you

of the world about him by his senses and his brain; and the better you learn what they can teach you, the more fit will be to learn what they cannot teach you. The more you try now to understand things, the more you will be able hereafter to understand men, and that which is above men. As our Lord told the Jews of old, it is by watching the common natural things around you, and considering the lilies of the field, how they grow, that you will begin to learn that far diviner mystery-that you have a Father in Heaven.

AGASSIZ.

It was fifty years ago,1

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

In the pleasant month of May,
In the beautiful Pays de Vaud,
A child in its cradle lay.

And Nature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying "Here is a story book

Thy Father has written for thee."

"Come wander with me," she said,
"Into regions yet untrod;
And read what is still unread
In the manuscripts of God."

And he wandered away and away
With Nature, the dear old nurse,
Who sang to him night and day
The rhymes of the universe.

1 Written, May 28, 1857.

And whenever the way seemed long,
Or his heart began to fail,

She would sing a more wonderful song,
Or tell a more marvelous tale.

LONGFELLOW.

2.-SUMMER STUDIES.

bot'a-ny, the history of plant life. chrys'a-lid, the caterpillar in its sleeping

state from which it comes out in the

form of a butterfly or moth. ge-ŏl'o-gy, the history of the earth's for

mation.

1. FRED returned to his city home the first of October, to enter school again, glad to go back to his school-mates, but sorry to leave the country just as the swamp maples began to take on their gorgeous autumn tints, while the fields were gay with asters and goldenrods, and the stone walls and road-side thickets were blazing with scarlet and crimson.

2. He had seen the beginning and fullness of summer life; had watched the springing blade and the ripening grain; had seen the gardens planted and the harvest almost ended. He left us as healthy and happy as a boy could be who had had nothing to do all summer but to cultivate an acquaintance with all out doors, aud had done it industriously. Here lies the secret of the pleasure and profit he got from his country life. He was like an explorer in a strange land; his life was a life of constant study; yet he had not opened a school book.

3. He filled several big books with specimens of leaves and flowers, and made himself acquainted with most of the common plants and trees of this part of the country. He learned how the common garden vegetables grow, and how

they look while growing; and gathered samples of the different grains, showing various stages of growth, from the sprouting of the seed to the ripened grain. He collected specimens of wood, showing the bark, the heart-wood, and the sap-wood of onr timber and fruit trees, and he has a good idea of the uses of each. He had also a box of stones representing the different rocks of this region.

66

All these will be handy," he said," when I study botany and geology at school."

4. Besides these, he had a variety of bugs, beetles, butterflies, and other insects, carefully put up in tight boxes, and as many as twenty kinds of chrysalids. And as for birdsyou would think he had lived in their nests, he had picked up so many of their family secrets.

Best of all, he has acquired excellent habits of observation and study. He has learned how to use books as helps to knowledge he cannot get otherwise, without depending on them for everything.

5. For instance, when driving the cows to pasture, he would frequently hear a strange note in tree or bush. Generally he would manage to catch a glimpse of the musical stranger which he might never have a chance to see again, as many birds of passage stop but a little while with Sometimes he would spend hours watching his new acquaintances. Having made sure of their appearance and movements, he would turn to Audubon, or some other book of birds, and perhaps find a colored picture or a long description of the new comer.

us.

6. In like manner he would study any new flower or insect, first out of doors in its native home, then in books, often testing the observations of others by his own.

"By and by," he would say, "I shall study these things

scientifically: now it is enough to get just a little acquainted with them."

He did not realize that he was already studying scientifically!

SELECTED FROM "EYES RIGHT."

3. THE USE OF FLOWERS.

GOD might have made the earth bring forth
Enough for great and small,

The oak-tree and the cedar-tree,

Without a flower at all.

We might have had enough, enough

For every want of ours,

For luxury, medicine, and toil,

And yet have had no flowers.

The ore within the mountain mine
Requireth none to grow;
Nor doth it need the lotus-flower
To make the river flow.

The clouds might give abundant rain,
The nightly dews might fall,
And the herb that keepeth life in man
Might yet have drunk them all.

Then, wherefore, wherefore were they made,
All dyed with rainbow light,

All fashioned with supremest grace,

Upspringing day and night,

Springing in valleys, green and low,
And on the mountain high,
And in the silent wilderness,
Where no man passes by?

Our outward life requires them not;
Then wherefore had they birth?
To minister delight to man,
To beautify the earth;

To comfort man, to whisper hope
Whene'er his faith is dim;

For whoso careth for the flowers

Will much more care for him.

MARY HOWITT.

Your voiceless lips, O flowers! are living preachers,
Each cup a pulpit, every leaf a book,
Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers

From loneliest nook.

Floral Apostles! that in dewy splendor

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

Your lore sublime!

Were I in churchless solitudes remaining,
Far from all voice of teachers or divines,
My soul would find, in flowers of God's ordaining,
Priests, sermons, shrines.

HORACE SMITH.