topmost branches in the direction of the snap- | other senses to be gratified than that of taste, dragon. A murmur of satisfaction passed and other wants than bodily wants. Το through the whole flower garden at this prop- minister to bodily necessities is not to be osition, while the rose acacia whispered to despised, yet it is not the highest good. Ye the hemp that now was the time to make have a beauty of your own, ye vegetables, himself famous. So the hemp tree stood up but ye have not all there is of beauty, and and addressed both parties something in this ye have a usefulness, but not all usefulness. The owner gives precedence to what is needed most, and it is not for such as you to find fault with the disposition of things in the garden, for it belongs neither to you nor the flowers, but to the owner. And when you quarrel with each other it is a family quarrel, which the sooner made up the better." manner: During the latter part of this speech I noticed a great rustling among all the fruit trees in the garden, and at last a pear tree called the Duchess, spoke after this manner. "I am neither flower nor vegetable. I am among you in this garden, and yet not of you. I came here seemingly by chance, a little seed dropped into a pot of earth, and if I am an usurper, I am so not willingly, but by force of circumstances. I have grown up and overshadowed this beautiful day lily, and thrust my branches into this rose acacia, not from any ill-feeling, but because it was my nature to grow and I could do no other wise. Now I want to say to you vegetables, that the flowers, although I am not of them, "As a representative of the fruit trees in have treated me kindly. Even when my the garden, I must say that I think you vegsmall blossoms showed themselves, they did etables and flowers labor under very erronenot say to me, 'you are not of us, we will ous impressions. You think the garden is have none of you; why don't you grow with prepared and the seed sown purposely for the vegetables who are made for usefulness your growth, that there may be flowers for not beauty. Your seeds are for food and beauty and vegetables for use, let me assure your tough stalks for paper and clothing. you there never was a greater mistake. It is What business have you with us?' But you for us for the trees, that all this is done. do very differently. Because the owner of This little strip of ground being taken for this garden saw fit to plant a few flowers in flowers instead of vegetables, was a matter what you call your territory, you come down of small importance to the owner, so that with all your indignation, and declare they the ground was kept open, was all that was are usurpers; and, not content with that, wanted. And it is that we may do well and decry their beauty and usefulness. Is it the bear fruit that the garden is cultivated. fault of the flowers that the owner has seen You flowers and you vegetables are of secfit to plant flowers instead of vegetables? ondary importance. It is pleasant to see the Does the garden belong to you more than to flowers blossom and convenient to have the the flowers? Is it not the owner's and at the vegetables for the table, but there is small owner's pleasure? profit in either, and were it not for keeping the soil mellow for our roots, the garden were better laid down to grass. Don't you see how every year our numbers increase? And who is to be the judge of beauty and utility, you or the owner? You may think a squash blossom as pretty as a garden lily, but the owner may think differently. It doesn't mend the matter to speak slightingly of the lily. You are pretty enough in your way, but when you claim equal beauty with the flowers, it is just sheer conceit. And your idea of utility is altogether wrong. Because a flower answers no bodily want, because you cannot make it into a salad, or pickle it or stew it, or make a pie of it, doesn't prove it is useless. Are you the best judge of the owner's needs? There are This very season, peach and pear trees have been added. Don't you see how we are watched and tended and shown to visitors? and how carefully our fruit is picked, and how in every way we are made much of? So you perceive how foolish it is for you to fall out with each other, when, as every year we grow larger, we shall more overshadow you and make you of less account." This speech of the Duchess set the whole garden in an uproar. The corn shook its tassels and its long leaves, the tomatoes trembled so much that their odor quite overpowered the mignonette, the beets and the onions were ready to start from their beds with anger, the flowers forgot the affront from the vegetables, who, in their turn, were ready to overlook the usurpations of the flowers, so much the assurance and insolence of the trees overtopped everything. But the Duchess had not yet finished: "As for the hemp, that sets himself up for a tree and for an umpire, because, forsooth, he is some six feet high. He is no tree at all. I should call him nothing but a monstrous weed, for he hasn't beauty enough for a flower, nor is he fit for food like a vegetable, neither has he fruit. He has been