"Thou vain, silly Thing, to be flitting about,
"Bedecked and bedizened in colours so gay,
"From flower to flower in restless emotion,

Where nothing can sate thee and nothing can stay.

"Come down from thy heights and disrobe thee of beauties, "The emblems too surely of folly and sin,

"And dwell thou as I, in obscurity's shade,
"Less lovely without, but more peaceful within.

"The flower that feeds thee on honey to-day,

"Ere the dawn of to-morrow is wither'd and gone"The companions that share in thy gambols this morning, "Fly off ere the sun-set and leave thee alone.

"Come down, and content thee to crawl on the earth,
"Unelated by hope and untempted by pride,
"Here no one will seek thee and no one betray;
"Come taste a repose to thy folly denied.”

'Twas so spake the Grub-but the Butterfly heard not, For she too was thinking some thoughts of her own, As from the tall front of a moss-covered rose,

On this worm of the earth she looked scornfully down.

In the sweet-scented cup of some beautiful flower,
This Child of the summer herself had been born-
And fed on its nectar and wrapped in its leaves,
Had been cradled in velvet as soft as her own.

The fairest, the gayest, the freest from sorrow,
Each eye that beheld her still loitered to gaze-
The sunbeam grew brighter that play'd on her cheek,
As hour by hour she frisked in his rays.

"How I loathe thee, thou base Worm," this Butterfly said, "Through a joyless existence contented to toil—

Well-pleased that thy cumbersome form be permitted, "Unloved and unheeded to drawl o'er the soil.

"Come warm thy cold bosom, and light thy dim eye,
"And ask of the rain-bow its colours so fair,
"And drink of the perfume that steals from the flower;
Come leave thy base prison, and flutter in air:

"What avails it, thus dully to dream through thine hours, "Unpleased and unpleasing, in yonder cold cell? "Where save that in scorn for thy meanness it spares thee, "Each foot that goes by thee may crush if it will."

Now it chanced that some wise one these whispers of scorn By accident heard as he loiter'd there by ;

And pausing a moment to gaze on the insects,

In words of persuasion thus made them reply:

"Let the earth-worm remember the hand that has formed her, "Well-fitted in darkness and coldness to dwell, "Unkindled in summer, in winter unchilled, "Secure and contented to sleep in her cell,

""Twas the same hand that gilded the Butterfly's wing, "And taught her to revel in perfume and flowers,

"With spirits elate and unfitted for toil,

"To pass in the sunshine her life's fleeting hours:

"She cannot come down where the cold worm is dwelling, "And rest her soft bosom on earth's chilling bed

"Nor toil like the Ant to procure her a home,

" Where to bury in darkness her beautiful head.

"Let the Butterfly know as she flutters her wing,
"And exults in the form and the colours she wears,
"The hand that denies them to those she despises,
"Had granted them her, or they had not been hers.

"And safer, perhaps, in obscurity's shade,

"In coldness and darkness, contented to bide:

"They were wrong, if they might, to exchange their hard lot "With the beauty that flutters a moment and dies."

And to others than these, if we might we would whisper,
Let the words of the wise one be never forgot,
Lest they like the Grub and the Butterfly fancy,
That all must be wrong who resemble them not.

"PULVIS ET UMBRA SUMUS."

(Inscription on a Sun-dial in a Country Church-yard.)
"WE are but dust!"-turn hither, read
Its truth in every heaving mound-

The wild-brier and the noxious weed

There twine what once was life around-
The dust has swelled the valley-clod-
The spirit has returned to God!

"We are but dust!"-a few, few years

Will stay that voice, will quench that eye.But hope can light this vale of tears With dreams of Immortality!Then though the eye be dim, the voice Hushed as the tomb, will we rejoice.

"We are but dust!"-our longest days
Pass as the fleeting "shadow" by,
And every hour, some loved one lays
In the cold grave's obscurity;
Dear though he be, and passing fair,
"The worm feeds sweetly on him" there.

But there is One, on whom decay

Can work no change: he sits secure Though rocks and mountains melt awayAnd will for endless years endure

Then ere this dust return to dust,

Make Him-the God of Gods-your trust.

HYMN.

FAITH is God's gift-a powerful grace,

A wonder-working means;

Faith wafts the soul through boundless space, To range in distant scenes.

By faith we wash away our guilt

In Jesu's precious blood— Blood which for us Emanuel spilt,

To satisfy our God.

By Faith we Jesu's righteousness
For our acceptance claim ;

Robed in that spotless righteousness

We hope to hide our shame.

A LETTER TO A YOUNG FRIEND,

In consequence of being asked to explain what is meant by believing in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, required of us in Baptism,

as indispensible to Salvation.

I AM not surprised at the request made to me in your last letter. You were baptised, as thousands are, in your infancy, and from that time till now it has never entered into your thoughts to consider what baptism meant, what was there promised on your behalf, or to what you stand pledged by reason of that promise. When I asked you if you believed in the Trinity, you said, "Of course" -but you were too honest and too sensible to be satisfied with your own reply, and immediately added, "But I do not know what I believe about it." I asked you if you did not remember it was said, all men should be baptized in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that they who believe should be saved, and they who believe not, should be lost eternally, and I added, how could you believe without knowing what? You answered me that you knew the Bible to be true, and that those things were in the Bible, therefore you believed them of course; but that you did not attach any distinct meaning to the words, nor had ever seriously considered them. You spoke the truth of many besides yourself, who read and read, and hear and hear, and do not consider taking it of course, that as they have been baptized, all is right, and that they are believers. It surprises me not, therefore, that considering what we had spoken of after your return, you found your mind bewildered in endeavouring to form a collected idea of what had been my meaning. Nor am I more surprised, that opening book after book, and reading page after page, you found they all took it for granted that you knew what the religion of the gospel meant, whilst in fact you found yourself at a loss even to understand their terms. This sad result of past inconsideration, I will at your request