduct, and to have cause to forbode their future ruin. What flattering promises have they made to themselves of the future character and reputation of their children! How often have they cheered laborious days and sleepless nights with the thoughts of the great blessings they would procure for them in the decline of life; they have a thousand and a thousand times represented them to their imaginations as the props of their old age; as friends, provided for them by Divine Providence, to sympathise with and alleviate their approaching infirmities, to visit and cheer them in the latter and solitary years of life; kindly to close their eyes, and shed the tears of affection and gratitude over their tombs. Full of such pleasing hopes, how cruel would be the disappointment and how severe the shock, when, instead of the fair prospects on which their imaginations used to dwell with so much delight, they, with heavy hearts, begin to fear and foresee, for their offspring, ruin and infamy-and for themselves, shame and vexation-to embitter their latter days, and hasten down their grey hairs with sorrow to the grave!-Sandford and Riddoch.