petted and noticed till he is so conceited he pretends to be a tree. We trees have no patience with such presumption. A tree, indeed, that can't withstand a winter's cold; a tree, indeed, that has no fruit not even a blossom worthy of the name! The next thing we hear he will be claiming the whole garden for his own, but we will see what the first frost will do for him." At this unexpected attack, the poor hemp did not know which way to turn. I think for the first time he wished himself in Russia or Kentucky. But he had the sympathy of all the flowers, and the vegetables cried "shame!" While waiting to know if the hemp would make any answer to this attack, my attention was diverted by what I will call, if I may use the expression, a collection of noises. There was a buzzing, a humming, and a sort of piping, altogether indescribable, which finally resolved into the loud chirp of a cricket, as if the insect tribe had chosen him for a spokesman, as indeed it proved they had. And being interpreted, this is what he said: "What a nice quarrel is this to be sure. The flowers say the garden is for us, the vegetables say it is for us, and the trees, you are both mistaken, the whole garden is ours. Now the fact of the case is, it is for us, the insect tribe. For us the flowers, the vegetables, the fruit. The seed is sown for us, the shrub puts out its leaves for us, the roses are ours. There isn't a thing in the garden that we are not free to touch. Our family is very large; some of us love flowers, and some vegetables and others fruit. Some eat tomatoes and some roses, some prefer leaves, some fruit. But we are everywhere. That big Duchess, that speaks so plainly, we are up in her topmost bough, and in her biggest pear one of our family has made a home. Those peach trees, too, belong to us; some of our family will be sure to fasten upon her juiciest fruit. Our habits are various, some of us destroying a whole branch, leaf by leaf; others fasten to a leaf then covering another leaf over them, make themselves a snug home. Some prefer the tender, delicate buds, and some pry into the hard bark of the trees. But we all find food and shelter and a home in this garden. It is very well for the flowers and the vegetables and the fruit to have their little quarrels as to their respective shares in this garden, and it is very well for the hemp to come in as umpire to settle the dispute and talk about the owner's needs and all this fine talk, but we know that whether the owner will it or not, the garden is ours, for we live in it and upon it. For us flowers grow, vegetables and fruit ripen, for us the owner works. And for all this we give nothing. The flowers give beauty to the owner, the vegetables and fruits furnish his table. We give him nothing, we take all. We are small, but we are powerful. The garden is ours." And the old cricket kept up his monotonous chirp, of which this was the burden. The garden is ours, the garden is ours." I lifted up my head from the window ledge and found the moonlight was shining full upon me. A great dragon fly was buzzing against the window over my head, and the crickets were chirping loud and shrill in the garden below, and the night was wearing away. But the flowers were quiet enough, no breeze stirred the hemp or the corn, or rustled the tops of the trees. The quarrel, if there had been one, was ended, and hoping that I still owned the garden notwithstanding the claims of the insect tribe, which I own I have sometimes believed, I closed the blinds, turned up the gas and prepared myself for rest. SOME people seem to have virtue enough for their whole town except themselves. LOST AND FOUND. Dear, I have found thee! I ask not the rest, I who have prized in thee all that was best, drawn ; LESSONS FROM THE BOOK OF CREATION BY REV. T. B. THAYER. THERE is no spot on tion or suggestion HERE is no spot on all the earth that by which we may profit. And there is no time of life, no conditions or circumstances of life which will not teach us something use Sought for thee long, amid doubting and ful or pleasing for us to know, if we are wilfears, ling to learn. From the crowded streets, Hoped for thee always, though hope seemed from the solitudes of the wilderness, from in vain, Prayed for thee, dear one, in anguish and where deep calleth unto deep, from the way tears, Let it all pass, the everlasting hills, from the vast oceans side flower and the oak tree and the cedar -I have found thee again! tree-from every created thing; from every Let the dark years to oblivion slip; God in his mercy remembers them not. Give me no penance of hand or of lip,Why should I question, when He has forgot? I but remember the innocent past, All the long years of thy beautiful youth; Clouded with shadows that o'er them were cast, passing event, whether the building of a sparrow's nest or the overthrow of an empire, there come to us voices which, if listened to with willing ear, will touch us with a power greater and more persuasive than any eloquence that ever trembled on the lips of uninspired men. All things are instinct with God. Nature is but the garment wherewith he is clothed that he may