tion of the book of nature which we are employed in contemplating, does it bring into view a single character which is not really and previously inscribed upon it. And so of the Spirit. He does not add a single truth, or a single character to the book of Revelation. He enables the spiritual man to see; but the spectacle which he lays open is uniform and immutable. It is the word of God which is ever the same; and he, whom the Spirit of God has enabled to look to the Bible with a clear and affecting discernment, sees no phantom passing before him; but amid all the visionary extravagance with which he is charged, can for every one article of his faith, and every one duty of his practice, make his triumphant appeal to the law and to the testimony. Dr. Chalmers. ANALOGY BETWEEN PLANTS AND ANIMALS. PLANTS are organized beings, that, like animals, depend for their existence on nourishment, warmth, air, and light. Their nourishment they derive from the soil, their warmth and air jointly from the soil and the atmosphere, and their light from the sun. Plants resemble animals in having an organic structure endowed with life, and in requiring nourishment to enable them to continue to exist. They absorb this nourishment through the small tubular fibres of their roots, in the same way as animals do theirs through the small tubes called lacteals, which convey it from their stomachs. Plants differ from animals in being fixed to one spot; in having the principles of vitality and reproduction diffused over every part, and in thus being propagated by division, as well as by ova, or seeds; in being without a brain or nervous system, and, consequently, incapable of feeling; and in light being as necessary to their existence as air is to that of animals. The soil in which a plant grows is as essential to it as the stomach is to an animal. Food, before it can be absorbed into the system, must be reduced into a pulpy mass, consisting partly of chyle, or nutritious matter, and partly of refuse. This process, in regard to animals, is performed in the stomach, and is called digestion; and, when it is finished, the lacteals suck the chyle from the mass, and convey it to the lungs, where it is assimilated to the blood, and thence is distributed through the frame. The food of plants is rotted (a process similar to digestion) in the soil; and is there brought, by the addition of water and gases, to a sufficient state of fluidity, to enable the spongioles of the roots to absorb from it the part necessary for the nourishment of the plant. It is then carried up to the leaves, where it undergoes a process similar to that to which the chyle is subjected in the lungs, and becomes true sap, which contributes to the growth of plants, as blood does to that of animals. When a plant or an animal is in a state of disease, no application to the leaves and branches of the one, or to the external members of the other, will be of much use, if the soil in the one case, or the stomach in the other, be neglected. The stem and branches of a plant, and the external members of an animal, may be injured, mutilated, and even diseased; but, if the soil or the stomach be invigorated, and placed in a healthy state, the whole plant or animal will soon recover from the injuries it has received, so as to perform all the functions necessary to its existence. The first step, therefore, in cultivating or in improving plants, is, to improve the soil in which they grow. In all vertebrate animals, there is a part at the back of the neck, between the spinal marrow and the brain, where a serious injury will occasion immediate death. There is a corresponding point in plants, between the root and the stern, which is called the neck or collar; and at this point plants may be more readily injured than any where else. Most plants, also, may be killed, by covering this point too deeply with soil. In all seedling plants, this neck, or vital point, is immediately beneath the seed leaves; and, if the plant be cut over there when in a young state, the part which is left in the ground will infallibly die. In old plants, however, and particularly in herbaceous plants which have creeping stems, and in various kinds of trees and shrubs, the roots, after a plant has attained a certain age, become furnished with buds; and, when the plant or tree is cut over by the collar, these dormant buds are called into action, and throw up shoots, which are called suckers. No sucker, however, is ever thrown up by the roots of a plant cut through at the collar while in its seed leaves. The Plants and animals are alike in requiring a certain degree of temperature to keep them alive; and the warmth of this temperature differs greatly in the different kinds both of plants and animals. Hence, the constitutional temperature of any plant to be cultivated being known, that temperature must be maintained by art; either by a suitable situation in the open air, or by its culture under a structure which admits the light, and is capable of having its atmosphere heated