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"Poor Archibald!" continued my uncle, with tears in his eyes, "he was not happy. The new views he embraced he found alike inefficient in affording solid support and satisfaction to his own mind, and in instructing and saving those who heard him. I unexpectedly met him a few months before his death, when he sighed for the unsophisticated pleasures of religion which he thought he once enjoyed, but declared himself unable to return to that state of mind which would prepare for their enjoyment. I was much shocked at hearing of his death, and never had an opportunity of hearing any thing as to the state of his mind on its near approach. My dear boys, may you never suffer yourselves to be carried away by pride and vain philosophy, but ask for the good old paths and walk therein, that you may find rest to your souls.

truths which that good man laboured so successfully to diffuse both by his tongue and pen; and though our Richard was not a preacher of the word, there is good evidence that he was a successful propagator of it, his conversation and example having been blessed to several of his associates. He that winneth souls is wise.' "Archibald R―, my school-fellow and college companion, a highly gifted youth, and one who did run well but, alas, was hindered. Archibald possessed brilliant talents, and far outstripped all competitors, especially in those exercises which call forth original genius rather than plodding perseverance. He was as amiable as he was talented, and won the love even of his unsuccessful rivals, as well as the admiration of indifferent judges. His conduct was strictly moral, and even exemplary. His views of sacred truth were scriptural and clear; and there was reason to hope that he experienced the "Very different from the doubtful and power of religion in his heart. In course misgiving feeling with which the name of time, Archibald became a popular of poor Archibald R. was entered in my preacher. Wherever he preached, ad- little obituary, were those of entire conmiring crowds were convened; and it fidence and unmingled veneration for a was considered almost a disgrace not to long life of consistent piety, and a deathhave heard the celebrated Mr. It bed of humble, solid, and edifying assurance, which rested, and which are to the present day awakened, on referring to the name of an aged minister on whom our family, when in town, constantly attended. The doctrines,' said he, 'which for half a century I have preached to others, are now the support of my own soul. Precious Christ! Precious gospel! Precious hope! The Rock of salvation is solidity itself.''

is true that the bulk of his congregations were gathered from among the lovers of novelty and variety; but even judicious and experienced Christians listened with delight to his eloquent appeals, and rejoiced to see such brilliant talents consecrated to the work of the Lord; but they had not heard him many times before they observed with pain an effort to display himself, even at the expense of obscuring the great and glorious objects which the Christian minister should constantly labour to exhibit. He seemed to be more full of himself than of his subject. He more than once received a faithful and affectionate expostulation, and for a time gave to the preaching of the cross something more like its due prominence; but again he relapsed into his former egotistical parade. His conversation became less and less spiritual. His chosen associates were selected, not for superior wisdom and exalted piety, but for brilliancy of talent, keenness of wit, and connexion with the more fashionable circles of literary society. The time came when Archibald could speak of experimental religion with levity bordering upon sin, and indulge scepticism on those glorious doctrines of the gospel, concerning which he had at one time said that he determined to know nought beside.

The next entry in my uncle's book, seemed to awaken in his mind feelings of deep and melancholy interest. He more than once endeavoured in vain to subdue them and proceed with his wonted composure. At length with an agitated voice, he said, "True, indeed, it is, that man walketh in a vain show. We set our affections on that which is not; and our very affections are the sources of our afflictions; our hearts bleed, and our very lives are smitten down to the ground when lover and friend are put far from us.

"Now I forbid my carnal hope,
My fond desires recall;

I give my mortal interest up,
And make my God my all."

As uncle uttered these words, he closed the book, and appeared for a few moments lost in thought. His own placid, benignant smile soon played again on his

countenance, and we hoped he might have been inclined to proceed with his reminiscences. But as if suddenly recollecting the occasion of our midnight interview, which I believe had been forgotten both by Frank and myself, he pointed to the time-piece, which to our great surprise intimated that the midnight peal must be nearly over. It wanted only a quarter to one o'clock. We threw up the library window and listened a minute or two; but, with much greater interest, spent the few remaining moments in joining with my uncle in prayer that we might be enabled so to mark the flight of time, and so to number our days, as to apply our hearts unto wisdom. C.

THE HAWTHORN.

