with plants of every sort for man and beast. The sun and rain send up by the roots their sweet influence through the plant, and with their outward touch, gladden and revive every stem, and leaf, and flower. Helpers to each other, they carry on the work of rearing subsistence for man and beast, and every living thing; until at last the sun who leads on the showers, and again dries up excess of moisture, finishes their mutual work, by ripening the seeds and fruits in summer and in autumn. Rich harvests cover the fields. Fruits of every hue and flavour invite the taste. The forests send up their tall trunks and spread wide their branches. The cattle feed in fields and the wild beasts in their forests.

Behold how summer and how autumn spreads out the stores which God has furnished for the use of man and beast! Enlightened and cheered by the same sun under which he planted, man goeth forth again to his labour until the evening. Having sown and tilled in hope, he has become partaker of his hope, and he returns, bringing his sheaves and his baskets with him. The loaded wagon groans beneath its rich and precious burden, while the harvests are

torne home; a father's full provision for his erring children. When the winter arrives who can stand before his cold? Who can bear the blast of his north wind, or bar from his very vitals that frost which has touched the vegetable world with death?

Oh there is arising in the sky, the same cheerful sun that filled the summer with plenty; and the frosty covering of the earth sparkles in his beams; but he cannot break the reign of winter, nor bring forth plenty from the frozen earth; yet now the trees prepared by a hundred years, are felled that they may make a cheerful fire upon the hearth, and bring a gentle summer, into a sinner's winter habitation; the full stores produced by the sun and rain, and the well fed animals furnish plenty for his table, and with their oil give the light of day to the long and cold winter evenings; while during the long night, he aud his family lie warm beneath the southern cotton and the northern wool, and sleep and are refreshed by the bounties of the sun and rain, while a killing frost presses in at their windows, and draws near unto their beds.

Thus by the sun and rain God spreads out before you the ever varying and rich scenery of his love, and makes a rich provision for your comfort and the comfort of all mankind. By the sun and the rain he calls up to your sight and to your use all that lives, and all that grows, and encourages you to seek his

favour.

Oh, He has not determined to cast you off for ever; to treat you as his enemies. While you sin; while you do not seek his favour; while you do not give yourself to his service. you are his enemies; but see, God looks upon you with the kindness of a friend; see as you go forth from your chamber, he is sending from the east, the sun to cheer and comfort you; see how he cheers the well watered earth; all around you he spreads out in the flood of day-light, his love to sinful men. Oh come; look upon the scene-let the beauty of the morning, let the beauty of the opening spring, let the full beauties of the warmed and watered summer, the full bounty of heaven in the fruits of autumn, and the large comforts which cheer the nights and days of winter, convince you that God is kind, that he will

receive you if you will come to him, and be for ever kind to you-make the Sun of righteousness shine upon you in his glory, and the showers of his heavenly grace, prepare for himself the fruits of his Spirit.

THE RAINBOW.

GENESIS ix. 14.

And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud. And I will remember my coverant which is between me and you, and every lving creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all fleh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I till look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth

HAVE you not often admired the rainbow, when, ater the raging storm, after roaring thunder, and livid, riving lightning, the sun breaks fath in glory from behind the dark western couds? Then the rainbow spreads its broad and beautiful arch across the eastern sky, a sign that the storm has passed away,