WINTER-COMING AND GOING.

things in autumn, without a solemn sympathy? without a feeling of something touched in you deeper than you can explain by words?

Then come the days of peace. The ground is covered with snow. The plough at last rests. All growth ceases. The insects that vexed you, or that amused themselves, are gone. All nature rests. This long night of winter is to me a most solemn night. Man takes his night out of every twenty-four hours; and vegetation needs to sleep as much as men. And as through all the spring and summer and autumn they sleep not, but work perpetually, God gives them a rest-period of months together; and Winter is its name. And forests and orchards sleep, or nearly sleep, taking their rest in larger measure and at longer intervals than man takes his. And I know not how one not have moral feelings

can reflect upon these things, and awakened within him.

Then come the elements of beauty. The brilliant days of winter are not surpassed by any days. The forms of hills are never so clear-cut as at times they are during this season. There are days when it seems as though the earth were carved in marble before your eyes. There never was such beauty of form as is presented by the sprays, the branches, the limbs of the trees in the field, or the shrubbery that surrounds one's dwelling in winter. Then there is the beauty of the snow; of the pictures of ice frescoed on the windows, which in design and execution are enough to throw any Rembrandt into despair; of the crystals that robe the trees with gorgeous splendour. And who can behold all these elements of beauty, and not have some effect produced upon him?,

Then, there is a beauty of storms-a solemnity of beauty that tends to inspire the light-hearted and frivolous. For my part, I am very much in sympathy with the Scandinavians, whose theology was rude and turbulent, because they lived in the countries of the far north, where the most soul-stirring influences were storms and tempests. They read of God in these. And I never stand and look at the murky air and the infinite particles that, falling from the clouds, are caught by the fierce wind and swept hither and thither through wide circuits, when I am not lifted up toward Him that is full of power and full of effects, though he is invisible, and his works are mysterious.

Finally come the signs of ending winter-beautiful still, and

WINTER-COMING AND GOING.

to the very last: the departure of darkness; the advance of light; the lengthening of days both ways; snows more infrequent; thawings more and more continuous; the emergence of the ground from its long sleep and covering; tokens of growth in the ruddy forms of the tree-tops. And, last of all, who ever forgets that thrill, on some bright day, such as the trumpet gives to the sleeping soldier, except that it addresses itself to the taste and to the affections, and not to the battle-feelings, when the first blackbird carols out of the tree, when the first meadow-lark springs from the sod. I mark down in my calendar the days of the coming of the first birds. They are days of rich experience. Beautiful as the winter was, impressive as it was, instructive as it was, glad as I was to see it, happy as I was in much of it, there is a sense of triumph and ecstacy as it is driven away, and the earth comes forth again in the garb of spring, and God sends his birds to sing peans of victory.

Again, the very first step of civilization is that which compels a human being to begin to act for a future period; to begin to act for himself in another and invisible condition-that is, in a future day.

The majority of men in such latitudes as ours, are under circumstances in which they are instructed, that eight months of the year must be employed in providing for the other four months. In other words, God says to every man, by the voice of cold, by the voice of hunger, by the scourge of necessity, Have faith, and learn to have it. Believe in things that you cannot see. Provide in the present for the future.' Every need is cast in such a mould as to be a school in which men are compelled to civilize themselves.

From this results, first, foresight. For what is foresight but the first growing element of faith itself? It is the use of the higher faculties in distinction from the lower. Living by sight is living by the senses; and living by faith is living by the higher reason, or forelooking, or foresight. Although it is a rude form, foresight is the first-fruit of winter in the year.

Then, next, this foresight must be conjoined to self-denial. What is self-denial? It is doing or not doing something with reference to a higher future good. Every man is by nature willing to do easy things; but there stands a stern necessity for men to form the habit of being willing to do things now that are not easy, for the sake of benefits which will be realized by-and-by;

WINTER-COMING AND GOING.

to forego enjoyments in the present, for the sake of experiencing enjoyments in the future.

Next is joined to these the eminently moralizing element of frugality and carefulness, which leads to considerateness and reflectiveness of every part of life, making a man divide his time and use it discreetly, under the laws and canons of just reason.

Frugality and carefulness, with foresight and self-denial, are results of being obliged to provide in two-thirds of the year for one-third of the year.

To these are added industry and zeal therein. A methodized industry, that shall give employment to the faculties steadily from day to day, is one of the most civilizing and one of the most moralizing of all the influences that can be brought to bear upon a man.

These things are infixed in the very constitution of nature. When we look upon nature, and trace it, we say, 'How much better is summer than winter;' but we must remember that winter is the cause of making summer an instrument of moral education to mankind.

