high, who humbleth Himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and on the earth?

Psalm cxv. 3.-Our God is in the heavens ; He hath done whatever He hath pleased.

Psalm cxxiii. 1.-Unto Thee lift I up mine eyes, O Thou that dwellest in the heavens!

PART OF MRS. BARBAULD'S 11TH HYMN.

The golden orb of the sun is sunk behind the hills, the colours fade away from the western sky, and the shades of evening fall fast around me.

Deeper and deeper they stretch over the plain; I look at the grass, it is no longer green; the flowers are no more tinted with various hues; the houses, the trees, the cattle are all lost in the distance. The dark curtain of night is let down over the works of God; they are blotted out from the view, as if they were no longer there.

Child of little observation! canst thou see nothing because thou canst not see grass and

flowers, trees and cattle? Lift up thine eyes from the ground, shaded with darkness, to the heavens that are stretched over thy head; see how the stars one by one appear and light up the

vast concave.

There is the moon bending her bright horns, like a silver bow, and shedding her mild light, like liquid silver, over the blue firmament.

There is Venus, the evening and the morning star; and the Pleiades, and the Bear that never sets, and the Pole star that guides the mariner over the deep.

Now the mantle of darkness is over the earth; the last little gleam of twilight is faded away; the lights are extinguished in the cottage windows, but the firmament burns with innumerable fires; every little star twinkles in its place. If you begin to count them, they are more than you can number; they are like the sands on the sea shore.

The telescope shows you far more, and there are thousands and ten thousands of stars which no telescope has ever reached.

If you were to travel as swift as an arrow from a bow, and to travel on further and further still, for millions of years, you would not be out of the creation of God,

Ι

New suns in the depth of space would still be burning round you, and other planets fulfilling their appointed course.

Lift up thine eyes, child of earth, for God has given thee a glimpse of heaven.

The light of one sun is withdrawn that thou mayest see ten thousand. Darkness is spread over the earth, that thou mayest behold, at a distance, the regions of eternal day.

LESSON XI.

"THE HEAVEN'S DECLARE THE GLORY OF GOD."

Mrs. Barbauld's Summer Evening's Meditation.

JUST as Walter's mother finished saying the last line of the hymn, a faint whitish light went waving across the sky, and made them look out again eagerly. In a minute they saw it again; and then the light seemed to shoot upwards, from the earth, in many gentle rays. Again and again they saw it, and each time it seemed a little different from the time before. Sometimes it had a delicate tinge of pink: sometimes of lilac or violet colour; sometimes of bluish green; but oftenest, it was pale yellow;and almost before they could say what colour it was, it was gone again—or it had darted nearly to the opposite side of the sky: there it trembled for a moment or two, half showing itself, and half hiding itself again, and then all at once it covered nearly half the sky, in faint, wandering, flickering, rosy streaks or stripes. Oh! it was

very, very beautiful! and Walter was so delighted that he felt as if he wanted to leap up into the sky himself.

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Oh, mother, mother!" he exclamed, “it is just as if God was showing himself to us! lifting up a veil, to let us see a little bit, and hiding himself from us again! Oh, mother! it must be God! it is so beautiful!

Mother." God is in it, my child,—but it is a very small part of God's beauty. If He were to show Himself in all His brightness, it would be more than we could bear. I told you, you know, that we cannot see God here, while our souls are joined with these bodies,—but we seem indeed, as you say, my child, to see glimpses of Him. Is it not joy, my darling, to begin to know Him and love Him a little?—And then to think that we may go on knowing and loving Him more and more for ever! Oh! let us thank God for giving us such wonderful souls.

Walter put his arms round his mother's neck, and laid his cheek against her cheek, and pressed himself close to her but he did not speak,they neither of them spoke for a minute or two; and then his mother lifted him gently in her arms, and laid him in his little bed again, and lay down herself, close beside him.