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66 CONSIDER THE LILIES OF THE FIELD."

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"Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

Lo, the lilies of the field!

How their leaves instruction yield!
Hark to Nature's lesson given
By the blessed birds of heaven!
Every bush and tufted tree
Warbles sweet philosophy :-
"Mortal! fly from doubt and sorrow:
God provideth for the morrow!

"Say, with richer crimson glows
The kingly mantle than the rose?
Say, have kings more wholesome fare
Than we, poor citizens of air?
Barns nor hoarded grain have we,
Yet we carol merrily.

Mortal! fly from doubt and sorrow:
God provideth for the morrow!

"One there lives whose guardian eye
Guides our humble destiny;
One there lives who, Lord of all,
Keeps our feathers lest they fall:
Pass we blithely then, the time,
Fearless of the snare and lime,
Free from doubt and faithless sorrow:
God provideth for the morrow!"

Heber.

4.-THE COLOURS AND SHAPES OF FLOWERS.

MAN, with all his knowledge, cannot tell how the colours of a flower are produced. Let him watch a rose-bush. He sees at first a little green bud, which becomes larger every day, till it begins to open, and the red leaves of the flower appear all folded together. Gradually these leaves spread out, and at last he sees a full-blown rose. He may know that the flower is made from the sap or juice of the plant, and that there are little pipes through which the sap flows to all parts of it, just as the blood circulates in the human body; but how it is that one flower becomes red and another white, the wisest man on earth cannot tell. It is a secret which God has not permitted us yet to find out. The beauty of the rich blossoms of the flowers tells us that they were painted by no earthly hand, but are the work of Him who is infinite in wisdom and in power.

But shows some touch, in

Not a flower

freckle, streak, or stain,

Of His unrivalled pencil. He inspires
Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes,
In grains as countless as the sea-side sands,
The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth.
Happy who walks with him! whom what he finds
Of flavour or of scent in fruit or flower,
Or what he views of beautiful or grand
In nature, from the broad majestic oak
To the green blade that twinkles in the sun,
Prompts with remembrance of a present God.

Cowper

THE COLOURS AND SHAPES OF FLOWERS.

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There are flowers of every variety of colour, and each season has flowers peculiar to itself. January has its snowdrops, February its crocuses, June its roses, and August its flowers of every hue.

There are flowers also of every variety of shape; and the shape often gives a flower its name. Some are like stars, and are called asters, from a Greek word signifying a star. Such are the China-asters that we see in gardens. Other flowers are shaped like butterflies, as the pea blossom, and the blossom of the common broom and furze.

The flowers of the lily of the valley hang like little bells from the stem: and the beautiful little blue-bells, which we find in the hedgerows and on the common, have their name from their bell shape.

Other flowers are cup-shaped, as the well-known bright yellow butter-cup, and the narcissus, which has in the middle a little shallow cup something like a bowl.

The flower of the calceolaria1 hangs down like a bag or pocket, having a round opening above.

Some flowers are shaped like a trumpet, as is the case with an American plant called the trumpet-creeper, the blossom of which is so deep that the humming-bird is almost covered by it, when he goes to seek honey in the bottom of the flower.

The blossom of the snap-dragon has a very peculiar shape. By pressing it together sideways, it can be made. to open like a mouth; and in it are little white things that look like teeth. By letting it go, this mouth snaps together again; and from this the flower obtains its name.

Some flowers are called compound, because each flower

1. Pronounced cal-sčo-lae-ri-a.

is made up of a great many others. The dandelion1 is a flower of this kind, each blossom having a great number of flowers in it, which severally appear very beautiful when closely examined.

The daisy is a pretty little flower of the same kind. In its golden yellow bosom it has a multitude of little flowers close together; and around this yellow part there is a row of delicate leaves, sometimes white and sometimes beautifully tipped with crimson.

THE DAISY.

Not worlds on worlds, in varied form,
Need we to tell a God is here;
The Daisy, fresh from winter's storm,
Speaks of His hand in lines as clear.
What hand but His who arched the skies,
And pours the dayspring's living flood,3
Wondrous alike in all He tries,

Could raise the Daisy's simple bud,

Mould its green cup, its wiry stem,
Its fringed border nicely spin,
And cut the gold-embossed gem,
That, set in silver, gleams within;
And fling it, unrestrained and free,
O'er hill, and dale, and desert sod;
That man, where'er he walks, may see
At every step the trace of God!

1 Dandelion-corrupted from the French, 'dent de lion, tooth of the lion.'

2 Dayspring-rise of day, dawn.

3 Living flood-of light.

[blocks in formation]

ON FINDING ONE IN BLOOM ON CHRISTMAS-DAY.

THERE is a flower, a little flower,
With silver crest and golden eye,
That welcomes every changing hour,
And weathers every sky.

The prouder beauties of the field

In gay but quick succession shine; Race after race their honours yield,— They flourish and decline.

But this small flower, to Nature dear,

While moons and stars their courses run, Wreaths the whole circle of the year, Companion of the sun.

It smiles upon the lap of May,

To sultry August spreads its charms,
Lights pale October on its way,
And twines December's arms.

The purple heath and golden broom
On moory mountains catch the gale;
O'er lawns the lily sheds perfume,

The violet in the vale;

But this bold floweret climbs the hill,
Hides in the forest, haunts the glen,
Plays on the margin of the rill,
Peeps round the fox's den.

Within the garden's cultured round

It shares the sweet Carnation's bed;

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