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forefathers, identified as it was to them with the May-day games in which it held so distinguished a place. But though these village sports have comparatively fallen into disuse, who can regard the lovely blossom of the hawthorn without feeling wafted back in memory to the happy days of childhood? With what ecstacy did we hail the appearance of its milk-white buds in the hedge newly mantled with the lovely green of early spring! They seemed the final proof required to assure us of the delightful fact, to which all around us testified, that "the winter was past, the rain over and gone." How many hours have rapidly sped by, while surrounded by the beloved companions of our early days, we culled the new-found treasures of the field to form our little posies, ever reserving the best, the loftiest place for the fragrant branches of our favourite May tree. How many wistful glances were cast toward the topmost bough, where grew the finest branches, the whitest sprays; while every renewed attempt to reach the desired object, waving in mid air far beyond the reach of the longest arm, but robbed it of its snowy honours, scattering around a cloud of perfumed flakes. Little were the insidious thorns regarded, or the wounds and injuries they too often inflicted, were the desired prize but attained and borne in triumph to deck the grate or fill the jug. At no season of the year is the hawthorn devoid of interest; it does indeed combine the utile with the dulce, the useful with the agreeable.

"The milk white thorn, that scents the evening While yet the ground is locked by the

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gale."-BURNS.

"Lo! the green thorn her silver buds Expands to May's enlivening beams."

NATURAL ORDER. Rosaceæ.

C. SMITH.

LINNEAN ARRANGEMENT. Icosandria Di-Pentagynia. Crataegus Axycantha.

Calyx superior, of one leaf, with five permanent segments. Petals five, round, growing from the edge of the calyx, b and c., Filaments, awl shaped, incurved, d. Anthers, two lobed. Germen, in

ferior, roundish, f. Styles, generally one, sometimes two or three. Stigma knobbed. Berry, globular, deep red, crowned with the calyx, containing from two to five capsules, each one valved, e. Seeds, two in each cell, egg shaped. Branches thorny. Leaves three or five lobed, regular, smooth, and glossy. Flowers white in lateral corymbs. Thorns small, awl shaped. Blooms in May or June.

How many early and pleasurable associations does the sight of this tree revive! How closely is it connected in our minds with the delights of spring, and images of rural festivity. This must have been peculiarly the case with our

paralyzing hand of frost, the March blast
whistles through the leafless trees, and
all around seems dead and sterile; the
hawthorn hedge which skirts this scene
of desolation, protrudes its little round
buds; small at first, and scarcely to be
distinguished from the woody branches,
yet ere long tipped with a faint speck
of green, which tells of brighter skies
and warmer days to come.
And as the
spring advances, though with hesitating
and uncertain steps, and all nature re-
vives at her genial call, "the intertex-
ture firm of thorny boughs," becomes
a living mass of the freshest verdure.
The beautifully shaped leaves of the
most delicate green, are soon enlivened
by the red tinge assumed by the young
wood, while ere long appear the pearl-
like buds, each set as it were in a
downy cup of the lightest green, and

studded round the edge with the dark tips of the calyx segments.

"Between the leaves the silver whitethorn shows Its dewy blossoms, pure as mountain snows."

Then, as the petals expand their concave milk-white segments, crowned with the dark tipped anthers, like so many rays surmounting a pearly coronet, what can exceed the beauty of each individual flower? And what can surpass the appearance of an individual tree viewed from a distance. a mass of the bright and lovely green of spring varied with snow-like wreaths of the most dazzling whiteness; while the perfume extending far and near fills the air with the most delightful odour. Again, when the chilling gales of autumn, the partycoloured tints of the forest, and the rustling leaves beneath our feet, tell too truly of the approaching dreary season in which nature sinks into her annual state of repose, thence to regain fresh strength to resume, with another spring, her round of ceaseless bounty, the hawthorn, which has been overlooked during the bright months of summer, will relieve the melancholy scene. As the tawny leaves fall one by one upon the ground, the interlaced branches again appear loaded with their scarlet crop of "stony haws." It has been often remarked that an abundant supply of these berries betokens a severe winter; but experience has frequently proved that this omen is not to be depended on. Yet if superstition can find no food in these vegetable harbingers of winter, what Christian eye can regard them unmoved? How forcibly do they repeat the delightful truth, that "the goodness of God endureth continually;" that he who wields the destinies of empires, and rolls the heavenly bodies through the infinity of space, is not regardless of the wants of the meanest of those beings into which he hath breathed the breath of life. Yes, the feathered songsters, those choristers of heaven, whose little voices are ever tuned in notes of grateful praise to their Almighty Creator, are not overlooked by him. He knows the season of their need, and makes a bountiful provision for their sustenance; while the means by which he supplies their wants, conduce to the gratification

of man.