to any required degree. The temperature which any plant requires is ascertained by its geographical position in a wild state; making some allowance for the difference produced in the habits of the branches of a tree may be all cut off|getables and the blood in animals, is, that close to the trunk, and the roots also the former have no heart. partially removed; but, if the collar remain uninjured, the plant, in suitable soil, and under favourable circumstances, will throw out new roots and shoots, and, in time, will completely recover itself. There are some plants of the herbaceous kind (such as the horse-radish, for example) that do not suffer, even if their collar should be buried two feet or even three feet; but by far the greater number of plants (such as the hepatica, | the common daisy, the common grasses, etc.) are killed by having the collar covered two or three inches; and nothing is more injurious to woody plants, whether large or small. It is easy to destroy a large tree by heaping up earth round the base of its trunk; and easy to pre-plant by cultivation. vent a small one from growing, by lifting it, and planting it six inches or one foot deeper than it was before. Hence the great importance of not planting any plant deeper in the soil than it was before taking it up. The cause why plants are so much injured by burying the collar has not, as far as we know, been physiologically explained; but it probably proceeds from the want of the action of air on the collar, or on that part of the stem which is immediately above it; or from the pressure of the soil upon that vital point. The next point of analogy between plants and animals, which it may be useful to notice, is that between the lungs and the leaves. An animal can no more live without its lungs than without its stomach. The stomach, as we have seen, is necessary for the turning of food into chyle, and the lungs for turning that chyle into blood. Now, a plant can no more live and grow without leaves, than an animal can without lungs. The use of the lungs is to expose the chyle to the action of the air, which they decompose, so that its oxygen may unite with the chyle, and thus change it into blood. The leaves of plants, which act to them as lungs, not only decompose air, but light, in the process of elaborating the sap; and hence, plants can no more live without light than without air or food, as light is necessary to turn their food into sap, or, in other words, to bring it into the proper state for affording them nourishment. Hence, in the culture of plants, the great importance of light. An important difference, however, between the circulation of the sap in ve Plants agree with animals in requiring periodical times of rest. In animals, these periods are, for the most part, at short intervals of not more than a day; but, in plants, they are commonly at long intervals, probably of a year. In warm climates, the dormant period of plants commences with the dry season, and continues till the recurrence of the periodical rains which are peculiar to the tropical regions. In temperate countries, the dormant season in plants commences with the cold of winter, and continues till the recurrence of spring. When plants are in a dormant state, they commonly lose their leaves, and, consequently, at that season, they are unable to make use of the nourishment applied to their roots; and hence the injury done to them when they are stimulated with nourishment and warmth, so as to occasion their growth during the period at which they ought to be at rest. Hence, also, arises the injury which plants receive, and especially bulbs, if the soil about them be kept moist by water when they are in a dormant state. Plants being fixed to the spot where they grow, they necessarily depend for their food, heat, air, and light, on the circumstances peculiar to that spot; and, hence, to increase their growth beyond what it would be if left to nature, additional food must be brought to them, and the warmth, airiness, and lightness of the situation increased. Hence, what is called vegetable culture, which consists in stirring the soil, adding manure to it, regulating the supply of water by draining or irrigation, sheltering from the colder winds, and exposing to the direct influence of the sun's rays. If we imagine any one of these points attended to, and not the others, the plant will not thrive. Stirring the soil, and mixing it with manure, will be of little use if that soil be liable to be continually saturated with moisture, either from its retentive nature, from springs from below, or from continued rains from above; or if it be continually either entirely without, or with very little moisture, from its porous nature, the want of moisture in the subsoil, and the want of rain and dews from the atmosphere. Improving the soil without improving the climate, (that is, without communicating a proportionate degree of warmth and light,) will increase the bulk of the plant, but without proportionately bringing its different parts to