tration of the power of Christian faith. But we will let his pastor, the Rev. Charles Fletcher, describe the closing scenes: "Sometimes when lying as if he could scarcely speak or move, when teachers and some of the larger scholars would gather around his bed, and I would stand perhaps within the range of his vision, he would suddenly spring up as if he had all the strength and vigor of a stout manhood and exclaim: Mr. Fletcher, there is not such another sight as this outside the Christian Church; there is not one of these that I have not prayed with; not one of these that I have not talked with; not one of these that I have not tried to lead to Jesus. Mary, you remember the time you bowed at the altar; Joseph, you remember the time when you came weeping,' and so he would go on from one to another. They were all his children, and he loved them as affectionately as any father ever loved children. "He rode out past the church where our Conference was in session in April, and it was with difficulty that he could be restrained from going into the Conference room. 'I want,' said he, to say halleluiah to the preachers;' and as he passed by the church he put his head out of the window and shouted: 'Halleluiah, God is with me! He wished to tell every body it was so.. He went up to visit the bank where he was a director, and went into the President's room, and began to tell the President how happy he was. He shouted halleluiah till all the business of the bank stopped, clerks wondered what was the matter, and the President and Mr. Odell were weeping, yet gladness and joy were in their hearts, and in every heart that knew how to sympathize with the triumphant Christian. In this way he went down to death. On the morning on which he died, when I visited him, he clasped his hands in token that he heard the prayer that he might fall into the divine embrace and be held there eternally. He clasped his hands and looked up, intimating that the Divine Father held him in his arms, and that he felt assured of his everlasting safety in the keeping of that eternal God." Such men as Moses F. Odell never die. The fragrance of their memories remains with us; the spirit in which they lived and worked remains with us to animate us to walk as they did the path of duty, of heroism, and of sacrifice. HE that calls a man ungrateful, sums up all the evil that a man can be guilty of.-Swift. I HAVE ever had an inclination for the study of Nature, and found an inexhaustible delight in the contemplation of her varied works. No pleasures are so pure, and none so worthy the noble capacities of the human mind, as those derived from the love and admiration of God's works. In youth this love is attended by most beneficial and lasting results, as it encourages the taste for whatever is pure in morals and captivating in art. So, in mature manhood, when realities too much occupy the mind, without the mental enjoyments from this source, our journey of life will be like a weary pilgrimage. Here the soul, elevated above those little cares which agitate the ambitious and the proud, looks up with reverential awe, while we feel new hopes and confidence that God, whom we behold in the magnificent monuments of his power and goodness, will be a father to the fatherless, and a friend to the friendless-our friend. Natural theology is the most elevated and sublime, and therefore the most delightful of all human studies; for it embraces all that can be seen, felt, and reasoned upon; its empire, the universe both of matter and mind. Admirable as is the structure of the larger animals, we can not but think that the elegant disposition, the minute mechanism, with the perfect adaptation of parts distinguishable in the smaller creations of nature, are still more astonishing to the judgment and fascinating to the imagination. This reminds me of what Galileo, the astronomer, once said to one who thought the Medicean stars too small to engage the attention of philosophers. "No," replied Galileo, "they are the works of God, and may, therefore, well be considered as sublime subjects for the study of man." All the sciences illustrate each other; and although the analogy may not be apparent to an untutored eye, there is, beyond all reasonable doubt, a relation, not only between a little grain of sand and the most distant planet of our universe, but also between the highest intellectual being and the smallest living insect, or what may be figuratively styled the infinite little; all live and move, created and preserved, and fed by the gracious Almighty hand that bee, etc. In France they are called "Vaches à made and upholds all things. The telescope possesses one great superiority over the microscope-the latter charming us, as it were, to the earth, while the former carries us far, far beyond. The microscope, moreover, exhibits almost as wonderful phenomena in a drop of water as the telescope does in all the starry heavens. The telescope discovers myriads of suns, but no living matter; whereas the magnifying glass unfolds myriads of animated beings in a single drop of water, and endowed, too, with organs as curious and perfect as those of an eagle, elephant, or a man. "Each secret spring, each organ let us trace; They mock the proudest art of human race!" Magnitudes are all relative; and large as is the size of the earth on which we tread, so small is it in the general scale of the universe, that we, in fact, occupy a mere speck not larger, comparatively, than a grain of sand on the sea-shore. The largest body yet contemplated by man is a star, supposed to occupy a place greater than that embraced in the entire solar system. On the contrary, the smallest animal is a species of infusoria, one of which has a body, and its diameter only one fortyeight thousandth of a line, and the thickness of its stomach is calculated from only one four hundred and eighty thousandth to one six hundred and forty thousandth of a line! How wonderful! From one individual were produced in ten days 1,000,000, on the eleventh 4,000,000, and the twelfth 16,000,000!