"Fear him, ye saints, and you will then
Have nothing else to fear;
Make you his service your delight,
He'll make your wants his care."

The derivation of the various names by which this tree is known is very obvious. May, from the month in which it usually blossoms, as well as from the importance attached to it in the rural sports which were celebrated on the first day of that month; though owing to the variations of the seasons, as well perhaps in some measure to the alteration of the style, it is very seldom now found in bloom so early. Hawthorn, as well as its Danish and Swedish names, (Hagetoon and Hagetorn,) are most probably formed from the Saxon word hage or haeg, hedge. Whitethorn requires no explanation; and the word quick, applied to a hedge formed of this plant, signifies life, and was most likely used to distinguish such fences from those of wood, as it cannot be considered a quickly growing plant.

The hawthorn seldom exceeds thirty feet in height; when young, it grows from one to three feet in a year, afterwards it increases in size very slowly, and spreads chiefly in an horizontal direction. The trunk is generally gnarled the bark rough, and the branches tor tuous and irregular. The timber it affords is hard and durable, finely grained and susceptible of a high polish; but owing to a deficient supply of a useful size and its great tendency to warp, it is seldom used. The hawthorn is principally cultivated for the hedgerows of England, or as an ornamental shrub, for which, as we have seen, it is well calculated. For the former purpose it is invaluable, on account of the ease with which it is propagated, as well as the impervious barrier which it affords, when properly trained, against the inroads of man and beast. The ancients used it for this purpose: we find in the Odyssey that Ulysses, on returning to his father, found him alone, the servants having been despatched to the woods for

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The branches form excellent fuel, especially for heating ovens; they are likewise frequently used to protect young plants, hedge-rows, etc. The leaves are good fodder for cattle. The berries, as we have seen, form a main supply in winter for the wants of the feathered tribes; they are also used medicinally, and in some parts of France a fermented liquor, of a very intoxicating nature, is made from them.

The hawthorn has ever been a favourite with the poets. What can be more picturesque than an old tree, with its gnarled trunk and tortuous branches, when under the influence of gradual decay, yet still sending forth an annual crop of leaves, flowers, and fruit. How interesting are the associations with which we connect it, when it stands in the village green, the trysting place of the hamlet, the play-place of the children, the favourite resort of the aged. Such a tree has Goldsmith immortalized in his touching description of his native village.

"The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,

For talking age, and whispering lovers made!
How often have I blessed the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the village train, from labour free,
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree:
While many a pastime circled in the shade,
The young contending as the old surveyed."
Milton describes this tree as the favour-
ite resort of shepherds :

"Every shepherd tells his tale,
Under the hawthorn in the dale."

While another poet represents a monarch regarding such a spot with envy.

"Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroidered canopy
To kings who fear their subjects' treachery?"

woods with the sound of music, there to gather large branches of May, which they brought home in triumph to adorn their doors and windows. The after part of the day was spent in rural sports, principally in dancing around a high pole, erected for the purpose in some place of public resort, which was annually decorated for the occasion with garlands of flowers, streamers, etc. Even royalty itself was not negligent of the festal occasion, as Stowe tells us in his account of the Mayings near London, as these sports were termed.

"In the moneth of May, namely on May-day in the morning, every man, except impediment, would walke into the sweet meddowes and greene woods, (many of these are now covered with long lines of houses) there to rejoyce their spirits with the beauty and savour of sweet flowers, and with the harmonie of birdes, praising God in their kinde. And, for example, hereof Edward Hall hath noted, that King Henry VIII., as in the third of his reigne and divers others yeares, so namely in the seventh of his reigne on May-day, in the morning, with queene Katherine his wife, accompanied with many lords and ladies, rode a Maying from Greenwich to the high ground of Shooter's hill."

Here a pageant was prepared for their entertainment, two hundred "tall yeomen dressed in greene, with greene hoods, and bowes and arrows," personated Robin Hood, and his band of archers. The chieftain, who represented this renowned outlaw invited the king to witness the skill of his men, and then entertained them "in greene arbours made of boughes and deckt with flowers where they were set and served plentifully with venison and wine, to their great contentment.' Stowe goes on to

Chaucer in a yet earlier period was not relate, "I find also that in the month regardless of its beauties.

