himself to Ellen, in supposing there was only a likeness between the locust and the war-horse; such likenesses, or comparisons, as your mamma has justly observed, are very common in the sacred writers. The locusts themselves are compared to troops of soldiers by Solomon, who was an accurate observer of the habits of animals and insects, as you may learn from his beautiful allusion to the ants. "The locusts," says he, "have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands,” (Prov. xxx. 27):—but the most magnificent description of these invaders, and devastators of countries, is in the prophet Joel, who likens them, with a variety of other strong images, to an armed host of horses and of horsemen rushing to battle: I will read you the passage in which this description occurs, reminding you first, that the locusts are described as the army of the Lord, executing His word, because they had been predicted by Moses as one of the evils which the Lord God would bring upon the Israelites if they did not “do all his commandments," and they are expressly enumerated in the awful list of curses for disobedience. Here is the passage, and, though it is highly figurative, you may learn from it, Alfred, that the locusts are really terrible beings, even more powerful and destructive than the fabulous giants which your little hero Jack is said to have slain; and you, Charles, from the repetition of the simile respecting the noise they make, must suppose that it is somewhat louder than an autumnal blast.

"Blow ye the trumpet in Zion,

And sound an alarm in my mountain;

Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble:

For the day of the Lord cometh,

For it is nigh at hand:

A day of darkness and of gloominess,

A day of clouds and of thick darkness,

As the morning spread upon the mountains:

A great people and a strong :

There hath not been ever the like,

Neither shall be any more after it,

Even to the years of many generations.

A fire devoureth before them,

And behind them a flame burneth:

The land is as the garden of Eden before them,

And behind them a desolate wilderness;

Yea, and nothing shall escape them.

The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses;

And as horsemen, so shall they run.

Like the noise of chariots on the tops of the mountains shall they leap,

Like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble,

As a strong people set in battle array.

Before their face the people shall be much pained:

All faces shall gather blackness.

They shall run like mighty men;

They shall climb the wall like men of war;
And they shall march every one on his ways,
And they shall not break their ranks:

Neither shall one thrust another;

They shall walk every one in his path:

And when they fall upon the sword they shall not be wounded.
They shall run to and fro in the city;

They shall run upon the walls;

They shall climb up upon the houses;

They shall enter in at the windows like a thief.

The earth shall quake before them;

The heavens shall tremble;

The sun and the moon shall be dark;

And the stars shall withdraw their shining:

And the Lord shall utter his voice before his army.”—Joel ii. 1—11. "Oh! what dreadful things the locusts are, papa,' exclaimed little Alfred, after Joel's description of them had been read, to which he had listened with the deepest interest and astonishment, his animated countenance strongly expressing the emotions that stirred within him: but, is it all true,' added he, 'do they run like mighty men;" "climb the wall like men of war," and, when "they fall upon the sword," "are they not wounded ?",

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And does the earth quake before them,' my dear papa, and are the sun and moon really darkened?' asked Ellen, or is this what mamma calls a figure of speech ?'

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At all events,' said Charles, the Lord does not "utter his voice" before the locusts: this, at least, papa, must be altogether figurative. It cannot be true.'

'Don't be too positive, my dear boy,' said his mamma; 'you had better suspend your judgement till you have heard what your papa has to say on the subject. Were I not afraid of your papa's reproof for quoting your favourite poet on a Sunday evening, I should remind you of the words of Hamlet; and they seem to contain so appropriate a reproof of rash judgements respecting the works and ways of God, that I may, perhaps, repeat them without offence :— "There are more things in heaand earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

True, my dear, most true; you have expressed in different language the sentiments of the sacred writers, which I prefer as more lofty in conception, and more sublime in expression, as well as more appropriate to this holy day; "Canst thou by searching find out God?-canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?" (Job xi. 7) There must, then, be many things in both heaven and earth of which we neither do nor can know any thing; and there are many things, Charles, which we may know, of which we are at present ignorant; particularly things which exist in foreign countries, which we have never seen,

perhaps never heard of, and about which, therefore, we should not form any rash conclusions. I will now give you all the information respecting the locusts I have been able to collect from authors of undoubted veracity, in order to throw light upon the passage I have just read, and which may serve as an answer to your several enquiries respecting it.

"The locusts often migrate from their native country (I have already told you they abound most in Asia and Africa,) to other lands. They are borne along to great distances by the wind, which may be called, in the language of poetry," the voice of God," with as much propriety as that term is applied to the thunder. They fly in vast swarms, and are truly, as the prophet describes them, "a nation without number," (Joel i. 6) :stretching many miles in extent and breadth. Their approach is said to be indicated by a yellow reflection in the air, proceeding from their wings, which sometimes throws a strong tinge of the same colour on the ground, and the noise they make in coming is heard at the distance of some miles. When they are first seen, they have the appearance of a mighty cloud spread over the horizon, and, as they approach, their numbers are so dense and compact, as to darken the air, and dim the light of noon-day, even when the sun is shining brightest, as if the shadow of an eclipse or the blackness of a tempest had passed over it. As they are thus flying, they are compared by one who had witnessed their descent, to thick flakes of snow driven by the wind in cloudy weather, and, when they alight on the earth, they literally cover it. However green and fertile before their arrival, the foliage of the trees and verdure of the ground vanish as by enchantment, and the most blooming land becomes, in a very few hours, a desert waste. These voracious insects eat up not only all the herbs and corn, all the leaves of trees and plants, and the blades of grass, but devour the roots of the one, and peel off the bark from the stems and boughs of the other. Their bite is poisonous to vegetables, and whatever of these they leave by any chance undevoured, seems as if it had been parched and blackened with fire. Whilst they are eating they make a noise like the crackling of flames amongst dry stubble, which is heard at a great distance. The trees, after they have been stripped by them, stand quite bare, and the boughs are white, as when covered with snow; wherever they feed, the bloom and verdure of spring are suddenly succeeded by more than the desolate sterility of winter. They taint whatever they touch, and they prey upon every thing. Nothing escapes their contaminating bite. They enter houses as well as fields-they climb the walls they fly into the windows-they penetrate into the most retired chambers-they have no fear of man or his weapons their hard and smooth coat of mail is said not to be