measurably become visible to us; Brightened with sunshine of courage and or, in other phrase, that we may be able to truth. I only know, whatsoever may be In this sad silence and mystery furled, That the cold world has dealt harder with thee, Thousand-fold harder, than thou with the world. I only read in the saintlier face Storing thy pain with each sorrowful line, If thou hadst strayed to the limits of grace, All is washed out with atonement like thine! Dear, I have found thee,-I ask for no more! Only to kneel by this gateway of heaven, Thanking our God, while I humbly implore "Let us forgive, as Thy love has forgiven!" Do right and fear no one; thou may'st be sure that with all thy consideration for the world, thou wilt never satisfy the world. But if thou goest forward straight on thy way, not concerning thyself with the friendly or unfriendly glances of men, then thou hast conquered the world, and it is subject to thee. see somewhat of the methods by which he works, and adapts means to ends, and shapes things material so that they may suggest and illustrate things spiritual. Hence Paul justly denounces the wilful wickedness of the ancient idolators. "Because," as he says, "that which may be known of God is manifest to them, for God hath showed it unto them; for the invisible things concerning him are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse." God is speaking to us every day through the manifold phenomena of science and natural philosophy and natural theology; and by these he is enforcing the lessons of that other Revelation which came by Jesus Christ, and by the prophets who spake as they were moved by his Holy Spirit. And there is no excuse, therefore, for ignorance or indifference, for we are always in the temple of worship and instruction, and his priests are ever with us. "Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. the line of their testimony is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." Or to pass | precipitous sides, and wrapped the mantle of from the words of the Hebrew poet to those There they of the Christian : The seasons in their courses fall, There's beauty in the heat of day; There's sweetness in the twilight shades And if thy glories here be found, What must the fount of glory be! Thou, love's unfathomable sea!" I have been led to the record of these thoughts by the hope that they may help to quicken some minds and hearts to the consideration of the various methods in which God teaches those who are waiting to learn; and to bring them to see that they are never deprived of the privilege of worship, that the doors of his temple are never closed, that the voice of his instruction is never silent or, in one word, that the whole material creation is but a series of illuminated pages whereon the doctrines and the moral lessons of the written word are illustrated to the eye and impressed upon the heart of the devout and attentive worshipper. And the subject itself has occupied my attention the more just now, because of various incidents of my summer wanderings by the seashore and among the mountains, enjoying the sweet breath of Nature and listening to her manifold musical voices. Of the things with which, during these days, I chiefly commend, let me speak 1st. Of the Mountains. Far in the distance they lifted their lofty summits, clothed in their purple robes, standing out from the background of the sky- or rather, as it seemed, standing under the sky, and holding it up on their broad shoulders, as Atlas is represented in classic fable as holding the globe. There they stood silent, solemn, grand in their majestic proportions, beautiful in their flowing outline, and glorious above description as the setting sun gathered its golden splendors around them, or the deep shadows of the evening crept slowly up their night about their summits. stood as they had stood from the beginning of the world, fitting symbols of Divine power and steadfastness, of the eternal purposes of Him who, in his infinite love and beneficence, hath no variableness nor shadow of turning, the same yesterday, to-day and forever! In the thousands of years that they have kept their watch there, countless generations have come and gone with all their loves and hates, their wars and sports and toils, their hopes and fears, their joys and sorrows, their successes and failures. But the hills, the everlasting hills remain unchanged, eternal in their youth and beauty, the same to our admiring eyes that they were to the men of a thousand years ago. And so, gazing and musing, thought travelled back through the ages, and reviewed the revolutions in the affairs of men, the birth and death of nations; and, returning to the convulsions and changes of our own time, the question came - Shall He who set these mountains on their base, who built up these walls of granite into the sky, shall he be less firm than they? Shall he be turned from his purposes of judgment or mercy by the weakness, the wickedness, or the wilfulness of the rulers or the peoples of the earth? No, verily; they may change, but God is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever! What though revolutions may seem to go backward, it is only the movement of the pendulum! Look up to the dial-plate, and you will see that the hands of the clock move steadily forward; and that "the hour is coming when all that are in the graves shall come forth, they that have done good to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." Firmer than the hills is the throne of God; and surer than the stars in their courses are the retributions of his law, and the promise of his redemption to all the families and kindreds of the earth. 