which are stirred into more lively action by a dispensation of rebuke and judgment. The heart of the philanthropist has often been chilled, and his extended hand checked, by the sight of the human character, as it is displayed when struggling under the afflictions of want, without being subdued to them. Yet these are the fruits which God, who penetrates the heart, knows to be in the germ all the while that his rain and sunshine have been shed on it. Has He been patient so long? let not man become fretted by a fellow sinner. When He smites, let the soul of the reconciled go out in pity and in prayer. Should we turn from the city, and seek the more simple, but equally suffering cottager, it is a sad spectacle to observe the wan and enfeebled Hebridian wading in the margin of the ocean in search of edible sea-weed, grasping at a dead crab, or climbing the rocks in search of limpets or saffron. Yet in these efforts there is industry and hope, and in the fresh air, at least, there is some prospect of health.

But, regard it as we may, famine is one of the sorest evils, coming direct from the Divine Hand, that falls upon man. It is of not uncommon occurrence, and against it industry and contrivance have little power. Not only does the uncivilized Caffre pine under its influence, and draw his famine-belt tighter, as the pinching foe gripes him more closely, but the industrious and ingenious European bows under its dominion, and hunger-bitten, sinks and dies.

We look to second causes, and impute our years of dearth to wet and cold, to hot and parching seasons, to cycles of weather, to comets, and many other accidents, some of them real and others imaginary, and thus wilfully conceal from our view the power of God, who blesseth a land, and maketh it to bring forth fruit abundantly, and again who "turneth a fruitful land into barrenness for the wickedness of them who dwell therein." He has said "that nation will I punish with famine," and "I will send the famine among them."

To

his people Israel he made this denunciation, " If ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass." Again," the Lord shall smite thee with blasting and mildew; and the heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron." According to the Mosaic law, after six years of culture, the seventh was to be a Sabbath of rest unto the land, and a Sabbath to the Lord. When, through want of faith in the Divine care, which was to furnish them meat in the Sabbatical year, the Israelites left off the observance of this law, they did not expect that God would reckon with them for their disobedience. Yet, nearly a thousand years after the law was promulgated, where an account is given of burning the houses of gold and the palaces, and of carrying away captive to Babylon those who had escaped the sword, we are reminded that a strict account had been preserved of every act of disobedience. The Sabbatical years were still to be required of them, and to be forcibly exacted, for they were to be kept in captivity till the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths; for, as long as she lay desolate, she kept Sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.” 2 Chron xxxvi. 21.

Another remarkable instance of retribution appears in the failure to release the bondsmen in the year of jubilee. The law was, that if a brother be waxen poor, he might pay his debt by means of his labour, and that of his family; but this could not extend beyond the year of release, when he was to depart, both he and his children, and return to the possession of his fathers. They were not to be sold as bondmen, or ruled over with rigour; for they were God's servants, which he brought forth out of the land of Egypt. The cupidity or unfaithfulness of the wealthy in Judea, had led them to disobey this law. But when the time of retribution arrived, while the king saw his sons and the nobles slain before

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his eyes, and was himself carried captive with all the people possessing wealth and substance, “Nebuzar-adan, the captain of the guard, left of the poor of the people which had nothing, in the land of Judea, and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time.”* So that they were returned to the possession of their fathers," while those who had wronged them, entered on a more severe foreign bondage. We surely greatly err if we content ourselves by saying we are not now under the Jewish dispensation, we are not under a discipline of temporal rewards and punishments, and thus neglect the acts of God's providence, which are as certainly a part of his administration now as in former ages, and as directly affect each individual of the whole race of Adam, as they did the children of Abraham. Those shall know who follow on to know the Lord. It is to those who are subdued under his rebukes that he sendeth his word, to heal them. They who watch the ruling hand of God, shall become wiser in reading his purposes, and their own necessities. If a man abuses his corporeal frame by excesses, he is visited by bodily distempers, at the present day, whether he be Jew or gentile. If he waste his days in sloth, his substance will become wasted also. If he refuse to cultivate his mental powers, ignorance and stupidity must be the consequence. If he drink to excess, he will be deprived for a time of reason. Need he wonder, then, if he should misapply the wholesome grain which is good for food, by extracting from it a spirit that consumes his senses and his strength, that God should, for a time, prevent the grain from growing, and leave him to feel that the sun and the shower are withheld in wrath. When he is lifted up as if by his own wisdom and power he had gotten him all this great wealth, doth not God regard it, and will He not remind him from whence his prosperity flowed? When, as a nation, we glory in our skill and ingenuity, and feel as if, through our various mechanical contrivances, nothing shall be withholden

* Jeremiah, xxxix. 10.

from us, do we not expose ourselves to a national rebuke, and ought we not, when we meet it, to humble ourselves under it?

It has been a subject of philosophical investigation, whether famine or privation, as instruments, are calculated to subdue the will, to awaken the intellectual powers, and to enlarge the mind; and the conclusion generally arrived at is a negative one. When bodily necessities are clamant, the mind is absorbed in them. When the unsubdued will is in a state of suffering, it is only excited to further rebellion. If it cannot be proved, however, that famine has been frequently the instrument of turning the heart to God, very many of his reconciled children can tell how their straits and necessities have sent them to prayer, and how His hand, shown in their deliverances, has enabled them to glorify his name; and, at the same time, there are very many examples of intellectual might contending with poverty, and gathering knowledge in the face of much privation. When to this laudable spirit is added the love of God, and contentment with his dispensation, one of the noblest characters is formed, of which humanity, in this state of things, is capable. To this the apostle had attained; but we must remark that, if, in whatsoever state he was, he had learned to be content,-if he knew both how to be abased, and how to abound, how to be full and how to be hungry, how to abound and to suffer need, it was because he leaned not on himself, but on Christ which strengthened him,-it was because his portion was not of this world, but of a better and enduring substance, --it was because the object which commanded the strenuous efforts of his energetic mind, was not silver and gold, not corn and wine, but the gathering in of lost sheep to the fold, the guiding of them in the paths of peace, and teaching of them and himself, to glorify their Lord with and by what he bestowed, whether of a temporal or spiritual character, and whether granted in large measure or in small. M. G. L. D.

FIRST WEEK-THURSDAY.

AUTUMNAL VEGETATION.

I HAVE elsewhere observed, that there is a vegetable cycle corresponding to the annual cycle, and obviously adapted to it with consummate wisdom. This is at no season more conspicuous than in the autumn of temperate climates. The sun is gradually withdrawing his prolific powers, and the general character of the season is about to become less genial. But before the period of cold and storms actually arrives, it is anticipated by the preparations of the vegetable creation. During spring and summer the various classes of plants and flowers have been running through their respective changes in conformity to the season, and have now reached their last period of annual development. The vegetative powers of the different races are very diversified; some are formed to rise from the germ, to shoot into flower, to form seed to ripen, to throw their seed into the bosom of the fostering earth, and then to wither and die,—the individual, after having provided for the preservation of the species, being destined to perish the same year in which it has been produced; others, though destined to run a similar course, retain life in their roots, and the individuals themselves, as well as their seeds, spring up again in a new season, to pass once more, and, in many cases, frequently through the same annual round; others still, while they yearly put forth and shed their leaves, their flowers, their fruit, and their seed, retain their stem and branches under all the vicissitudes of the seasons, which for years, and, in the case of trees, for ages and even centuries, flourish and grow, shooting their roots deep into the earth, in proportion as they raise their ample heads to the storm. But various as are their qualities and laws of existence, in all of