maturity. For example, we will suppose two plantations of trees planted at the same time, in similar soil, and in the same climate; that in the case of the one plantation the soil was trenched and manured, and in the other not; and that the trees were planted in equal numbers in both plantations, and at the same distances. The trees in the prepared soil would grow rapidly, and in the unprepared soil slowly. After a certain number of years, (say twenty,) we shall suppose both plantations cut down; when the timber produced by that which had grown slowly would be found hard, and of good quality; while that produced by the plantation which had grown rapidly, would be found soft, spongy, and, when employed in construction, comparatively of short duration. The reason is, that in this last case, the rate of nourishment to the roots exceeded the natural proportion which nature requires in plants, between the supply of food to the roots, and of light and air to the leaves. Had the trees in the prepared soil been thinned out as they advanced, so as never to allow their branches to do more than barely touch each other, they would have produced a great deal more timber than the trees on the unprepared soil, and that timber would have been of equal firmness and duration with timber of slower growth. It ought, therefore, to be strongly impressed on the minds of amateur cultivators, that though nourishment of the root will produce bulk of the top, or, at least length of top, yet that it is only by abundance of light and air, that quality can be secured. Light is not necessary for either the functions of the stomach, brain, or lungs, in animals; but in plants, though it is equally unnecessary for the functions of the root and the collar, it is essentially so for those of the leaves; and the leaves are necessary to the elaboration of the sap, and consequently, to the nourishment of the plant. A plant, therefore, from which the leaves are continually stripped, as soon as they are produced, soon ceases to live. Small and weak plants, from which the leaves are taken off as they are produced, will die in a single season; and this practice, continued for two seasons, will kill, or nearly so, the largest tree. If, instead of stripping a plant of its leaves, the leaves are produced in the absence of light, and light never admitted to them, the effect will be precisely the same. Seeds germinated, or plants struck from cuttings, in the dark, will not exist a single season; nor will trees, or tubers, such as the potato, placed in an apartment from which all light is excluded, live more than two seasons. Hence the importance of light to plants can scarcely be overrated; for while it has been proved, that plants, even of the most perfect kind, will live for many months, or even years, in glass cases in which very little change of air has taken place, there is no instance of plants, even of the lowest kind, such as ferns and mosses, living for any length of time without light. Without light there can be no green in leaves, no colour in flowers, and neither colour nor flavour in fruits. Plants agree with animals in having a sexual system; but they differ from animals in having, for the most part, both sexes in the same individual. For the improvement of plants, what is called cross-breeding is employed with great advantage in the vegetable, as it is in the animal kingdom. The two parents must be two varieties of the same species, and their qualities may be different, but must not be opposite. Many of the finest varieties of fruits, culinary vegetables, cereal grains, and grasses, have been produced by cross-breeding. Plants, like animals, are subject to various diseases, as well as to be preyed on by insects, most of which live on plants till they have completed their larva state. Plants are also injured by being crowded by other plants, either of the same or of different species. When these spring up naturally around the cultivated plants, they are called weeds, and the cultivated plant is cleansed from them by 16 DURABLE KNOWLEDGE-DIVINE GRACE-TRUTH AND HOLINESS. weeding; as it is in the case of being crowded by its own species, or by other cultivated plants, by thinning. Plants are also injured by epiphytes, which grow on their outer bark, such as mosses and lichens; and by parasites, which root into their living stems and branches, such as the dodder, mistletoe, etc. The life of plants, like that of animals is limited, but varies in regard to duration. Some plants vegetate, flower, ripen seed, and die, in the course of a few months, and these are called annuals; while others, such as the oak and some other trees, are known to live upwards of a thousand years. it be dilated hereafter; the higher measure thereof I attain here, the greater measure of glory hereafter. As the more knowledge I have of the mystery of Christ here, the greater is my perception and admiration of the wisdom, and goodness, and love of God; the greater my joy, and complacence, and delight in that sight and sense, and the more my soul is carried out in love and praise and obedience unto him; so in the life to come that knowledge shall improve, and consequently the sense of the wisdom, mercy, and love of God, and the emotions of love and gratitude to him, and delight and joy in him, shall increase unto all eternity.