unlike rain, as rain is unlike air. This is one of the wonderful transformations of nature upon which many, however, gaze heedlessly, because they have so often seen it before. Did they reflect a little, they would see that there is nothing in nature more remarkable, or more worthy of admiration than this rapid conversion of water into snow or ice. Those indeed, who from always living in the hot climates of the world, have never witnessed such a spectacle, can hardly be brought to believe in the possibility of it, even upon the strongest testimony. And we who have seen it so frequently, are almost as much in ignorance of the precise laws by which this change takes place, (and this too in the age of Chemistry,) as before that surprising science was discovered. Surely, then, this ignorance should teach us no small degree of humility and modesty in speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: for if we are at a loss to understand the secrets of a drop of frozen water, how can we presume to fathom the depths of God's Almighty providence; or to reason upon his character who is as wonderful in his counsels of grace as he is excellent in the works of nature.

Winter is in truth one of those seasons in which the greatness of God as a Creator, and his Sovereign and Almighty power are strikingly shewn. Job, in his majestic description of the works of God, refers to this season in language of the most exalted kind. He places it in point of dignity next to the thunder and lightning; for after describing these most awful and impressive of all nature's wonders, he goes on immediately to set forth the attributes of winter. The whole passage is eminently beautiful and poetical:"God thundereth marvellously with his voice; great

things doeth he, which we cannot comprehend. For he saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth; likewise to the small rain, and to the great rain of his strength. He sealeth up the hand of every man, that all men may know his work. Then the beasts go into dens, and remain in their places. Out of the south cometh the whirlwind; and cold out of the north. By the breath of God frost is given; and the breadth of the waters is straitened." (xxxvii. 5-10.) Well then indeed might Thomson, the Poet of the Seasons, catching something of the spirit of the Bible poetry, exclaim,—

"Vapours, and clouds, and storms,- Be these my theme,
These! that exalt the soul to solemn thought,

And heav'nly musing!"

"Heavenly musings" are perhaps better cherished by the gloom of winter, than by the sunshine of summer. When all nature is bright and fair, we are apt to make a heaven of earth; but when the elements frown upon us, and desolation seems to ride upon the blast; when the rattling hail, or the drifting snow, compels the peasant to seek the friendly shelter of his home, then indeed it is hardly possible for us if we have any serious thoughts not to indulge them freely. Our minds, sickened, as it were, with the gloomy aspect of all things around us, are in a condition to ascend to the contemplation of that God whose wrath, like a destroying hail, shall at last sweep away all man's "refuges of lies," and who has provided for his righteous family a Secure retreat where there are no storms-no Winterbut one eternal sunshine of bliss in the green pastures beside the still waters of overflowing comfort. Considered, however, with reference only to the present world, Winter is a season which if not always agreeable

is highly necessary, not only to make us love the spring the better when it comes, and to operate both upon the mind and body with a salutary effect, disposing the former to reflection, and bracing up the nerves of the latter which might otherwise be too much relaxed, but more especially by fitting and preparing the earth to bring forth fruit in due season. The Agriculturist knows well the value of Winter, in mellowing and softening the ground for his future crops; and the Naturalist sees also other advantages in this season, as the rest of nature after the severe exhaustion of summer. It may be justly considered perhaps as the Sabbath of the year, in the benefits of which man and animals, and the soul itself, all largely share. Even the snow acts the part of a benefactor; not by the salts it contains as was formerly supposed; but by enwrapping the earth, as it were, with a warm garment, which reserves to it a large portion of heat, that would otherwise pass off from it and be lost. Hence we find the warmest spring generally follows the most intense Winter; and in North America, Norway, Russia, and the Polar regions, where the snow always lies on the ground for a regular interval, this result is uniformly experienced by a far more steady and rapid development of vegetation, than in our own climate.

Winter, therefore, is to be considered as a necessary part of that system of providential arrangement under which we live; and though nature may now appear to be idle, she is, as an ingenious Naturalist observes, busily employed. 'Silent in her secret mansions, she is now preparing and compounding the verdure, the flowers, the nutriment of spring: and all the fruits, and glorious. profusion of our summer year, are only the advance of

what has been ordained and fabricated in these dull months.'

Many are the reflections to which the observance of these things will give birth in every mind that is truly awake to any sense of gratitude to God, who thus in the system of nature displays himself as the same God, who,in the system of man's redemption, brings the greatest blessings out of the worst evils. The man who is disposed to murmur at the inclemency of the season, or at the loss of any of those comforts which belong to the other seasons of the year, should also reflect how far inferior his lot might have been, had it been cast in those more northern latitudes, where Winter almost divides the year, and reigns with a rigour which is here unknown. Let the discontented Englishman read the history of the Esquimaux, or of the inhabitants of Greenland, or Lapland, and he will then learn how to prize his own land, and his own temperate climate. Thanks be to God we never lose sight of the sun for mouths together as they do, and the comforts even of the poorest classes are wealth and affluence compared to theirs. They have moreover a moral winter resting upon their souls. "The Sun of Righteousness" has hardly risen to cheer them with his beams, and the mountains of ice, and snow, which shut them out from the rest of mankind, are but an emblem of the awful and deathlike coldness which surround their prospects of another world. How inscrutable, then, are the ways of God, that he should thus have taken some and left others! "How past finding out" are the depths of that love which has poured the light, and warmth of divine truth over favoured Britain, and has permitted so many other of the tribes of the earth to walk on

still in darkness, plunged, as it were, in all the horrors of a polar winter.

Much however is it to be feared that Winter is a season but far too descriptive of the spiritual condition of many in this land! What is the state of their hearts toward God? Are they not cold and barren as the season? What fruits do we see adorning their profession? Or rather, it may be asked, are they not like so many bare and leafless branchess of the snowclad forest, through which the gusts of pride and passion sweep with relentless fury, and upon which the dews and showers of gospel grace produce but the cold icicles of vanity, sin, and death? Are there not others whose profession is little better than a mantle of snow, beautiful and dazzling to the eye for a short time, but soon melting and vanishing away into its native element? And are there not to be found, in this age of religious romance, those whose splendid career has resembled for a time that famous palace of ice built by the Russian Empress, and sumptuously adorned-a gorgeous fabric while it lasted, and surpassing in beauty many more substantial ones—but destined, like some of the brilliant Church apostates of the day, to play a visionary part upon the religious stage for awhile,

"A scene

Of evanescent glory; once a stream,
And soon to slide into a stream again;

Treach'rous and false; it smil'd, and it was cold!"

Blessed be God! all are not such. Many, we trust, there are in this Christian land, who will yet manifest their religious sincerity under every trial, and who will be found fruitful in every good word and work when that spring of religion appears, the dawn of which