decree. But again, on the morning, ere the sun has risen above the "misty mountain's top," we find the same scene of animation renewed, recalling the ever-watchful providence of God, his presiding care, his goodness and love; and, in the sleep and the silence of the night, instead of the angel of destruction, we have the manifestation of God's care for all his creatures.

3. Nature having pointed out the night as the proper period of rest and sleep, to pervert this wise law, and indulge our slothful and indolent habits, by sleeping at noon, or by employing the day for the purposes assigned to the night, is sinful as well as unwholesome. During the night, there are operations going on in nature necessary and beneficial to vegetation, but which render the air more or less noxious to living creatures. And in this we have another instance of the goodness of God. For while we are asleep, He is preparing the world for us; and those processes injurious to life and health are carried on when we are insensible to them, and protected from their influences.

4. To sleep at noon is not only a mark of indolence, but (as the symbol signifies) a proof of disregard for the value and importance of time, than which there is nothing more valuable, says Theophrastus, and those who misspend it are the greatest of all prodigals. By sleeping at noon, and turning day into night, we close our eyes to the beauties of the external world, and shew our indifference to things that, in a good mind, excite gratitude and admiration; we pervert the ordinances of nature, and neglect those active duties which can only be effectually done by day.

5, The value of time is disregarded by the idle and the

useless, but, by the active and industrious, it is estimated at its true worth; by the good, time is viewed in its true light as the gift of God, for the use of which, as moral agents, they are responsible to him. All great minds are distinguished for their value of time,-that which, when gone, can never be recalled. Those who have risen to eminence, and worthily obtained the fame due to their talents, have been perhaps as much indebted for their success to industry as to their natural gifts. What we imagine to be the spontaneous offspring of genius, is often a work of much time and infinite labour. Nature may give the genius to design or conceive; but it is only labour, and art, and industry, that can bring perfection. The facility some men have in composing, is the result of previous education, and days and nights of labour: many great works in literature, which, when they appeared, surprised the world, have been proved afterwards, in the biographies of their authors, to have been the results of many years of intense study and seclusion. We could multiply instances, were the fact not well known. When the great Demosthenes electrified all Greece, and received the applause of his countrymen, by an eloquence never reached by the greatest orators of any other age, little did they think of the labour and time spent to earn this celebrity. Athenians, how have I laboured to have you talk of me!" was his own expressive exclamation.

6. How fleeting is time! The nearer to the grave, the quicker it seems to pass away. How many regret its rapid flight, yet how few so wise as to use it well before it vanishes! It cannot be recalled, and therefore, as regards the past, repentance is useless. We must snatch it before it goes, and profit by it. "We all complain," says Sene

ca, "of the shortness of time, and yet have much more than we know what to do with." Because to most men all time is a burden, which is not spent in pleasure or business; to "kill time" is an object which occupies much of men's leisure; but, to the wise and useful, time often proves too short, and they would that the day were longer, and the night shorn of its proportions. To the active and industrious, time appears to fly away with eagle's wings; and the lease of life is often run out before their work is finished.

7. Pleasure is inseparable from occupation; while languor and uneasiness are wisely united to idleness: it is only the idle who feel time to be a heavy burden. Strange that what is valued and coveted by one man, should be despised by another, and often felt to be an evil! In the mere occupation of time, though it relieve us from the burden of idleness and listlessness, there is no positive virtue; the true estimate of its value must be proved by the way in which it is spent. Many spend their days on trifles, far beneath the contempt of a rational creature; but to them, though we can award the praise of industry and activity, we cannot think they are useful to themselves or to others. The reflecting mind, aware of the shortness of time, its fleeting nature, and, above all, the uncertainty of its duration, cannot trifle away what is so precious. He finds duties to perform too momentous, works to be done too important, and thoughts and meditations to occupy him of too grave a character, to tempt him to waste so valuable a gift, on the trifles and amusements which fill up the occupation of half the world.

If we but consider what we are, and what we have to do, we shall never find time too long to fulfil our duties;

and, above all, to prepare for that great change which befals all men, when time shall be swallowed up in eternity.

8. Some animals, ominous or typical of evil, prefer the night to the day. In the vulgar idea, the evil one is supposed to go to and fro upon the earth during the stillness and darkness of the night. Darkness is considered emblematical of evil, and light of purity and innocence. Darkness is the cause of superstition; for, to the ignorant, there is something dreadful in the stillness of the night; that period when spirits, ghosts, and such like, are imagined to emerge from their hiding-places. Night is the time chosen for deeds of darkness; and thus we come to associate crimes with the night. The devil himself is figured to the vulgar eye as a being of darkness; hell is associated with the same idea; using the same figure, we have the darkness of the grave; the blackness of sin; the darkness of the mind (implying ignorance); and to be without true religion, is called the darkness of heathenism. But, on the contrary, all that is pure, all that is good, or all that is virtuous, is compared to light, as the purest and brightest substance known to us. The innocent are clothed in snow-white garments by the imagination; the saints in heaven are so represented; by the Psalmist, light is even called the raiment of God. The divine Plato called light the body of God; we imagine God to dwell in perpetual light; we say his throne is established in eternal light. Christ (carrying out the same metaphor) is called the Sun of Righteousness; his revelation to man the light of the Gospel.

ON INDUSTRY,

Symbol IX.-In Chonice ne sedeto.

Sit not down on the measure.

1. THERE is deeply implanted in the human breast the same principle we admire and extol so much in the bee and ant. The end to be attained is accomplished by the same means in both,-industry, frugality, and providence, In the busy insect there is a mechanical or instinctive regularity not so obvious in the human creature; the latter varies his means, chooses more important but not more successful instruments, and enjoys a greater degree of latitude in his actions; so that the object in view, though alike in both, is apparently at a greater distance in the man than in the insect. The instinctive regularity in the irrational animal keeps it from the vice of avarice so common in the rational. But if man be guilty of avarice in the accumulation of wealth, he is also capable of virtue, generosity, and benevolence,-qualities not found in the bee or ant. It is curious to observe, that the possession of property in both is uniformly accompanied by the same feelings of insecurity, the same vigilance of conduct, the same anxiety and dread of robbers. The strong desire to heap up is not, therefore, a vice, as some seem to sup