grace. And for this purpose let us endeavour to have such a character as will of itself communicate good-so luminous with grace that it will as naturally radiate good as the sun radiates light. And such a character can only be formed by a complete unreserved surrender of self to Christ, to be made by His Spirit a new creature, the image of His goodness; and it can only be maintained by living in Christ and for Christ-by watching and prayer, by fasting and self-denial, by the mortification of easily besetting sins, and by keeping the appetites and passions of the body in subjection. This is a painful discipline, but a Power mightier than our own is with us, to work in us all the good pleasure of God's goodness. And the end is worthy of it all. To hear even one soul saying to us, out of the great multitude which no man can number around the Throne, that our general Christian bearing, our consistent Christian uprightness and devotion, had been the means, under God, of saving him, will surely be a blessedness for which a whole lifetime of self-denial would not be too great a sacrifice.

CHAPTER X.

WINTER LEAVES.

"This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."-PHILIPPIANS iii. 13, 14.

WINTER is called the leafless season.

The boughs

of the trees are naked, and the herbage of the fields is withered. The soft, green cushions of foliage that in summer made every tree like its neighbour, have disappeared, bringing out the individual shapes and the fundamental peculiarities of the woodland. Nature seems to lie at anchor in the harbour, with her sails furled, and only her masts and rigging exposed to the fury of the storm. And yet, amid this apparent universal death, the pulse of the earth has not ceased to beat. Growth has not altogether stopped. Many humble plants, such as mosses and lichens, which are torpid in summer, now, begin to vegetate, and come into fruit. Even the trees themselves are not wholly leafless. They have their winter as well as their summer foliage. The barest tree, whose boughs make fit harpstrings for the fierce music of the blast, still possesses true characteristic leaves, although they are very inconspicuous, and would not be known as leaves except by

those who have learned that seeing is one of the fine arts, and requires cultivation. Every one is familiar with the buds which tip the extremities of every branch in spring. These are the growing points of the tree, and contain within themselves the leaves and blossoms of the coming year in an embryonic state. On the outside they are covered with dry, glossy scales, lying together like the tiles of a roof or the plates of a suit of armour. These scales are true leaves of the very lowest type, altered from the normal form to suit their altered purpose and circumstances, and may be seen not unfrequently passing into ordinary green leaves at a further stage of advancement. They are formed in spring, and continue to grow during the whole summer, though very slowly and imperceptibly, owing to the diversion of the sap from them to the foliage, behind which they are hid. As the season advances, however, the sap gradually ceases to flow to the summer leaves, which therefore ultimately fade and fall from the tree; and the last movements of it, at the end of autumn, before it becomes altogether stagnant, are directed towards the buds, in order to mature and prepare them for taking at the proper time the place of the generation of leaves that has just perished.

During winter the scales, or outer leaves of the buds, afford protection from the weather to the next year's tender miniature leaves and flowers wrapped up within them; and for this purpose they are admirably adapted by their construction. They have no pores to let out the internal heat and to let in the external cold;

they are entirely destitute of that waxy substance called chlorophyll, which forms the green colour of leaves; their usual hue being a dark brown or pale yellow. In many instances they are more or less densely clothed with a fine silky down, as in the beech and willow; or covered with glands, which exude a resinous gum, as in the horse-chestnut. Richly furnished in this way, the winter leaves, or bud-scales, effectually fulfil their purpose throughout the winter months. But in spring, the buds, stimulated by the unwonted sunshine, begin to open at their sharp extremities. And as the young green leaves within expand in the genial atmosphere, the services of the bud-scales, or covering-leaves, are no longer needed, and by and by they roll away, and fall one by one from the tree, strewing the ground beneath till it looks like a threshing-floor. Every one must be familiar with the little heaps of brown withered scales, lying at the foot of a beech or maple in April; these are the winter leaves that have fallen from these trees. Thus every tree has a double leaf-fall every year. The winter leaves, which are designed for the protection of the bud during winter, are pushed off by the growth of the summer leaves from the bud in spring; and the summer leaves, which are designed for the nourishment and growth of the tree in summer, wither and fall off in autumn, owing to the stagnation of the sap, and the maturing of the winter leaves and their contents. Cold is fatal to the summer leaves; warmth is fatal to the winter leaves. Inactivity renders useless the summer leaves; and growth

supersedes the winter leaves. The conditions suited to the existence of the one kind, are entirely unsuited to the existence of the other; and thus the Creator has wisely ordained that by the fall of the leaf in spring, and the fall of the leaf in autumn, by the alternation of summer and winter leaves, and the offices which they both respectively perform, the development of the tree should be carried on during its term of life.

Scripture is full of allusions to trees and their various parts and functions as symbols of man's life-as representatives in the natural fleeting world, not arbitrarily or fancifully chosen, but absolute and real, of the unseen and eternal realities of the heavenly kingdom. Even the physical construction of a leaf exhibits the germ of the idea, which was wrought out perfectly in the human body. They are both formed upon the same principle, and the plant in its structure evidently foreshadowed or prefigured the coming animal. The central vein of the leaf, for instance, represents the spinal column of man; the side veins of the leaf correspond with the ribs of the human skeleton, and they both perform the same purposes of strength and protection; the multitude of delicate. vessels filled with sap, which ramify through the substance of the leaf, are exactly like the blood-vessels and the nerves that carry the fluid of life throughout the various parts of the body; and lastly, over the whole surface of the leaf, above and below, is spread a membrane full of pores, which absorbs light, air, and moisture, and enables the tree to carry on its functions, just as over the whole body is spread an exquisitely organized