cheering promises of an accumulation of blessings. It quells all our inordinate ambition and desire, and is submissive under every oppression and hardship; it extinguishes all murmurs, repinings, and ingratitude, and receives with satisfaction its humble lot. This also must be a ruling feature in our conduct; let our estate be what it may, we must reflect on the Author of all our gifts, and consider how acceptable a cheerful and contented disposition is in his holy presence. He who has decreed a temporary success of the good things of this world, has also decreed a perpetual reward for contentment; and though we often see the wicked prosper, where the good man's efforts fail and sink beneath the oppression of his woes, there is for the latter a rich harvest of profit to come, where the reapers gather the wheat into the barn and cast the tares into outer darkness. Having indulged at some length in our remarks on the prospects of life and its duties, as they arose to view in pourtraying the state of infancy, we now proceed to consider the appearances of nature as they present themselves to our notice in early Spring. Ere a shade of vernal delight has graced the field, the opening of this inspiring season seems to arouse Nature from her deep reverie, and to in fluence upon the animal and vegetable world her reviving soul of energy. The earth has thrown off her massy hills of drifting snow-the gloom and dreariness of winter are rapidly hastening away— the elemental wars that deformed her fair aspect have subsided; and while the atmosphere is clearing its humid vapours, Nature resumes her annual activity, to display that almighty train of operations which she is instrumental in bringing to light and perfection. All nature rejoices at the renewal of Spring, and on her laws and economy is founded its vivifying return. Every heart is inspired with satisfaction and joy to welcome its approach—to watch its wonderful progress, and to admire its exquisite completion; and while it clothes the earth with freshness and beauty, and exercises upon every creature that genial renovation with which the Creator has endowed it, it creates in the breast of man awakening sensations fraught with unwonted pleasure. Well has it been said by an elegant writer, that at this season man "hails with delight the verdant livery of the fields, the kindly influence of the gradually approaching sun, and all the variegated charms of unfolding nature; his bosom swells with the ripening bud, his heart is in unison with every thing around; and his soul, harmonizing with the thousand songsters of the grove, hymns forth spontaneously its liveliest feelings of gratitude and devotion. It is the season when the beautiful vitality of nature rekindles the dormant sparks of ambition, pours tributary streams into his sea of love, animates him to exertion, recalls to his memory the golden past, and uncurtains to his admiring view the glorious vista of the future; it is the season of the imagination, and steeped in delicious dreams of poesy; he sees noon-day visions of the great of old, already feels upon him the warm flush of inspiration, and hails with rapturous emotions the first consciousness of genius as the harbinger of perpetual spring-time to his soul." Many of Nature's finest operations, which have hitherto been secretly working, are in the Spring brought forward by those ample provisions she has been making to promote the earth's generative powers. Among these, the single seed which has been deposited in the ground by man, independently of any aid save that of the divine cause, begins to expand and unfold itself. The former compression of snow upon the earth having excluded the cold air from this little grain, which no longer conceals in its outer coat the birth of a root, stem, and leaves; and reflected that heat arising from the lower strata of the earth, which has so beneficially advanced the infant plant, and rendered the earth capable to receive a gradual penetration of the melting snow to refresh and invigorate the vegetable kingdom; the root now pierces the inner earth to give nourishment to the stem, and makes its first effort to peep above the ground's level surface. We have before described the state of infancy unsheltered from the stormy incidents that threaten life; and we may now justly consider the young and tender bud on its first starting from the germ, to require its share of supreme beneficence. Its youthful frame, yet uninured to the severe inclemency of this unsettled season, and dependent on the fickle changes that affect its health and subject it to sickness and decay, requires to be fostered in the maternal bosom of Nature. The congenial warmth of a mild temperature, the occasional influence of a cheering sunshine and balmy showers, promote and facilitate its bodily strength. And from this diminutive seed, which in its separate life (for it may be strictly termed to have two lives) resembles that of an infant, a most beautiful and moral simile may be drawn. During its first life it grows and ripens in the plant which bears it, and then returns to the earth out of which it grew, whence it again springs up into verdant freshness with a life of its own and with a new body. "God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed its own body." But the life of a child "is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body;" the seed "is not quickened except it die." And as the sunshine of the Spring raises up the seedling in verdancy, so shall the Sun of Righteousness return to raise in glory those pure spirits that are sown awhile in slumbering mortality. Spring is the sweetest era of our lives; and Providence, who has imprinted on it so many smiles, has rendered it a delicious feast to the mind of every virtuous and attentive admirer. While its exhilarating freshness animates the senses, it has an unknown charm to win the heart's gratitude; its sweet breath infuses into the mind a secret gladness to welcome the tender blade of grass or the modest snow-drop; and the same animal pleasure which administers delight to men, renders the woods vocal with the enlivening minstrelsy of the feathered creation. Fair Nature smiles 'mid scenes of pure delight, |