THE VIOLET.

Little children, look around,

You who in the fields are found;

You, with bright and laughing eyes,

You, with happiest sympathies:

Look around; and you shall see

Colors bright as bright can be,

Anemonies, gentle, fair,

Trembling in the perfumed air;

Daisies, too, upon the green

Bless the Spring-time, bless the scene,

Look around, and pluck and pull,

Are they not all beautiful!

But behold the purple flow'r,

Children of a joyous hour!

One of fair and beauteous mien,

Sweeter than the celandine:

Meek and lowly ;—there its head

Hangs, by virtue visited;

Rich in perfume, fair to see,

Innocent as infancy;

With moss to warm and dew to wet,

The blushing little violet!

Place it in your bosoms fair,

Let it live its life-time there;
Learn from it that one above,
Full of pow'r as full of love,
Looks upon the things of earth

From their earliest hour of birth,

Watches over bud and stem;

Makes sweet flowers of all of them;

Calls good children when they die,

To his home beyond the sky,

In angelie purity.

J. C.

Lessons in Astronomy.

III. MERCURY AND VENUS.

"First, Mercury, amid full tides of light,

Rolls next the sun, through his small circle bright;
All that dwell here must be refined and pure,
Bodies, like ours, such ardour can't endure;
Our earth would blaze beneath so fierce a ray,
And all its marble mountains melt away."

As our young friends have, we hope, by this time, become tolerably well acquainted with the information given them, relative to the great orb of day, we shall now direct their attention to the planets Mercury and Venus, which are much nearer to the sun than we are; and, as they revolve within the orbit or path of the earth, are called interior, or superior planets.

M

Mercury is the nearest planet to the sun, from which he is distant only 37,100,000 miles, and round which he performs his annual revolution in a little more than eighty-seven days, travelling at the stupendous rate of 109,000 miles an hour. The diameter of this planet is a little more than 3,000 miles; and if the light and heat enjoyed by the inhabitants of the atmosphere of Mercury were of the same density as that of the earth, they would be seven times greater than they are with us in the hottest part of our summer; that is, in the month of August. No doubt, the all-gracious Creator has fitted the constitutions of the people there to enjoy with pleasure and delight the place He has in His wisdom appointed for their abode.

Mercury is an interesting object when seen through a good telescope; but owing to his nearness to the fount of day, he is not often to be seen. He appears equally bright in every part, having no dark spots like the other planets, nor is he ever seen perfectly round, because his enlightened side is never entirely turned towards the earth. He is by turns a morning and an evening star, being never seen at or near midnight. From the time of his superior conjunction, when he appears behind the sun, to that of his inferior conjunction, when he approaches nearest to the earth, he rises and sets after the sun, and consequently is seen only in the evening; and from his inferior to his superior conjunction, he rises. and sets before the sun, and is then only visible in the morning, before the sun rises. He is sometimes visible

to the naked eye, and if at any time, a little after the sun sets, or before he rises, we discover near his place in the heavens a small star, bright and silvery, with a fine clear light and great lustre, it is Mercury.

The next planet in the solar system, receding from the sun, is Venus; which, like Mercury, is a superior planet, and by turns a morning and an evening star.

"Fair Venus, next, fulfils her larger round,
With softer beams, and milder glories crown'd;
Friend to our kind, she glitters from afar,

Now the bright evening, now the morning star."

Venus performs her annual journey round the sun, in rather more than 224 days; and is distant from him, not quite 69,000,000 of miles. She moves in her orbit with a velocity of 80,295 miles an hour; and her daily rotation on her axis is at the rate of 1,943 miles in the same time. Her astronomical day is a little more than twentythree hours, or nearly the same as that of the earth; and her diameter is 7,743 miles; so that by calculation it is found that her bulk is about nine-tenths that of the globe on which we live.

Venus is beyond comparison the most beautiful of all the planets; and when in that path of her orbit in which she shines the brightest, her lustre is such as not unfrequently to cast a sensible shadow. She never appears full, but has all the different phases or appearances of the moon. Her greatest distance from the sun is never more than 48 degrees; so that she is never seen in the