* The larger the system, the more wonderful is the appearance of power in the Divine Architect; but in the more minute and finer, the more delicate and more exquisite is the skill of the Divine deviser. In fact, every thing proves an intelligence adopting means to ends, and equally astonishing are the objects which we behold, with the infinite power by which they have been formed and are preserved. This is a sort of introduction to the LADY-BIRD, a beautiful, harmless little insect familiar to our notice from our earliest infancy. Who does not recall at once to mind the old and favorite distich? Dieu, Bêtes de la Vierge," etc., and are regarded as sacred to the Virgin Mary. Their scientific name is Coccinella Septem-punctata, and superstition has attached much importance to the Coccinella. Once it was esteemed an efficacious remedy for colic and measles; and, dreadful to relate, to kill one, would surely be followed within the same year by the breaking of a bone, or some other terrible misfortune. Gay imagines its supposed power as a love charm: "This lady-bird I take from off the grass, Whose spotted back might scarlet red surpass. Fly, lady-bird, north, south, or east, or west; Fly where the man is found that I love best; He leaves my hand; see, to the west he's flown, To call my true love from the faithless town." Gay, Pastoral 4. One poet-Hurdis-has drawn an accurate and beautiful picture of the Coccinella in his tragedy of Sir Thomas More. Sir John. What d' ye look at? Cecilia. A little animal that round my glove, Sir John. Poor harmless thing! Cecilia. I would not hurt it for the world; I could not injure it to be a queen. Sir John. Child, I am blind To objects so minute: I know it well; Cecilia. I see them, sir, For it unfurls them now-'t is up and gone." Act 1, Scene 3. Southey, too, in his lines to the "Burniebee," has elegantly described this insect: "Back o er thy shoulders throw thy ruby shards, With many a tiny coal-black freckle deck'1; My watchful eye thy loitering saunter guards, My ready hand thy footsteps shall protect. So shall the fairy train, by glow-worm light, With rainbow tints thy folding pennous fret, Thy scaly breast in deeper azure dight, Thy burnish'd armor deck with glossier jet." This little insect of the poets has a real use, and should be protected for its valuable services. In its larva state it is now known to feed entirely upon aphides, or blighters, or fly. that crop to the amount of millions of dollars. The sweet fluid which exudes from these insects is often so abundant as to be seen upon the leaves where they frequent, and this is the well-known honey-dew. Ants have a particu Under this last name, of the aphis, they so often blast the hopes and prospect of the hopgrowers. Each little lady-bird will slay and destroy his thousands and tens of thousands of aphides, and hence of such immense value in hop-grounds. The aphides is another interest-lar fondness for this fluid, and may always be ing and minute genus of the insect creation, and the cause of blights in plants, feeding entirely on vegetables, which they destroy by exhausting the juices for their own support. For this purpose they have a long hollowpointed proboscis or trunk, which, when not eating, they fold under their breasts. They make the substance called honey-dew or mildew, and their natural enemy is the lady-bird; and, hitherto, tobacco smoke seems to have been most destructive to them. Do n't despise the little creatures in the Lord's creation. The finest dyes known are manufactured from them, and have become of the greatest commercial importance. The Lecanium ilicis, which inhabits the iler, or evergreen oak of the Mediterranean countries, was employed for drying by the ancient Greeks and Romans, as it is still among the Arabs. Upon the cactus, the plant so well known in Central America, lives the parasite, the Mexican cochineal, or coccus cacti. Such is the commercial value of this small insect, that in the year 1850 no less than two million, five hundred and fourteen thousand and twelve pounds were imported into Great Britain alone. From this fact we may form some estimate of the immense numbers annually destroyed for valuable dyeing purposes. Another species of this insect is the lac, and also of great importance. It is an inhabitant of the East Indies, and feeds upon the banyan-tree; and to it we are indebted not only for the lac-dye, and lac-lake dye-stuffs, but also for the well-known shell-lac, so necessary in the manufacture of varnishes and sealing wax. It is strange, that in all these cases the female only yields this important coloring matter. seen upon such plants, rubbing the aphides with their antennæ as if to obtain a supply of the coveted fluid. Hence these insects have been called the "Ant's Milch Cows." Their manner of propagation is extremely curious, and has been the subject of the deepest research among naturalists. We may write another chapter on the minutest creations of the Almighty's hands, and even the smallest should cause us to remember his greatness, and admire and adore his power, goodness, and wisdom, in the formation of the ant and humble spire of grass, as well as with the structure of the whale or elephant, the grain of sand, the majestic oak, or the loftiest mountain. We ourselves are little, very little when compared with worlds innumerable which God has made; still he condescends to take care of us with the same wisdom and goodness by which he keeps the stars in their courses. Blessed be his holy name! I A MONOMANIAC. HAVE an intimate friend who, alas, is a monomaniac! As the word implies, her mania is confined to one subject-she is extra sensible otherwise-but that "one subject" is the all-important one of dress and fashion. She don't regard the subject as of primary importance, but labors under the hallucination that the culture of the mind and heart should take the precedence. She acts as if decency and comfort actually were the main purposes of dress, and as if those ends were accomplished all were right. She has a lucid interval now and then, to be sure, when she devotes herself with great zeal to her wardrobe, and has dresses, etc., made very much like other folks, but it is soon over, and she again relapses, giving her first