in want of subjects of agreeable contemplation, and must be habitually cheerful." Yes imost assuredly

"God made the flowers to beautify

The earth, and cheer man's careful mood,
And he is happiest who hath power
To gather wisdom from a flower,
And wake his heart in every hour

To pleasant gratitude."-WORDSWORTH.

It is only in contemplations such as these, that we can hope to obtain true happiness; the feverish joys of the world are short-lived and unsatisfactory; like gilded dreams that haunt the sick man's couch, making his waking hours more painful from the contrast, they are ever mingled with alloys; it is a poisoned chalice from which we drink the enchanted potion;-the roses that adorn the garland of pleasure are not unaccompanied by thorns, which lacerate the brows of the wearers, and leave thereon indelible scars;

"Alas! the joys that fortune brings

Are trifling, and decay;"-GOLDSMITH,

Ambition! what is it but a splendid vision ?--a gorgeous structure built by him who rears his house upon the sands, where the waves are constantly sapping its foundation. Pride! will pride uphold the sinking heart in the hour of affliction? true, it will not bend, but it will break, then woe to the poor wretch who depends on it for support. Even as a stormy ocean whose billows are ever swelling and foaming, ready to engulph those who venture on its bosom ;-And this is human pride!

"There is a gentler element, and man

May breathe it with a calm unruffled soul,

And drink its living waters till heart
Is pure. And this is human happiness!
Its secret and its evidence are writ
In the broad book of nature.

'Tis to have

Attentive and believing faculties;
To go abroad rejoicing in the joy
Of beautiful and well created things;
To love the voice of waters, and the sheen
Of silver fountains leaping to the sea;
To thrill with the rich melody of birds
Living their life of music; to be glad
In the gay sunshine, reverent in the storm;

To see a beauty in the stirring leaf

And find calm thoughts beneath the whispering tree;
To see, and hear, and breathe the evidence

Of God's deep wisdom in the natural world!"--N. P. WILLIS.

And this is human happiness! of which we are invited to become partakers;—this is the "gentler element" whereof we are persuaded to quaff by those almoners of divine bounty-the flowers;-those emblems of all things good, and pure, and holy;—those preachers of faith, and hope, and concord, and charity, with their voices of invisible perfume, making glad the air around them!

"I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,

The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

And 'tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes."-WORDSWORTH.

Oh! what a world of delightful thoughts and sensations

are opened to us by these exquisite lines; how mighty are they to subdue every stormy passion, and soften the asperities of our nature; how humanizing is their influence upon the mind; again and again they recur to us, like a sweet echo, until we are melted even to tears;the rock is smitten, and gives forth its gushing waters; -the arid desert "blossoms like the rose!" We reflect on "what man has made of man," and resolve henceforward to use our utmost endeavours to relieve the load of human misery, for the creed which teaches that "every flower enjoys the air it breathes," while drawing nearer to those radiant peoplers of creation, stirs, as it were by electricity, the golden links of that sympathetic chain which binds us to our fellow men, calling forth all our kindliest feelings, and prompting us to acts of love,

"That delicate forest flower,

With scented breath, and look so like a smile,
Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould,
An emanation of the indwelling Life,

A visible token of the upholding Love,

That are the soul of this wide universe."-BRYANT.

Yes! beautiful and radiant creatures! as ye are the "visible tokens of the upholding Love!" so are ye gifted with faculties and perceptions to know and understand the errand of mercy on which ye are sent, and to rejoice in being made the instruments of divine bounty and goodness. Ye participate in our joys and our sorrows, weeping tears of balm to console us in the time of adversity, and enhancing with your smiles of innocent gaiety the pleasures of our prosperous days; but of our crimes ye know nothing; in our schemes of aggrandizement or projects for the accumulation of

wealth, ye take no part, for base passions and sordid desires are incompatible with the purity of your

natures ;

"To me ye seem

Like creatures of a dream,-
Aerial phantoms of delight;

I can but deem ye much
Too pure for mortal touch,

Ye are so very fair, so passing bright."-H. G. A.

The friendships and affections ye entertain one for another, though warm as the sunbeams wherein ye delight to bask, are of an ethereal character, and stainless as the dews by which ye are nourished and fed ; unlike those of us mortals, too often degraded by animal impulses and unworthy motives.

"Sweet nurslings of the vernal skies,
Bathed in soft airs and fed with dew,
What more than magic in you lies
To fill the heart's fond view!
Relics are ye of Eden's bowers,

As soft, as fragrant, and as fair,

As those that crown'd the sunshine hours
Of happy wanderers there !"-KEEBLE.

Beautiful are ye, exceedingly beautiful! and numberless are the strains of deep impassioned eloquence, embodying thoughts that breathe and words that burn," to testify of the admiration ye have excited in the breasts of those who worship that power,—

"Which tunes the lip to songs and sighs,

And makes the heart a haunted shrine."-L. E. L.

Well have the poets sung of your loveliness, of your fragrance, and of your benign influence. Grave divines

have made sermons on you, and expounded your holy teachings for the edification of man,—

"Floral apostles! that in dewy splendour

Weep without woe, and blush without a crime,
Oh! may I deeply learn, and ne'er surrender

Your lore sublime!"-HORACE SMITH.

Learned historians, and deep-thinking philosophers, have turned them from the momentous events of passed away times, and the labours of scientific research, to admire your beauties, and speak of the moral ye convey. What says FULLER, the sententious? "A flower is the best complexioned grass, as a pearl is the best coloured clay, and daily it weareth God's livery. Solomon himself is outbraved therewith, as whose gallantry only was adopted, and on him, their's innate and in them. In the morning (when it groweth up) it is a lesson of Divine Providence; in the evening (when it is cut down, withered) it is a lesson of human mortality." After this, who shall affirm that ye are useless? What advocate of utility will start up and deny the truth of the following lines?

"Yet spite of all this cager strife,
The ceaseless play, the genuine life,
That serves the steadfast hours,
Is in the grass beneath that grows
Unheeded, and the mute repose

Of sweetly breathing flowers."-WORDSWORTH.

Will the cold-hearted cynic smile, and will the sneering sceptic make a mockery of our words when we repeat this touching lesson?

"God loveth all his creatures,

Doth bless them hour by hour;