His Master's fate, and yet not share his doom.

His earnest love already ceased to glow

Within his breast, the cross, the death, the tomb, Were fraught with terrors, and he shrunk with fear From his Redeemer, when he should be near

With words of comfort to dispel His gloom.

How weak, how poor, the love that he professed!
How dim the sacred flame that glowed within his breast!

Scarce had he spoken ere another drew

Near where he stood, with threatening looks, said he, "And thou art one of Jesus' followers, too,

Of Galilee, thy speech betrayeth thee!" And then did Peter wildly curse and swear, And, with a loud and angry voice, declare,

"The man ye speak of is unknown to me!" Then did the cock crow loud, and full, and clear, And like a death-knell smote on trembling Peter's ear!

127

Then Jesus looked upon him, sad and tender,
As the last look a mother fond bestows
Upon her infant, which she doth surrender
In death's dark, dreamless slumber to repose.
As Peter met that look of tender feeling,
Such untold love and agony revealing,

A tide of sorrows through his bosom flows;
Oceans of anguish o'er his spirit swept,

And, rushing forth alone, in bitterness he wept !

SPIRITUAL RECOGNITIONS.

A LITTLE girl, in a family of my acquaintance, a lovely and precious child, lost her mother at an age too early to fix the loved features in her remembrance. She was as frail as beautiful, and, as the bud of her heart unfolded, it seemed as if won by that mother's prayers, to turn instinctively heavenward. The sweet, conscientious, and prayer-loving child was the cherished one of the bereaved family. But she faded early away. She would lie upon the lap of the friend, who took a mother's kind care of her, and, winding one wasted arm about her neck, would say, "Now tell me about my mamma!" And when the oft-told tale had been repeated, she would ask softly, "Take me into the parlor. I want to see my mamma." The request was never refused, and the affectionate child would lie for hours, contentedly gazing on her mother's portrait. But

"Pale and wan she grew, and weakly

Bearing all her pain so meekly,

That to them she still grew dear,

As the trial hour drew near!"

That hour came at last; and the weeping neighbors assembled to see the little child die. The dew of death was already on the flower, as its life-sun was going down. The little chest heaved faintly, — spasmodically.

THE mother who has learned to give firm, emphatic, and decisive commands, in mild, soft and persuasive tones, has learned the secret of success in family government.

A MONSTROUS quadruped, from twelve to twenty feet long; the head very large, the body fat, and the legs short and thick, the teeth large, and with tusks harder and whiter than those of the elephant. He swims quicker than he runs, pursues fish, and makes them his prey. He walks as well at the bottom of a stream as on dry land.

A Hippopotamus, taken from the banks of the Nile, was recently brought to England. A house was built for him in the Zoological Gardens, to which is attached a yard where the huge creature is permitted to exercise. Here is a large tank, into which the animal descends, its waking hours being spent about equally in and out of the water. An Arab keeper sleeps with him, and the creature is restless unless he can place his chin on his guardian's feet. An arrangement is, therefore, made, whereby the keeper's body is caged off from the animal, his feet only being within the den. This is necessary, else the monster, from the intensity of his affection, might throw himself into the arms of his sleeping keeper, and instantly crush him to death.

It is generally conceded by the recent commentators of the Bible, that the Behemoth of Job is the Hippopotamus. "Behold, he drinketh up a river; he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth."

WINTER THOUGHTS.

BY REV. E. W. CLARKE.

"Stern winter, ruler of the inverted year,"

THE Psalmist declares, God hath made. This season is a divine work. God has decreed, "Seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter," that in them all, in turn, we might find evidences of his goodness and reasons for his praise. "He giveth snow like wool; He scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes; He casteth forth his ice like morsels; who can stand before his cold?" Winter is one of the sterner features of the world, and with storms, and winds, and sweeping floods, serves to remind us that we are in a state of imperfection, and under a regimen of discipline. But when we examine closely, we find in it compensations, beneficent contrivances, and marks of divine goodness, as, indeed, we do in all probationary adversity and trial.

No season is unpleasant to the Christian mind. Through the medium of his own cheerful soul, he sees all things and rejoices. His mind, by a species of moral alchemy, converts the stern and the rough into occasions of contrasted joy. The bee, it is said, extracts honey and the spider poison from the same flower. Their different natures transmute the same sweetness, the one into a bane and the other into a nourishment. This may be figuratively applied to men of different dispositions. The cheerful Christian mind sees good in all things of God's workmanship, and extracts from them a joy; while the morose feel only gloom and dislike at cloud, wind, and cold. "The fine enjoyments of life," says one, "shun the stormy breast, and take up their abode with him who is of a cheerful temper, and who, in all seasons and their change,' finds cause of gratitude and delight."

We may, in every season of the year, discern the same beneficent hand, and rejoice in God always, and, with the poet of the seasons, lift up our adoring hearts, and exclaim,

"These, as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.

Then comes thy glory in the Summer months
With light and heat refulgent.

Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter awful Thou, with clouds and storms
Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled.
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing,
Riding sublime, Thou bidst the world adore,

And humblest Nature with thy northern blast."

We are able, during this season, to gain sublimer views, and more exalted conceptions of Him

"Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing,

And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds;"

and we are led to cry, "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!"

Winter has been accused of monotony in its landscape; and certainly, barren fields, and leafless trees have little to attract the eye. It is not pleasant to look on the death of nature, to see the forests stripped of all their leafy honors, and the seemingly lifeless rows of trees stand with "their naked shoots, barren as lances," and respond only to stormy winds in dreary, croaking groans; to behold no soft carpet of green, adorned with flowers. And yet winter has its beauties. Variety seems to be a universal attribute of nature; and winter shares it with the other seasons, if not equally, yet in some good degree. How fantastically does the frost wreathe itself into forms of beauty, covering nature with a thin, gauzy veil; ornamenting every window with delicately traced figures; hanging glittering pendants from every projection, and binding the waters into a broad, crystal sheet!

How the snow descends, silently, but rapidly, till all the fields and woods are robed in a dress of unspotted white, and the trees and shrubs bend beneath their soft accumulations, in many fantastic and beauteous shapes, as if compensated for the loss of their summer glories! How bright and cheering the morning, after a storm of snow, when all nature is clothed in dazzling brightness, as the sun shines clear through the frosty air! Also, the bright winter evenings are resplendent with beauty, when Vesper leads on her nightly host, and all the starry glories of the sky are revealed in purity and brilliance, and the moon throws her mild rays across the snow-crust