penetrated when they fall on the edge of a sword, and they can easily elude it. The fires which are sometimes lighted to destroy them, do not stop their progress-if multitudes perish, still greater multitudes succeed, till the flames are extinguishedthe trenches that are dug and filled with water to arrest their march, are soon filled up with dead bodies, and countless hosts of the living pass securely and triumphantly over them. Even their destruction is fatal-their putrid carcases infect the air with an insufferable stench, that adds the horrors of pestilence to famine: and when the south, south-east, or south-west wind hurls them into the sea, (the means by which Providence generally destroys them,) their dead bodies, thrown up by the surf in vast shoals on the shore taint the whole atmosphere with contagion, which has, in different countries, carried off by disease millions of human beings. Thus, my dear children, these diminutive insects resemble armies not only in their numbers, but in the destructive effects they produce by their ravages when living, by their infection when dead. They leave behind them, too, the seeds of new evils; for, in their passage through any country, the females deposit their eggs in the ground, so deep as to be hidden from the sight, so hardy as not to be injured by the elements, and so numerous as not to be capable of being destroyed. These eggs, after enduring rain and frost without hurt, are no sooner hatched by the warm beams of the sun in the following spring, than the broods that issue from them form themselves into compact bodies, each a furlong or more square, and march straight forward in terrible order and with great speed, keeping their ranks like soldiers, and committing equal ravages with those that preceded them. Well may they be considered as the "scourge of God," which the superstitious natives of the East say is written upon their wings in Chaldee characters: the Muslman writers maintain that the letters of this inscription are Arabic, and they thus interpret them :-"We are the army of the Mighty God; we have each ninety and nine eggs, and had we but the hundredth, we would consume the world and all that it contains." This inscription is no doubt fabulous, as was the ancient legend of the Harpies, told by the heathen poets, which, however, it has been supposed, with some probability, might have its origin in the plunderings of the locust tribes; especially as the names given to those foul monsters resemble the Hebrew words by which different species of locusts are designated. You will remember this, Charles, when you next read the description of the Harpies in Virgil, and you, Alfred, will, perhaps, think of the locusts when you read the tale of the Pigmies, especially as these fearful insects are pursued (a circumstance I had almost forgot to state) by flocks of birds, called Samarmars, which devour numbers of them, unless you prefer

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comparing them to the Lilliputians, who bound Gulliver to the earth with the smallest cords and shot their little arrows into his large body. These diminutive beings were not more formidable to the giant traveller, than the locusts to the immense tracts of land they lay waste. The Almighty often accomplishes His purposes by the most insignificant means. I believe I have nothing more to add respecting the locusts

'Yes, do pray, papa, tell us,' exclaimed Ellen, whether they really were ever eaten?'

'Had you not interrupted me, my love, before I had finished the sentence, I was about to state that they are: the Akridophagoi, or locust-eaters, are mentioned by ancient authors, and those who have travelled in the East, assure us that locusts are cooked in various ways for food, and that strings of them are brought to market, as articles of luxury, in all the Arabian cities. The Jews had permission to eat them, and Alfred has told us more than once this evening that the meat of John the Baptist "locusts and wild honey;" though the word translated locusts in this passage is capable of a different rendering, and it, therefore, cannot be quoted in the way of proving a point, which is, however, sufficiently well established without it.'

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'Well,' said Charles, when Mr. Darcourt had concluded, 'we are extremely obliged to you, papa, for the interesting information you have given us, and I am very glad to learn that the locusts, that eat so much and so voraciously, are themselves eaten :-"Out of the eaten came forth meat."-There's a quotation, not from Shakespeare.'

'I could'nt eat locusts, I am sure, papa,' said Ellen.

Nor I,' said Alfred, unless I was very hungry. Mamma, is it not supper time?'

'Yes, my dear boy,' replied Mrs. Darcourt, smiling, it is your supper time, and you shall have warm milk and bread, without one locust in it to taint its sweetness.'

J. B.

PROVIDENCE.-No. 1.

THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE PROVIDENCE AND THE
SPIRITUALITY OF GOD.

No peace is secure and no virtue inviolable, except to a mind that has some adequate conception of the nature of God. The solemn motive that acts everlastingly, the quick, perceptive piety which makes its rapid reference to the ordaining will of Heaven, and in whatever befals, is instantly at peace, because it hears the voice, Be still, and know that I am God'