upon our part of the earth, and penetrating its surface, slant off, just as an arrow or cannon-ball, which strikes any object obliquely, will either glance off, or, if it penetrate at all, will do so to a much less depth than if thrown with the same force so as to strike directly, or in a direction perpendicular to the surface struck. That part of the earth which is under these circumstances, loses every night more heat than it has acquired during the day, and continues to do so for some time after the days have begun to lengthen and the nights to decrease: and the greatest degree of cold in England is generally experienced during the second or third week of January, or nearly a mouth after the shortest day. After that period, as the sun daily shines upon us longer and rises higher, the snow and the ice gradually melt under his influence; the earth, during the night, gradually retains more and more of the heat that it has acquired during the day, until the buds and flowers of spring burst upon us in all their beauty. The heating process still continues to go on; the earth, for some weeks after the longest day, retains, during the night, some of the heat it has acquired during the day, and the summer is in its full glow during the last days of July and the early part of August.

In our country, which has a proverbially changeable

climate, arising chiefly from its insular situation, there is a considerable irregularity in the seasons-chilly days sometimes occurring in the midst of summer, and mild days during the depth of winter; but, in some portions of the earth, much greater regularity in this respect takes place. In the tropics, the setting in of the rainy season can be foretold almost to a day.

The wonderful and beautiful means which the All-wise and All-merciful Creator has employed in bringing about the changes of the seasons, can be but slightly glanced at here; but all can feel their influence and appreciate their effects. Who does not see, with all the joy of hope, how gradually spring brightens into summer? Who is there that has not indulged the pensive pleasures of memory as autumn slowly fades into winter? But not the less of wisdom and beauty is there in the rougher moods of nature. Consider how, first the formation, and then the melting, of snow and ice, soften the ground, break up the hard clods of the valley, and prepare it for the coming spring-how the blustering winds of March dispel the damps and mists that hang about the earth, and, as they swing to and fro, the yet leafless trees of the forest shake off the dead and cankerous boughs, that would impede the growth and vigor of the bursting buds-how the

thunder-storms of autumn, and the keen blasts of winter, purify the air, destroy noxious insects, and, by checking a too luxurious growth, give vigor to all life, animal and vegetable !

On every hand, a thousand thousand wonders and beauties meet the intelligent inquirer. The merest child may readily be made to understand some of them, and learn how good God is to his creatures. The wisest man on earth may find, at every step, new beauties and new wonders open before him, of which he was before ignorant, and may continually find fresh cause of wonder and admiration fresh cause to feel, with the great Newton, that he, with all his knowledge, is but a little child, who has picked up a few shells on the shore of the great ocean of truth.

"Oh, God! Oh, good beyond compare !
If thus Thy meaner works are fair-
If thus Thy bounty gilds the span

Of ruined life, ordained to man,

How glorious must those mansions be

Where Thy redeem'd will dwell with Thee!"

In looking at astronomical diagrams, we should remember that, after all, the best and most accurate can give but

a very inadequate idea of the magnitude of the heavenly bodies, and of the enormous distances at which, when compared even to that magnitude, they are placed from each other. Sir John Herschel has given a familiar but striking illustration of the comparative sizes and distances of the bodies in our solar system, which we can hardly do better than insert here:-"Choose any well-levelled field or bowling-green. On it place a globe, two feet in diameter: this will represent the Sun. Mercury will be represented by a grain of mustard-seed on the circumference of a circle, one hundred and sixty-four feet in diameter, for its orbit; Venus, a pea, on a circle two hundred and eighty-four feet in diameter; the Earth, also a pea, on a circle of four hundred and thirty feet; Mars, a rather large pin's head, on a circle of six hundred and fifty-four feet; Juno, Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta, grains of sand, in orbits of from one thousand to one thousand two hundred feet; Jupiter, a moderately sized orange, on a circle nearly half-a-mile across; Saturn, a small orange, on a circle of four-fifths of a mile; and Uranus, a full-sized cherry or small plum, on the circumference of a circle more than a mile and a half in diameter. To imitate the motions of the planets in their orbits, Mercury must pass through a space equal to its diameter in forty-one seconds; Venus,

in four minutes, fourteen seconds; the Earth, in seven minutes; Mars, in four minutes, forty-eight seconds; Jupiter, in two hours, fifty-six minutes; Saturn, in three hours, thirteen minutes; and Uranus, in five hours, sixteen minutes."

"It may assist us," says Dr. Carpenter, "in comparing this miniature representation with the reality, if we remember that the pigmy globe of two feet in diameter must be expanded into a sphere of nearly nine hundred thousand miles in diameter, or to two thousand three hundred and forty-eight and a half million times its size. What, then, must be the orbit of Uranus? And yet the whole of this vast system is but a point in the universe, no larger, in the estimation of the inhabitants (if such there be) of the nearest of the fixed stars, than the smallest of the satellites of Saturn or Uranus appears to us."