"Mark the fair blooming of the hawthorn tree, Who finely clothed in a robe of white, Fills full the wanton eye with May's delight." Perhaps a few words upon the Mayday sports of our ancestors may not be uninteresting or irrelevant to our subject. They no doubt originated, like many other of our popular customs, in the pagan ceremonies which the heathen were wont to observe at this season of the year, in honour of Flora, the goddess of flowers. The younger part of the community were accustomed to rise with the dawn of day, and went forth to the

of May, the citizens of London (of all estates) lightly in every parish or sometimes two or three parishes, joyning together, had their several Mayings, and did fetch in May-poles with divers warlike showes, with good archers, morris-dancers and other devices for pastime all the day long, and towards the evening they had stage-plaies and bonfires in the streets.' These sports being found to lead, as might naturally be expected, to much excess and licentiousness, the May-poles were ordered by Act of Parliament, in 1644, to be removed. At the Restoration, however,

they were replaced, and one in the Strand was reared with much ceremony. It remained there for many years, until being much decayed, Sir Isaac Newton obtained permission to remove it to Wanstead Park in Essex, where it was used to support an enormous telescope, one hundred and twenty-five feet in length, presented to the Royal Society by a French gentleman.

Many of our old poets have commemorated these Mayings. We have only room to insert Herrick's description of the street when decked with these branches, in his poetical invitation to his mistress "to goe a Maying."

"Come, my Corinna, come; and coming, marke How each field turns a street, each street a parke

Made green and trimmed with trees; see how
Devotion gives each house a bough,

Or branches; each porch, each doore, ere this,
An ark, a tabernacle is,

Made up of white-thorne neatly interwove."

But the first of May is now comparatively neglected, and these rural festivities have ceased, though in some of the more secluded districts and villages, May-poles are yet standing, and the younger part of the population retain the custom of going a Maying. In London, too, the annual processions of the chimney sweepers remind us of former times. Much as we must all deplore the decline of any old customs which tended to cement the ties which ought ever to exist between the upper and lower classes of society; and natural as it is for all to welcome the return of the delightful season of spring, yet we could hardly desire the revival of these public revels. In these days it would be impossible to observe them with the simplicity of former times, and they would only furnish an excuse for intemperance and wickedness. Against similar scenes, the apostle no doubt cautioned his Galatian brethren, when he warned them of the works of the flesh, among which he enumerates "drunkenness, revellings, and such like," on the ground that "they who do such things should not inherit the kingdom of God." The Roman Christians too are charged to the same effect, Rom. xiii. 13.

Ere we close these notices of the hawthorn, we will just allude to the tree known by the name of the Glastonbury thorn; with which a superstitious legend is connected. Tradition states that it sprang from the staff used by Joseph of Arimathea, who on a visit to this country to found a Christian

church, fixed it on the ground on that spot on Christmas day; praying that God would by it work a miracle to convince the heathen around of the truth of his mission. The staff took root immediately, put forth leaves, and the next day was covered with blossoms. For many years, it was believed that every Christmas eve the tree budded, and the next day bloomed. Slips from this tree were said to possess the same miraculous power. The mystery, like many others by which our forefathers were misguided in the days of Popery, has however been satisfactorily accounted for. The Glastonbury thorn is a variety of the common hawthorn, distinguished for bearing two crops of leaves and flowers in a year: it comes into leaf for the second time late in the autumn, and blooms in the course of the winter. As for the staff being transformed into a tree, that is by no means so doubtful as that Joseph of Arimathea ever visited Britain; for it is well known that the hawthorn, as well as many other trees, will often grow from stakes.

Before taking our leave of the hawthorn, let us learn from this favourite tree a valuable lesson, well conveyed in the following lines by an anonymous writer : "On summer's breast the hawthorn shines, In all the lily's bloom,

'Mid slopes where the' evening flock reclines, Where glows the golden broom.

When yellow autumn decks the plain,
The hawthorn's boughs are green,
Amid the ripening fields of grain,
In emerald brightness seen.

A night of frost, a day of wind,

Have stripp'd the forest bare:
The hawthorn too that blast shall find,
Nor shall that spoiler spare.

But red with fruit, that hawthorn bough,
Though leafless yet will shine;
The blackbird far its hues shall know,
As lapwing knows the vine.

Be thus thy youth as lilies gay,

Thy manhood vigorous green; And thus let fruit bedeck thy spray 'Mid age's leafless scene."

PHOTOGENIC DRAWING.-No. I. ONE of the most remarkable of the scientific discoveries which have distinguished the present age, is that which has recently been made known under the term of photogenic drawing, or Daguerreotype. It has frequently happened that an application of some well known scientific fact, which, when proposed, seemed so simple that we wondered

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