care to something else, and just wearing the new garments on and on, regardless of the changing fashions, till, sometimes, they actually begin to wear out. We might add a chapter, if necessary, on the aphides, whose extraordinary history renders them one of the most interesting groups of insects. They are all very small, furnished with six feet and a pair of antennæ, and two short tubes, from which a sweet clear secretion flows. Living upon plants, they suck the juice, and when appearing in large numbers they often destroy much vegetation. Many plants, attacked by vast swarms of aphides, their leaves curl up, when they grow sickly, and the flower or the fruit is greatly lessened. We name one single instance in the hop fly-aphis humuli— | knits lamb's wool stockings for them; but as to which, during one season in England, damaged It is just so in regard to her children; she is forever attending to their studies, or work, or play, while she makes warm flannels, and a real stylish rig-out, they never have it. It actually gives me the heart-ache to see them so wronged by their own mother, and they such dear, bright, good, pretty little children, too. The fact is, she gives no more time or thought to the momentous matter of dress than is really necessary. You would not believe how oblivious she is to new fashions. "How do you like waterfalls?" said I to her last Spring. "I like them very much," she replied. 'Do you?" said I, surprised, "which kind?" "O every kind," she replied, "I never saw one I did not like." Why in the world, then, do n't you wear one?" cried I, "you have just the head and hair for it, and I will show you”— I was cut short by her look of utter bewilderment, and remembering her mania, realized she did not know what a waterfall is, but actually thought I was talking of-of-what shall I call them-water tumbles, Niagara, and such! wore old-fashioned things from necessity; but it's no such thing. She has plenty of money; her husband is rich, and so devoted he would leave no stone unturned to get the moon down for her, if she asked him for it. The insanity is that she might and yet does not dress fashionably! Furthermore, it's "a cross" to her that she has to dress at all. One evening she said to me, with a sigh, "I have a dress-maker coming to-morrow; is n't it a trial?" Now-though I would n't for the world have any body know it-I am pinched for means; so I answered with an inward groan, "I should n't think it a trial if I had all these nice goods to be made up." "Should n't you?" answered she in innocent surprise, "but I do. I have just been seeking patience by reading the third chapter of Genesis, and reflecting that it is for our sins we have to dress at all. I am sure I repent of Adam's sin every time I have to get up a new dress." Did you ever! One cold snowy Sabbath in December she wore a hood to Church! I thought myself pre When, as sometimes does happen, thanks to the dress-maker, she gets a real downright fash-pared for any development, but it was too much ionable dress, and you go to Church all agog to see it, she is about sure to come in very quietly, in some plain, decent thing she's worn at least a dozen times before. "Why in the name of common-sense did you not wear your new silk yesterday?" asked I, one Monday. "O, I never thought of it," she replied: "but now that you remind me of it, I do n't think I shall ever wear it to Church; it's uncomfortably long, and is so made as to require much time and thought in dressing. A church is no place for finery." What do you want with the dress then?" cried I, quite vexed. "O, to wear to some places where I should be singular without something of the kind," she replied. "Just as if you were not always singular in your dress," cried I, my patience quite gone. She blushed, with tears in her eyes, as she said, "I don't want to be singular, but neat and comfortable, and enough in style not to attract attention to myself; but the fashions change often, and time flies so swiftly on the wings of duty, I suppose I do often get too far behind the times in dress." Poor dear! how I did pity her! You see the very heart of her mania is, that she do n't care for dress per se, and so don't make it her chief end. to see her sit there, listening to every word of the sermon, just as unconscious of her hood, as if the proverb "out of sight out of mind" were true of ladies' headgear. "See if I don't give her a shaking up for this," thought I. So I seized upon her, going home, and whispered in her ear, "What upon earth possessed you to wear that thing to Church?" She glanced down in a dazed way, at her cloak, dress, over-shoes, then up into my face with an innocent "What is amiss?" "That hood!" hissed I. 'O, yes, I forgot I had it on," said she with a quiet smile, "I was threatened with the toothache, and could n't go out without it." "Then stay at home," growled I; "you would n't catch me out such a day, spoiling my new hat and feathers, if I was not obliged to be there to sing." "There is a divine law against our forsaking the worshiping assembly," replied my friend solemnly, "but is there any law, human or divine, against wearing a hood inside a church?" Yes," snapped I, "the law of fashion, which break at your peril." She only smiled, and asked me very coolly if I had been instructed by Dr. B.'s excellent sermon, just as if I had been attending to that! I have about given up arguing with her; it is only folly to argue with a maniac; but I There might be a gleam of reason in it, if she thought her husband must feel dreadfully; so SEVEN years ago this Summer, Seven years-alas! the shadow That across our threshold lay, Falls as darkly on our hearth-stone As it did that bitter day. Seven years the blue eyed pansies O'er her grave their watch have kept, While beneath the flowers and grasses She in dreamless rest has slept. Night-dews fall in tear-drops round her We "forget" her! shall the star-gems Just as well might we forget her, She who blessed us from her birth; She the sunbeam of our householdFaded from our sight on earth. Faded, gone, but not forgotten, It shall add a brighter glow To the realm in which we'll join her, |