-Judge Hale. THE PROPERTIES OF DIVINE GRACE. In both plants and animals, decay commences the moment the life is extinct; and in both they are ultimately resolved, first, into a pulpy or other homogeneous mass for manures, and ultimately into certain gases, salts, and earths. After death, the decay, both of animals and DIVINE grace is the free favour, plants may be retarded by the same means, the undeserved compassion of Jehovah, namely, drying, exclusion from the air, or through Jesus Christ, to the absolutely saturating with saline or antiseptic sub-wretched; and includes the bestowment stances.-Loudon's Gardener's Magazine. THE MOST DURABLE KNOWLEDGE. MANY subjects of knowledge there are, wherein by time, or at least by death, knowledge proves useless, or at least the labour therein unprofitable or lost. For instance, I study to be very exact in natural philosophy, the mixtures or conjunctions of qualities, elements, and a thousand such inquiries. Of what use will this be when the world with the works thereof shall be burned up? Or if it should not, what great benefit would this be to a separated soul, which, doubtless, shall either know much more therein without any pains, and so the labour here is lost? or it is such a knowledge as will be inconsiderable or useless to it. And so, and much more for the studies of politics, methods of war, mechanical experiments, languages, laws, customs, histories; all these, within one minute after death, will be as useless as the knowledge of a tailor or shoemaker: they are all adapted to the convenience and use of this life, and with it they vanish. But here is the privilege and advantage that the knowledge of Christ crucified hath; as it serves for this life, so it serves for that to come; and the more it is improved here, the more shall of all spiritual and eternal blessings. Its properties are sovereign, rich, and free; that is, sovereign, as it bestows its favours where and on whomsoever it pleases: rich, as being exceeding abundant in all manner of supplies, extended to the utmost necessities of the poor and wretched; and free, because not conferred upon the account of any inviting qualifications; not rewarding him that willeth or runneth, but in all its bestowments wearing the pleasing appearance of reigning mercy. In short, grace confers the greatest blessings and highest favours, upon the most undeserving amongst the sons of men, according to the good pleasure of the Divine goodness.—S. Ecking. LOVE OF TRUTH AND HOLINESS. As for my part, this I say, and I say it with much integrity, I never yet took up religion by parties in a lump. I have found holiness where you would little think it, and so likewise truth; and I have learned this principle, which I hope I shall never lay down till I am swallowed up of immortality, which is, to acknowledge every good thing, and hold communion with it, in men, in churches, or wheresoever else.-Dr. T. Goodwin. SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATION. after the destruction of Jerusalem, be "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, sides gold and silver, distributed gar where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal."-Matt. vi. 19. "But know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up."-Matt. xxiv. 43. THERE are some expressions in this caution given by our blessed Lord, which require a little explanation to an English reader. Our treasures are not liable to be injured by moths, nor to rust; for gold and silver are neither food for the former, nor are they assailed by the latter. But the treasures of the Easterns did not merely consist in silver and gold, but in a prodigious number of sumptuous and magnificent habits, which were regarded as a necessary and indispensable part of their treasures: hence, in the detail of a great man's wealth, the numerous and superb suits of apparel he possessed are sure to be recorded. Titus, ments to those who had distinguished themselves by their valour. Now it will be easily understood, that the moth would destroy garments; and the word translated "rust," means to corrode, and treasures or ornaments of common metals, would suffer by corrosion. 66 In entering the premises by burglary, the Easterns do not break through doors or windows, for these are not easily accessible, but they make their way through the walls. The words "break through" and "broken up," properly mean to dig through " The Eastern houses are not in general built like ours, of burnt bricks or stone, but of dried clay, like some of the cottages in the west of England; or if of bricks, they are merely hardened in the sun, but not burned; and it was the manner of house robbers to enter them by perforating the walls. It has C |