2d. The Lesson of the Sea. For hours I sat silent and alone upon the beach, watching the great billows of the Atlantic as they came tumbling in upon the shore of the little island. They came across the whole breadth of the ocean-for there was nothing between Europe and where I lay upon the sands. And they came on, one following another in endless succession, rolling in from the great deeps, and breaking at my feet in foam and drifting spray. No cessation, not one moment of rest; motion, motion perpetual, a heaving, surging, boiling, weltering mass of waters, filled with a confused wreck of sedge and sand and seaweed, and whatever else had been churned up from the bottom of the sea. And so it has been, thought I as I looked out upon the unquiet scene, so it has been through unnumbered ages the same wild rush and swirl of waters, the same throbbing and beating on the shore, the same deep roar of the surf, the same restless, never-ceasing tumbling and tossing of the great waves. Then I remembered that terrible denunciation of the righteous God against the persistent transgressor. "There is no peace to the wicked; they are like the troubled sea which cannot rest!" What a striking commentary was there here on these inspired words. How visibly had the Creator illustrated in his works the solemn truth of his word. What an impressive sermon was the troubled sea preaching that day to all who had ears to hear and eyes to see. How the metaphor deepens in meaning as the reality comes up visibly before us. How the moral fact it represents takes hold on the understanding and heart. Is this then a symbol of the life the wicked live? Does this seething and tossing sea figure their unrest and agitation, their incessant fears and apprehensions of coming evil, their remorse and torture of conscience? Is this chaos of shifting waves forever rising and falling, forming and breaking, advancing and retreating, thundering on the shore and swallowed again in the yearning depths this a picture of the sinner's soul? Of the wild chaos of passions, appetites, anxieties and terrors, of the fierce struggles and conflicts which agitate the breast of the criminal and wilful transgressor? Does this mirror the indignation and wrath, the tribulation and anguish which God visits on every soul of man that doeth evil? O then, if it be so, more fervently than ever should we pray, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." And well may we take up the is | words of David, who had sounded the depths of sin and retribution, and spoke from experience" Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked thing in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." — Psalms exxxix. 3d. A few words of the Oak Tree, its growth, strength and endurance. Sitting in the shade of one of the monarchs of the forest, whose vast trunk and farspreading branches and majestic proportions and perfect symmetry, were the growth of hundreds of years—it seemed a just emblem of the Christian character-a thing which is not wrought out to perfection in a moment, which is not the product of a sudden and mysterious religious experience; but the slow growth of time and effort. It happened sometime since that one of our faith, in conference with the believers of another creed, remarked that he had been trying for forty years to be a perfect Christian, and had not even yet reached to that great attainment - to which it was replied, "Come with us, and we will make you a Christian in a single evening." It might be well for such people to remember that Jonah's gourd came up in a night, and withered and perished in a day; while the oak which for centuries has been sending its roots deep down into the earth and lifting its tall form toward heaven, does not wither in the sun's heat like the gourd, nor bow like a reed in the wind, but defiantly shakes its giant arms in the face of the blast, and battles with the storm, and for centuries still will stand up against the sky the symbol of strength, endurance and victory. So it is with the genuine Christian character. It comes to its symmetry, its full growth slowly, but then when it has come to this, it is deep-rooted, and spreads out broad and generous toward the sky; it is strong and permanent, lasting for a whole life, and taking hold on eternity! It is this kind of Christian character that the Church stands in need of to-day. There has been more than enough of that piety which resembles the prophet's gourd; or those plants forced. into unnatural growth by the heated atmosphere of the green-house, looking fair enough in blossom and leaf, when first brought forth, |