his saints, who behold him face to face, and who live in communion with him! If such be the pleasures which we can enjoy through the means of a fragile and perishable body, what must be the delights which will dawn upon our souls, when their terrestrial tabernacle shall be dissolved! What ineffable happiness shall we not feel, when our spirits, set free, shall stand face to face before my God. If the streamlets of divine grace here below are so ravishing, what must be the spring from whence flow rivers of joy! If one ray of light is so cheering, what will be the effect of the sun of glory? If God appears so great in his terrestrial works, what will he be when his wondrous ways are all disclosed?

My soul pants for this felicity, in the possession of my God. Pass rapidly away, ye days of darkness; ye hours, which retard my happiness, fly swiftly away. O day, without obscurity or cloud, in which my soul, freed from "this muddy vesture of decay," shall take its flight, and rise above the stars! O day, ardently desired, dawn on this world of sin, that I may find repose at the foot of the eternal throne of God.

FEBRUARY 23.

CAUSES OF COLD AND HEAT.

FROM whence arise the extreme heat and intense cold which are alternately experienced upon our earth? By what means does nature produce these changes? It is undeniable that, during

winter, our temperature depends upon the situation of the sun; for when the earth, in its annual course around the sun, is placed in such a manner that the northern hemisphere is turned away from the sun, when his rays fall obliquely on its surface, and he appears but a few hours above our horizon, it necessarily follows that his rays produce but little heat; yet the heat does not depend entirely upon the situation of the sun. This glorious orb passes through the same constellations year after year, yet the degrees of cold in our winters vary exceedingly; some winters are as mild as autumn; others, on the contrary, are so severe that the seas and rivers are frozen, and men and animals can scarcely find protection against the cold. In those countries where the days and nights are equal, the heat of the sun is too weak to melt the ice upon the summit of the mountain; winter there holds his freezing reign, whilst the bases of the rocks are surrounded by the burning heats of summer, although the same rays fall equally upon their upper and lower regions. If the sun were the sole cause of heat, this phenomenon would be inexplicable.

Nature is rich in means; and a thousand causes which are unknown to us record her operations. We know that the constituent parts of the atmosphere and the winds have a great influence upon the cold or heat of a country. Hence, in the longest days of summer, it is sometimes cold, because the atmosphere is charged with vapours, and the sky is covered with clouds, or the bleak wind of the north

blows strongly; and upon the same principle it is that, when in winter the wind blows from the south, we have frequently mild weather. The nature of the soil contributes to heat or cold: in Siberia, for example, where the earth abounds with saltpetre and other salts, it is colder than in countries nearer the pole, and where the rays fall more obliquely. The internal heat of the earth being greater in some places than in others, this, also, may have an effect on the external part.

These causes and, perhaps, many others unknown to us influence the temperature of the air, and produce the sudden alternation of heat and cold upon the earth; but who is it, then, can explain the springs of the great machine of the universe and their effects? The phenomena of nature perplex and confound us; and we are obliged to confess that the sagacity of the wisest philosophers cannot penetrate her mysteries; we see but a part, and, without doubt, only the smallest part of her operations. The Creator of the universe, for reasons best known to himself, has hidden from our eyes the causes of those wonderful effects which surround us on every side; and this, perhaps, to induce us to rest contented with searching minutely into our own hearts. What use would it serve us to possess the most extensive knowledge of nature, if we knew not our own hearts? We know enough to be happy, wise, and contented. Perhaps a more thorough knowledge of the ways of the Almighty would inflate us with pride; perhaps it would disturb our repose, or contri

bute to our falling from our allegiance to the God of all. Let us apply the little we do know to glorify the Almighty, and for the edification of our own souls. If, after all our researches and all our meditations, there remain many things hidden from our view, let us draw this natural conclusion, that the wisdom of God surpasses all our conceptions, and that it is infinite and without bounds; and that therefore the consciousness of our weakness, our nothingness, should teach us our great duty to the Most High, in acts of humiliation and adoration.

FEBRUARY 24.

SINGULARITY IN THE MINERAL WORLD.

IT would be difficult, not to say impossible, for our limited understandings to embrace at one view all the kingdoms of nature, or attempt to concentrate them so as to comprehend at one glance their varied and wonderful productions: we shall acquire a more extensive knowledge of nature by taking her in detail, by confining ourselves to certain beauties and properties. Let us now, therefore, consider some of the curiosities of the mineral world; for there we shall discover, as in every other department of the *creation, traces of the infinite wisdom of God.

There are few stones which better merit our attention than the loadstone. This stone, when suspended, turns so that one and the same end is always directed to the north, and the other

to the south: in these two points, which are called the poles, its principal attractions are to be found. Of all the metals, it attracts only iron; and it is remarkable that the northern and southern poles of two different magnets attract each other, but the two northern or two southern points, placed in contact, violently repel each other.

Quicksilver displays properties equally singular: it partakes easily of any form you chance to give it, but, when left to itself, it will immediately resume its native form; in fine, it rises in vapour; by being violently shaken, it becomes dust: it may be converted into a hard and transparent crystal, but may always be restored to its original state of fluidity.

Gold is the most precious and the chief of all metals, not only for its beauty, but for its peculiar properties: it is, of all bodies, the heaviest (except platina) and the most unalterable, for it will stand the action of fire during two months, without apparently losing any of its weight: it is also remarkable for its ductility and maleability; thus a grain of beaten gold will cover fifty square inches, and the same quantity may be drawn into a thread five hundred feet in length.

The wonderful form of common salt, the beauty of precious stones, the irregular figure of the earth out of which metals are dug, the petrifactions which are found on the tops of the highest mountains, and far from the sun-these, and a thousand other singularities in the mineral kingdom, seem formed to excite our inquiry.

The attentive contemplation of nature presents