of the young, and those in "populous cities pent!" What delicious feelings arise in hearts alive to Nature at the name and coming of the leafy month of June!

"Come ye, come ye, to the green, green wood!

Loudly the blackbird is singing;

The squirrel is feasting on blossom and bud,
And the curled fern is springing!

Here ye may sleep,

In the moss so deep,

While the moon is so warm and so weary,

And sweetly awake,

As the sun through the brake

Bids the fauvette and white-throat sing cheery.

"The quicken is tufted with blossoms of snow,
And is throwing its perfume around it ;
The wry-neck replies to the cuckoo's halloo
For joy that again she has found it;
The jay's red breast

Peeps over her nest,

In the midst of the crab blossoms blushing;

And the call of the pheasant

Is frequent and pleasant

When all other calls are hushing."

"These are thy glorious works, Parent of good."

Look out at this glorious world-a Father's work; and the power to enjoy it which we possess a Father's gift. Think of all the gay beauty that is preparing to gladden our eyes when the summer comes, the merry summer time, rich in those long glad days when the sunshine wantons with the green woods and the sparkling streams; when the mornings are so radiant and fresh, and the evenings so calm and holy, and man, full of faith in the

joys to come, sees the whole earth in sympathy with himself.

Oh, who can speak the joys of spring's young morn,
When wood and pasture open on our view;

When tender green buds blush upon the thorn,

And the first primrose dips its leaves in dew?

Where would be the gladness of the springtime, which leaps up in the heart on seeing the first primrose, if the primroses were always in bloom? Where would be the pleasure of "going a blackberrying," which comes with the fading year, if the bushes were always laden with the fruit? No; our happiness is made greater and more varied, our emotions deeper, our syınpathies gentler, by witnessing the changes of Nature-the budding springtime, the fading flowers, and the falling leaves.

The forest trees, such as the oak, the ash, the fir, the beech, continue to present the desolate look of winter; the sap that should reanimate them has not yet awakened from its winter sleep. A solemn moment is that when the sap, the life-blood of the plant, arrested by the vigorous grasp of winter in its circulating movement, receives a new impulse from the vivifying action of the sun. How soon the face of Nature changes! How rapidly form, and tint, and beauty display themselves, where all a few weeks before was stagnation, desolation, and death! We may say of the coming on of spring or early summer what Emerson says of the stars—“If it only came once in a hundred years, or burst forth with the suddenness of an earthquake, what a rush there would be to behold its splendour!"

Spring is literally the season of growth, or "springing up," as the name implies; summer, that of sunshine; autumn (from Augeo), the season of increase and fertility; and winter the season, as its name implies, of Wind-tare, or the tearing, boisterous winds. All languages possess equivalent terms to represent the special phenomena of the seasons. Zif," the name of the second Hebrew month, reckoning from the new moon of May to that of June, signifies literally the "splendour of flowers." Choreph," the Hebrew name for autumn, means "the gathering season," when the corn and fruits of the earth are gathered in.

CHAPTER III.

The Love of Flowers.

OW various, how beautifully diversified, are the

H

tastes with which the beneficent Creator has in

vested and endowed mankind! And it is this pleasing and almost endless variety of tastes which lends such a charm to human life. Some have their hearts and ears exquisitely attuned to the soft vibrations of music; others melt into tears before a painting or a statue. Some He has endowed with the power of oratory, while on others He has bestowed the softer inspirations of poetry. Others again, fired by a bolder impulse and winged for a loftier flight, soar aloft into the regions of space, make the planets their companions, and the mysteries of nature their pastime, surveying the marvels of the stellar universe till all thought grows weary and all wonder dies, while others, turning their attention to a lowlier field, find pleasure in examining the rainbow tints of the insect's wing, or poring over a water drop containing within its crystal circumference the tiny tenantry of a microscopic population.

But amidst this almost endless variety of tastes there is one which is more universal than all the rest, one which

none of these can or need displace, and which most frequently coexists with them all. It is the love of flowers. This seems to be an inherent passion in the heart of man; it never dies. In childhood he roams delightedly through lanes and fields, or midst the leafy garniture of woods and forests, to commune and talk with them, to watch the opening leaves and bursting buds, swelling and bursting with a life to come. In maturer years their cultivation forms a pleasing relaxation from the sterner duties of life, while in old age they, with their ever fresh and quiet beauty, refresh the heart which has been bruised and wounded in the fierce battle of life. And when at last he is carried to the house "appointed for all living," they decorate his sepulchre and take up their silent watch beside his grave; in their decay typical memorials of his own, in their returning spring-beauty, types and heralds of a "better resurrection."

Our first parents at their creation were placed in a garden "to dress and to keep it." Thus the cultivation of flowers formed the first employment of unfallen man, and the love of flowers seems to have been transmitted from the primal pair to all their descendants, whether prince or peasant, savage or civilized. The philosopher Descartes amused his summer evenings in the cultivation of a small garden, which was an appendage to his house at Amsterdam; "thus," as his biographer remarks, "having settled the place of a planet in the morning, he would amuse himself in the evening by watering a flower." La Harpe, the Quintilian of France, wrote all his latter works in a small bower. The Indians paint "Cama, the son of Affection and the husband of Spring, as passing