statements of modern travellers, and there are many indications in the Bible of a similar state of things in the East in ancient days.

The deserts would be impassable for merchandise, and perhaps even for men, were it not for the camel. This animal is now often seen and tolerably well known in England, but the peculiar adaptation of all its parts to the burning sands of the East is not so generally understood. The broad soft foot rests on the loose sand without sinking in; the hard skin and coarse hair

resist the effect of the sun and sand; the curtains of the eye keep it free from dust; the cells of the stomach

retain a supply of water; and the hump serves as a reserve of nourishment, enabling the animal to subsist for a time on a small supply of food.

The other quadrupeds used in the East by travellers, the horse, the mule, and the ass, do not differ materially from those of our own country. The ass, from being well-fed and well treated, is a much more powerful and elegant animal than we usually see it, and is often used, especially when white, on state occasions. (Judges v. 10.) They have been even employed in drawing chariots and in warfare. While we rejoice in the superior arrangements for travelling, which the geographical peculiarities and the modern inventions of our country enable us to enjoy, let us take shame to ourselves for the degraded condition to which we have reduced this tribe of God's creatures, and let rone of us contribute, by ill-usage, neglect or cruelty towards an ass, to render it stupid, awkward and valueless, when it might be made so much more useful, elegant and active.

AUGUST.

THE ripe wheat is bending its heavy ears, and the silky tassels of the barley wave beneath the softest breeze; the busy reapers are binding up the sheaves, and the warm air resounds with the hum of voices, and the creaking of wagons, as they pass from field to field, laden with treasure-God's blessing on man's industry. The gleaners spread themselves over the cleared ground, to pick up the scattered ears; and we hear the merry song of children, and their joyful exclamations on finding a large full ear. Who can see all this, and not lift a heart filled with gratitude to the bounteous Giver, the great All-Father, who thus provides for his human family, his little dependants the feathered bride, who chirp their joy, and that tiny relative of the vast elephant, the brown field-mouse, which follows the wheel of the loaded wagon to nibble the soft crushed grain?

Last autumn the farmer cast much seed into the ground-seed that might have fed many during the winter - in full trust that this seed would spring up, and grow, and produce a future harvest. Last autumn the gardener planted trees, and bushes, in full trust that these dead-looking plants would bud, and blossom, and produce fruits in their season. Both manured the ground, and watched, and carefully tended the young plants, plucking up the weeds that might else have choked them. You, too, dear young friends, must be farmers and gardeners of the hearts and minds which distinguish you from the brute creation; watching that the seeds of knowledge sown in your minds by parents and teachers be carefully tended, or they will never blossom and ripen into wisdom. Neglect not the precepts of piety and goodness, love and duty, implanted in your hearts by parents and teachers, lest seeds of vice and wickedness spring up, and choke the tender plants, and no rich crop of Christian virtues bless your own homes, and spread a holy influence on all around.

Among the many plants of the order Graminem, (the corn and grass order) there is one, the bearded darnel, that is poisonous to man and beast. The seeds,

if eaten, produce a kind of intoxication, that sometimes ends in death. The careful farmer winnows its seeds from the good grain; but the careless, negligent farmer sows them along with the true wheat. The coarse,

dull green stems and blades rise in the spring; the roots, strong and wiry, spread around, absorbing the nourishment, and occupying the place of the corn, from which it can at first be hardly distinguished; but as harvest time approaches, the full golden ears of the true wheat bend with their rich load, while the poisonous weed stands among them, stiff, meagre and lurid. It cannot now be eradicated, or separated; it must be left to be cut down with the wheat; and the future crop will suffer like injury, unless a sad experience have taught

the farmer wisdom.

The

We, also, must watch narrowly, lest poisonous seeds of vices, difficult in their first young growth to distinguish from virtues, spring up in our hearts. careful farmer and gardener often overlook their grounds and pull up the weeds, while small and freshly sprung. So when parents and teachers have cast good seed into the young mind, the thoughtful, pious child will attentively watch, lest sinful thoughts take root there, and spring up into evil words and deeds; overtopping, and stifling all good, and spreading around sin, and sorrow, and evil influences, like the weed-filled fields of the negligent farmer, who impoverishes himself, and causes deep injury to all his neighbours. The good farmer trusted in the word which said, "Summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, shall not fail;" the pious child trusts his heavenly Father, who bids him call for aid by prayer, the Father whose ear is ever open to hear, whose kind eyes see and pity the weakness of His

creatures.

How many illustrations of his teachings did Christ draw from cornfields;-the parables of the sower, the wheat and tares, the ripening harvest. Scarcely is there any season that does not recal his parables to our memories. From the fields, from the vineyards, from the splendid lilies of his native land-the richly-hued lilies, that spring up there after copious showers, he drew lessons of trust and consolation. We, too, if we

will, may read a lesson in every flower that adorns our gardens, or cheers our pathway. The gay annuals now blooming in our gardens arose from small buried seeds, long lost to our sight; so may some precept, some parental lesson, some holy hymn, long forgotten, arise in our minds in after life, and produce some gentle deeds some beauteous flowers. Others, like the perennials which deck our gardens, put forth, year after year, fresh leaves, buds, and blossoms, while the plant or shrub grows ever stronger, as do the more constant virtues of the virtuous.

To such as love to read the great book of nature, she opens her pages, full of grand pictures, of sweet, and gay, and fresh beauties. Such as listen to her voice will hear, as our own Shakspere tells us, in our own homely language-"tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in thing."

every

J. A.

SEPTEMBER.

SEPTEMBER is the last month of summer, or the first of autumn, according to its temperature and weather; yet there is an unmistakeable feeling of the air in early morning, which we never experience during other seasons, that tells us autumn is indeed come, even did the cleared cornfields, and the reddening orchards, permit us to doubt.

In this month our gardens are gay with flowers that may read us a useful and impressive lesson, if we will attend to it; for most of our most gorgeous hued plants, as dahlias, fuschias, asters, owe their endless varieties of form and colour to man's skill and cultivation. God makes the plant, and endows it with certain properties, and then leaves to man the fuller development of its beauty and usefulness, whether of root, stem, bark, leaf, flower, fruit, or seed. Our first parents were placed in Eden, not only to till, but to dress, ornament, or decorate Paradise itself; and God permits their descendants also to deck or dress this earth, as well as to "subdue it," or force it to yield its useful products to them.