us the Book of Revelation, which alone points out the way to God clearly, and reveals his infinite love and mercy. THE VISIBLE CREATION. The God of nature and of grace In all his works appears; His goodness through the earth we trace, Behold this fair and fertile globe, Lift to the firmament your eye, The forests in his strength rejoice; Here on the hills he feeds his herds, His praise is warbled by the birds;- Mount with the lark, and bear our song Or, with the nightingale prolong In every stream his bounty flows, In every breeze his Spirit blows, His blessings fall in plenteous showers That teems with foliage, fruit, and flowers, If God hath made this world so fair, Will paradise be found! HEAVEN. Montgomery. I praised the earth in beauty seen, I praised the sun whose chariot rolled O God! O good beyond compare! Where thy redeemed shall dwell with thee! Heber. 2.-FLOWERS. AMONG the many sources of enjoyment which God has given to us on earth are the flowers, scattered wild and free over the face of nature like a garland of beauty. "Bright clustering in the forest shade, Or springing from the sod, As flung from Eden, forth they came, No human care hath nurtur'd them,— They flourish in the sunshine gleam, The bountiful, hath given, Their treasures fall alike to all, Type of his promised heaven." The woodland and the meadow, the mountain and the valley, each sends forth its rich offering of flowers. We see them bordering the footpaths, adorning the hedgerows, smiling in the shady wood, and in sweet clusters decking the river banks. Each situation and each season has its peculiar flowers. Let us thank God for so clothing the earth with beauty. THE USE OF FLOWERS. God might have bade the earth bring forth Enough for great and small, The oak-tree and the cedar-tree, Without a flower at all. He might have made enough, enough The ore within the mountain-mine Nor doth it need the lotus flower The clouds might give abundant rain, And the herb that keepeth life in man Then wherefore, wherefore were they made, Springing in valleys green and low, And in the silent wilderness, Our outward life requires them not,- To beautify the earth; To comfort man,-to whisper hope Will much more care for him! Mary Howitt. THE richest clothing or the most curious embroidery will not for a moment compare with the beauty of a flower. When examined through a microscope, the most finished and delicate work which the skill of man can produce looks coarse and rough. But it is not so with a flower; for the more closely it is examined, the more beautiful it appears. Even flowers that we commonly call weeds, when viewed through a microscope, display a beauty and delicacy of form which no skill or art of man can equal. He who is not only Christ our Saviour, but the Lord and Creator of all, for "by him all things were made," knew the perfection of his own handiwork, and thus taught his disciples to learn a lesson from the lilies of the field : "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: "And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. 66 "Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, 0 ye of little faith? "Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? "(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek ;) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. |