Reflections on a flower-garden.

of beauty Nature has compensated by the more estimable qualifications of the mind and heart. The virtuous delight to do good in secret, and diffuse around them the exquisite odor of good works; and when we become acquainted with these beneficent characters, we find, perhaps, that they are not distinguished either by elegance of person or elevation of rank,

The carnation, on the other hand, combines both beauty and fragrance, and is indisputably the Inost perfect of flowers. It rivals the tulip in its colors, and surpasses it in the number of its leaves and the ingenuity of its structure. A small bed of carnations communicates its perfumes to the whole garden. This flower is the emblem of a man who unites beauty of person to superior mental qualifientions, and commands the love and respect of his, fellow-creatures.

I now approach the rose. The color, the figure, the smell, in a word, every thing belonging to this flower is calculated to charm us. But it appears to be the most perishable of flowers, as it very soon loses those attractions which distinguish it from so many others- an instructive lesson to all those who are endowed with extraordinary personal beauty, warning them not to be vain of such fleeting advantages.

It is, nevertheless, a melancholy spectacle to behold the ground at this beautiful season, strewed with so many withered blossoms and fallen leaves. But why should I murmur and find fault with Providence because it has not given the flowers perpetual duration? The world is a vast stage, on which the same actors are not destined continually to perform, but those which have finished. their

Reflections on a flower garden.

parts retire to make room for others. This is required by the diversity of the works of God; a diversity which contributes to their excellence. If one generation were not to remove from the theatre of life, what would become of all the succeeding ones? We are delighted with variety; and how could it exist unless present objects were to give place to others? The flowers would not afford us such pleasure, if, instead of lasting but a few months, they were to blossom all the year round. Absence renders us solicitous for the return of an object, while its uninterrupted presence is apt to excite satiety and disgust. When the mind has tasted all the delight that an object is capable of conferring, it begins to be indifferent towards it, and to aspire to new pleasures. The manifold changes to which terrestrial things are subject, are therefore a medium which Providence has employed to render human life a scene of continual delight.

Such is the felicity of this world. All is vanity. “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass; the grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away." (I. Peter, i. 24.)* The roses and lilies of a beautiful face fade like the flowers of the garden, and death leaves no trace of them behind. Let us, then, be wise, and seek to derive our felicity from permanent and everlasting sources. Wisdom, virtue, and the advantages of genuine Christianity never fade, but are inexhaustible springs of true gratification and delight.

Of the usual phenomena of thunder-storms.

JULY 8.

OF THE USUAL PHENOMENA OF THUNDER-STORMS.

NOTWITHSTANDING the tremendous phenomena attending thunder storms, they present a spectacle so majestic and so astonishing, as to be highly worthy of our consideration. An examination into their nature and effects is the more necessary, as an unreasonable fear often prevents us from observing this awful phenomenon with attention.

When athunder-cloud, which is nothing but a collection of vapors highly electrified, approaches so near a tower or a house, or another cloud, which is either not electrified, or is electrified in a less degree than itself, the electric matter flies off from all parts towards it; and hence proceed flashes of lightning, and the formidable report of thunder. The lightning ap pears either in the form of one momentary flash, or numbers of flashes are seen at once shooting in zigzag directions. The report which succeeds the lightning demonstrates that, the vapors producing the latter, occasion by their sudden inflammation an extraordinary expansion and agitation of the air. The emission of every electric spark is attended with a report, and thunder is formed on the very same principle, though it may actually be composed of several claps, or be multiplied and prolonged by reverberation. There is generally some interval of time between the lightning and the thunder-clap, and by this circumstance we are enabled to judge, with tolerable accuracy, of the degree of danger, and its distance, or proximity for sound requires some time before it can reach our ear. The lightning, on the contrary, traverses the same

Of the usual phenomena of thunder-storms.

expanse of atmosphere with infinitely greater velocity. As soon as you perceive the flash, you need only count the seconds, either by a watch or by your pulse. If you count five pulsations between the lightning and the thunder, you may calculate that it is more than a mile distant; sound being transmitted at the rate of about three hundred and eighty yards in a second.

Lightning does not always descend in a right line from the atmosphere to the ground; but often shoots out in a serpentine or zigzag direction, and produces an explosion when very near the earth. The electric matter which reaches the earth, or explodes near it, never fails to strike. Sometimes the ignited matter bursts like an ill-charged bomb before it arrives at the earth, and in this case it is perfectly innocent; at others the lightning is extremely dangerous. But as the proportion of vacant places on the earth far exceeds the space occupied by houses and men, many thousands of flashes may strike it without doing any real mischief.

The course of the lightning is particularly wonderful, and it is impossible to be traced. It depends on the wind, the quantity of exhalations, and other causes; taking undoubtedly that direction in which it meets with inflammable vapors : as when a grain of gunpowder is lighted, the flame runs along the train, setting fire to every thing in its way.

The force of lightning may be estimated from the astonishing effects which it produces. So intense is its flame, that combustible bodies are set on fire and consumed, and metals are melted, even without injury to the substances in which they are

Of the usual phenomena of thunder-storms.

contained, if they are sufficiently porous to allow the electric fluid a free passage through them. To the velocity of lightning it is owing that the bones of men and animals are sometimes shattered, though the flesh receives no injury; that trees, walls, and even rocks are cleft and rent in pieces. The rarefaction and agitation of the air, produced by its intense heat and velocity, occasions the death of men and animals that are often found suffocated, though they have not been struck by the lightning itself.*

Contemplate, O Christian, all these phenomena with due attention. How many wonderful objects are exhibited in a thunder-storm. You perceive a black cloud; but it is the pavilion of the Most High, who is concealed in it. It descends toward the earth; but it is God" who boweth the heavens, and cometh down, with darkness under his feet."

* On the immediate cause of death, under these circumstances, various opinions are entertained by those philosophers who have most attentively investigated the subject. Some have ascribed it to the terror produced by the tremendous report of the thunder, and the sheets of fire with which the unfortunate persons perceived themselves surrounded. Others have attributed the fatal effect to the operation of sulphureous vapors. Others, again, have imagined that the lightning, expelling the air from the space in which it acts, and at the same time depriving it of its elasticity, the animals must then be in a perfect vacuum, and die in the same manner as those placed under the receiver of an air-pump. Whether this phenomenon, however, be the result of any or all of the above causes, it does not appear improbable that by seasonable aid and a due attention to the subject, many persons in whom life appears extinct from the effects of lightning, might be recovered. Might not the philanthropic efforts of the Humane Society be extended with benefit to accidents of this kind? T.