I now wish to speak of the great blessings that winter produces in domestic affairs. In summer, the family is more or less scattered. Men live out of doors largely, during the hot season. This has its advantages, but it leaves out important elements. I may go so far as to say that no nation ever had the family in so rich a state as the Anglo-Saxon nation. A nation without a winter in their year never had a family institution, according to our ideas of a family institution; and, if they ever do have, it will be because it is framed and fashioned where there is a winter, and then transmitted by sympathy or example. The Teutonic races are marked in the power and the blessings of domestic institutions. But see how this is. Winters in our northern latitudes shut in men from much journeying. They make it impossible for them to find their pleasures out of doors. The nights are long. And though they may be occasionally irradiated by social gatherings, yet, in the main, parents and children are in the house by themselves. And they learn to love each other. And living in an atmosphere of love, which exists nowhere else so purely and so beneficently as in the family, they are saturated by it, and ripened in it. And industries there thrive under the best conditions. There, as part provision against gloom or indolence, are readings and games. And so it comes to pass that, from being

WINTER-COMING AND GOING.

shut up during three or four months of the year in the house, we get a family institution that stands out more prominently than that of other nations. And it all comes from the circumstances of the structure of the year in the climate in which we happen to live.

And as for me, I thank God for every wintry storm that drives men into the house, and keeps them there, and makes them live together. I thank God for the necessity that there is of providing for winter all through the summer. I thank God for the influences of winter in bringing out the best affections of our nature. If winter did no more than to accomplish these things, independent of its natural results, it would be a blessing for which we could never praise God enough.

There is one other relation which I may mention while I am on this subject, and then I will let you take a trial of winter again. I mean the relation of this season to health. Man must be considered, in this state of being, as a body and a soul tempered together; and no analysis can separate them properly. And where a man is rugged, strong, and healthy in body, he is apt to be rugged, strong, and healthy in reason, conscience, and the affections. Where men are comparatively feeble in body, where their bones are soft, and their muscles are relaxed, and their nerves are weak, you will find that their minds are feeble too. Now vigour comes with cold, or with that necessity for exertion which cold inspires. There is tonic in it. It is invigorating.

One word more. I see, coming up upon the earth, a mist filled with all forms of fear; and, to my terror, I see, as distinctly as though I were a prophet, that the tendency is to unbelief or atheism. Against this terrible tendency, that will make life drear; that will make the soul a desert; that will make religion doubtful; and that will make all of man's hopes as a dream when one waketh-against this I set, as a cure and a remedy, the habit of cultivating higher thoughts. Morning, noon, and night, cold and heat, winter and summer, the fertile fields and the barren sands, the surging sea and the sounding storm, all that there is in the round year, may say something to you higher than of themselves. Their voice may seem to be some echo from the spiritual; may bring some thought of the boundless realms of immortality; may wake in you some feelings that will be more spiritual; may make nature say to you, from day to day, God is Father, ye are his children, and life and immortality are bright beyond, because Christ has brought them to light by the Gospel."

POETRY.-ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

Poetry.

GOD'S SERVANTS.

WIND and rain, and frost and snow,
As they come and as they go,
All have got some work to do.
Wind will purify the air,

Nor the noxious vapours spare;
We could not, with all our care.

Rain, when heavy clouds fly lower,
Comes down in a copious shower,
Moistening earth with gentle power.
Frost, without or noise or rumble,
Makes the hardest clay-clods crumble,
And down into the furrows tumble.
Snow, too, God in goodness sends,
And so the springing corn defends,
On which our future life depends.
These are His servants, give him praise,
For wonderful are all his ways.

But his great love in Christ his Son,
Has all his wondrous works outdone.

Anecdotes and Selections.

SINGULAR ADVICE.-A man who had been very much connected with infidels, was taken dangerously ill; and feeling that he could not recover, became alarmed for the safety of his soul. His infidel principles gave him no comfort. He began, for the first time, to examine into the christian religion. He embraced it, and found it to be the power of God to his salvation, enabling him to triumph over the fear of death. In the mean time, his infidel friends hearing of his sickness, and that he was not likely to recover, showed a degree of feeling which, it was hoped, might prove the first step towards their own conversion. They were not aware that their dying friend had become a christian. They called to see him, and actually told him that they came on purpose to advise him now to embrace Christianity; "Because," said they, "if it be false, it can do you no harm; but if it should prove true, you will be a great gainer."

WHEN JOHN WESLEY, in company with John Nelson, was once travelling and preaching in Cornwall, the people heard him willingly, but never offered them food or lodging. One day Wesley stopped his