SUMMER DAYS.

I see

PLEASANT Scenes come up this afternoon with the mention of Summer days. I see depths of wood, where all the light is coolly green, and the rippling brook is crystal clear. I see vistas through pines, like cathedral vaults; the space enclosed looks on a sunshiny day almost black, and a bit of bright blue sky at the end of each is framed by the trees into the likeness of a Gothic window. walls of grey rock on either side of a river, noisy and brawling in winter time, but now quiet and low. For two or three miles the walls of rock stretch onward; there are thick woods above them, and here and there a sunny field: masses of ivy clothe the rock in places; long sprays of ivy hang over. I walk on in thought till I reach the opening of the glen; here a green bank slopes upward from a dark pool below, and there is a fair stretch of champaign country beyond the river; on the summit of the green bank, on this side, mouldering, grey, ivied, lonely, stand the ruins of the monastery, which has kept its place here for seven hundred years. There are masses of large daisies varying the sward, and the sweet fragrance of young clover is diffused through all the air. I turn aside, and walk through lines of rose-trees in their summer perfection. I hear the drowsy hum of the laden bees. Suddenly it is the twilight, the long twilight of Scotland, which would sometimes serve you to read by at eleven o'clock at night. The crimson flush has faded from the bosom of the river; if you are alone its murmur begins to turn to a moan; the white stones of the churchyard look spectral through the trees. Then I go to a certain beautiful promise which the deepening twilight seldom fails to suggest to me: "It shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear nor dark. But it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day nor night: but it shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light."

THE EVENING CLOUD.

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THE EVENING CLOUD.

A CLOUD lay cradled near the setting sun;

A gleam of crimson tinged its braided snow:
Long had I watched the glory moving on,

O'er the still radiance of the lake below;
Tranquil its spirit seemed, and floated slow,
E'en in its very motion there was rest;
While every breath of eve that chanced to blow,
Wafted the traveller to the beauteous west.

Emblem, methought, of the departed soul,

To whose white robe the gleam of bliss is given,

And by the breath of mercy made to roll

Right onward to the golden gates of heaven,

Where to the eye of faith it peaceful lies,
And tells to man his glorious destinies.

HYMN FOR JULY.

"The burden and heat of the day."-St. Matthew xx. 12.

WHEN at midday my task I ply
With labouring hand or watchful eye,
I need the timely aid of prayer
To guard my soul from worldly care.

Thou, Lord, didst consecrate this hour
To mind us of Thy saving power,
Thy living water's heavenly spell,
The mystery of Jacob's well.

There, about noon, with toil oppressed,
Feebly Thy voice its plaint expressed:
"Give Me to drink!" O wondrous woe!
God thirsts, from whom all blessings flow!