creatures are heard in the hill country from sheltered brakes, or beside the foot of some aged tree, whose ample trunk and spreading branches afford a shelter in the vicissitudes of weather.

The days perceptibly lengthen, and the temperature increases. The farmer ploughs up his fallows and sows spring wheat and rye, beans and peas.

Reason and experience equally instruct the husbandman to direct his operations by the changes of the seasons; but who first taught him to plough all day, to sow, to open, and break the clods? "When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rye in their place?"

"His God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him," Isa. xxviii. 25, 26.

How often has the thought of this kind warning risen within me, while observing the labours of the husbandman! How consoling has it been to think that the high and lofty One, whose power is seen in the fierce whirlwind, whose voice is heard in the loud thunder, should thus direct the simple occupations of rural life! That he should secretly incline the heart of man to devise such instruments and operations as diminish human labour, or promote the growth of every herb bearing seed, and every fruitful tree; that he should water the ridges of the field abundantly, settle the furrows thereof, and make them soft with showers, till the year is crowned with his goodness, Psa. lxv. 10, 11; and all this, perhaps, for him who, while he receives the gift is yet unmindful of the Giver, whose heart has never warmed with gratitude, whose life never offered one tribute of thanksgiving. Annals of My Village, being a Calendar of Nature for every Month in the Year.

CALLS OF USEFULNESS.

A Call on a clean industrious Cottager.

HOW do you do, Mary? How do you do? Hard at work, as usual, I see; never letting the grass grow under your feet. Since I first undertook to distribute tracts, and occasionally to leave a copy of the ever blessed word of God

with those most likely to value it, I have gone into many habitations, and this I will say, that no cottage have I yet entered which equals yours in tidiness. It does me good to see with what order and cleanliness every thing is arranged; and I heartily wish that all the slatterns in the parish would take a peep at your cottage, and follow your example. That shelf is a perfect picture; any one might dine without a dish from this deal table, and the quarry floor is as red as a cherry. If your husband was not an orderly and industrious man, I should be ashamed of him.

Your cuckoo clock, there, keeps ticking away, and reminds me that I have no time to spare. Mine are hasty visits; if they were not, I could never see half the people that I have to visit. How precious are moments, and how thriftily we should spend them! we usually take the sound of the clock to be Tick, tack; but a friend of mine says it is, Gone, past! and as every moment thus marked by the pendulum is gone for ever, it has a solemn signification.

Mind, Mary, that you do not run into the error of paying great attention to your house and little attention to eternal things: God requires the hearts of his creatures. I have known those who, because they have discharged some duties well, have been satisfied in allowing others to remain undone. Cleanliness is an excellent quality, but cleanliness is not godliness. It is delightful to peep into such a cottage as yours, but as we are not to live in this world for ever, you must look forward to a house not built with hands, eternal in the heavens. We must die as well as live, Mary, and it is a blessed thing to die in peace. "The reason why many Christians at the hour of death are full of doubts and fears is this, because in their life-time they have not been much exercised in living by faith in the Redeemer." This faith will make your comfortable cottage still more comfortable. Seek it, Mary, seek it, with all your heart and with all your soul.

A Call on an untidy Woman.

This will never do, Molly! Three times have I called upon you, and every time your house has made me think of a pig's sty. Just look at these chairs; they cannot have been rubbed for a week; and see here, I could write my name

on this table, with my finger, it is so thickly covered with dust. It never will do to go on in this manner; there can be no comfort where things are so unclean, neither for yourself, your husband, nor your children.

Molly.-Ay, it's easy enough for those to talk who have, perhaps, people to help them, and money to buy soap, brushes, and brooms; but poor folk must do as well as they can. It's as much as I can do to get a bit and a drop for my children and myself; for my husband does but little to help me. If he comes home at night, he soon bounces out again, and sets off to the beer shop.

Visitor. He cannot well do a worse thing, Molly; but are you quite sure that you do not persuade him to go there?

Molly.-Me persuade him! no, indeed, I take care to rate him well for it, every day of his life.

Visitor.-Yes, but the reason why he goes to the publichouse is, because he is happier there, than he is at home. Now an untidy house and a scolding wife, are two things as likely as any that I know of, to persuade a man to go to the public-house. Come, Molly try a different plan with your husband; let him see that some attention is paid to him; let him know that his comforts are considered; and let him look on his wife and his children without feeling angry at the one, or ashamed of the other. You may do wonders if you will, Molly; be advised! be advised!

