THE WILD CONVOLVULUS.

It is a rare thing for Old Humphrey to find himself in a situation where he can derive no pleasure from surrounding objects. In the crowded city, and the solitary common, he is, perhaps, equally at home; for if there be interesting characters in the one, there are both flowers and blossoming furze-bushes in the other.

It did, however, happen the other day, that I found myself in a very unpromising place. I looked about me, but the road was even and straight. There were no green trees towering in the air; no neat-looking cottages by the wayside; and not even a shaggy donkey browsing on a thistle, or whisking away the flies with his tail.

By the side of my path lay a muddy, slimy ditch; one of those disagreeable ditches which are always to be seen in the neighbourhood of a town, where you are sure to be annoyed with an unpleasant smell, and equally sure to see, at full length, a dead cat, and an old tin kettle.

I walked quickly along by the side of the filthconducting canal, till it seemed to get deeper and more disagreeable. The nettles were rank, the

long grass had no variety, and the unsightly assemblage of weeds, apparently choking up the course of the stagnant and offensive puddle, was truly not a little repulsive.

I was about to step from the footpath to the broad road, to avoid so unpleasing an object, when suddenly my eyes fell on a constellation of flowers of the most exquisite beauty. A plant of the wild convolvulus had stretched itself along the bank of that offensive puddle, wreathing it with flowers of the most lovely kind.

Had the purest white wax, or snow from the very crest of Mont Blanc, been formed into flowers, and been flung carelessly upon the spot, scarcely would they have exceeded in pure and snowy whiteness the fair flowerets that were lying before me.

I lifted up my hands with emotion at the wondrous beauty of the wild convolvulus, set off as it was to advantage by the forbidding black puddle over which it was bending; and I felt grateful to Him, who, sitting upon the throne of heaven, profusely adorns the earth with beauty and glory. There is no place too dark to be gilded with his beams, no spot too forbidding to be rendered attractive by his gifts. He does, indeed, make the wilderness to be glad, and the desert place to rejoice and blossom as the rose.

And think not that his goodness is bounded to the works of creation. In the habitations of the poor; in the dark seasons of poverty and trial; and in the sickening humiliations of the chamber of disease, he can bestow his gifts and his graces. His providence is always over us, and oftentimes, where we least expect to find them, his special interpositions burst upon us, and call forth our wonder and our praise.

Fellow Christian, however irksome may be the pathway thou art treading, and unpromising the prospect around thee, be of good courage! He who has given his own Son for thee, will not forsake thee. Blind though thou art to many of his gifts, he will open thine eyes to behold his goodness; dumb though thou mayest be in acknowledging his mercy, he will put a new song in thy mouth, and compel thee to praise him.

I feel the poverty of my words to set forth my thoughts, but, my reader, if thou wilt ponder them in a friendly spirit, the wild convolvulus that gladdened the spirit of Old Humphrey, may haply lighten thine.

ON AN

AGED SAINT'S DEPARTURE

TO GLORY.

ANOTHER harp is heard in heaven! Another shout of thanksgiving has resounded above the starry pavement of the skies! Another burst of hallelujahs has welcomed an aged servant of the Redeemer to the mansions of the blessed!

It is written, "The days of our years are threescore and ten, and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow;" but the aged pilgrim who has just entered into "that rest that remaineth for the people of God," was nearly ninety-two years of age. Her humility, her faith, her patience, were long remarkable, and it now remains to notice her latter days, and her entrance into life eternal. How truly do the Scriptures say, "The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day!"

It was my privilege occasionally to call on this aged saint; and it seems but as yesterday that

I was taking especial notice of her humble habitation in the season of summer. I recall to mind the little garden before her door; the avenuenot of wide-spreading oaks and goodly elmsbut of beans, which, clinging to the strings placed to support them, adorned the place with their green leaves and scarlet flowers.

The staircase was steep and narrow, and the chamber small. Through a cupboard with glass doors might be seen old china ranged with inferior ware. An oval, white-ground tea-tray, with a landscape painted in the centre, stood on a chest of drawers. The chimney-piece was decorated with a few ornaments, over which hung some scriptural pictures, glazed, in plain black frames, and the portraits of several godly ministers gone to glory.

Here stood the old arm-chair on which sat a king's daughter," and there the bed where nightly reposed an "heir of immortality." The chamber contained a glory beyond that of the sun, and moon, and stars, the glory of the presence of the Lord, animating the heart of that aged pilgrim with holy ardour, and blessing it with sacred peace.

In the window stood a geranium: it had but one blossom upon it, but that was a bright one. On the small round table lay the well-thumbed