Molly.-If I was to work like a negro, my husband would take no notice of it at all; he would leave me to scrub my finger ends off, so that he could go down to the Bull, and set his back against the kitchen screen, with a mug of ale before him. He cares no more for me than he does for that broken platter.

Visitor.-Don't say so, Molly, don't say so; give him a kind word instead of rating him; get him a drop of home-brewed beer to his supper; stir up the fire, and sweep up the hearth; and if you don't make a different man of him in a month, I shall say that it is his fault and not yours. Few men are too bad to be mended; and you may take my word for it, that the best way to keep a man from the public-house is to let him have a more comfortable place at home. I shall leave a little book with you that contains a few good hints, and I do not despair of seeing you and

your husband reading it together, some night after he comes home from his work, in quietness, affection, and peace. Time is rolling on apace, Molly; the trees are either felled, or now growing that will form our coffins, and which ever goes first to the grave,-you, or your husband,—the one that is left will feel sorrow for having given grief to the other. Take what I have said in good part; and may grace, mercy, and peace dwell in your habitation.

A Call on a Sabbath Idler.

What! Donald Mac Pherson, neither shaved nor cleaned, though it is near two o'clock! The sabbath bells have rung in your ears, and several places of worship have been open around you, yet here you are idly lounging about in your dirty clothes, reading a newspaper, neglecting your own soul, and forsaking the worship of Almighty God. Donald, if I could do you a kindness I would, but be persuaded to do one for yourself. Do "remember the sabbath-day to keep it holy," for sabbath days are precious things. Have you never heard that "time is the stuff that life is made of," and can you tell that another sabbath will be yours? Don't be content to go idling along to perdition; have pity upon yourself,

For he who scorns the day of rest
Regardless of his soul,

Will shortly hear the trumpet sound
While winged lightnings flash around
And thunders loudly roll.

A Scotsman should bear in mind what has been done by his countrymen. The old covenanters of Scotland, in the midst of danger and death, bent their knees and lifted up their hearts to the God of their fathers, worshipping him in spirit and in truth. Ay, when surrounded by their enemies, persecuted and tormented; when wandering among mountains, and dens, and caves of the earth; when hunted like wild beasts, and slaughtered without mercy, they endured all, and would neither part with the word of God, nor neglect the worship of God.

What would they have given, or rather what would they not have given, for the quiet sabbaths, which you appear

to despise! When they assembled, it was in the dreary wilderness. Their church had no walls but the rugged cliffs, and no roof but the blue sky of heaven. They were compelled, even on the Lord's day, to hold their swords in their hands while they engaged in prayer and praise; for their hard-hearted and bloody-handed enemies were hovering about them, and the watchful sentinel was stationed on the lofty crag to give timely warning of their approach. These covenanters would have died rather than have forsaken the assembling of themselves together on the sabbath-day.

Donald, awake from your guilty slumber, and think on what I am telling you; when the preacher, the grey-headed covenanter, with his hands uplifted, his hair waving in the winds, and his eye fixed ou heaven, raised his voice in the silence of the solitary place, the whole congregation listened as with one heart and soul to catch the tidings of salvation that fell from his lips. And why did they listen so attentively? Why because the love of God and the grace of the Redeemer were dearer to them than life; they loved the sound of the gospel of Christ more than they feared the furious blood-thirsty dragoons, whose horses' hoofs came rattling in their ears. O Donald, if you were half as earnest as these covenanters in seeking salvation, you would not need to be told to "Remember to keep the sabbath-day holy."

A Call on Parents anxious for the good of their Children. I have just stepped in to tell you how pleased I am with the punctual, orderly, diligent, and obedient conduct of your children at the Sunday-school. I know that you are anxious about their welfare, temporal and spiritual, and you have every reason to be encouraged in your exertions for their welfare.

When even the poorest people bring up their children in the fear of the Lord, they find them their best friends in after days; but when parents, rich or poor, neglect their children, and bring them up ignorant of God and of Divine things, such children are sure to be plagues to them. So far from honouring their parents, and proving a comfort. to them, they are as dust in their eyes, thorns in their feet, and goads in their sides.