THE

EVERY DAY BOOK.

OF TIME.

THERE are some insects who live but a single day. In the morning they are born; at noon they are in full life; at evening they die. The life of man is similar to that of these insects. It is true, he lives for a number of years, but the period is so short, that every moment is of some value. Our existence may be compared to a journey; as every step of the traveller brings him nearer to the end of his journey, so every tick of the clock makes the limited number of seconds allotted to us still less.

Our life may be divided, like the day of the insect, into three parts; youth, or morning; noon, or middle age, and evening, or old age. In youth, we get our education, and lay up those stores of knowledge, which are to guide us in the journey before us. As this journey is of importance, we should be busy as the bee, that improves each shining hour. I do not mean that we should never amuse ourselves; on the contrary, amusement is absolutely necessary to all, and particularly to the young. But what I mean is, that none of the time allotted to study, or business, or duty, should be allowed to pass in idleness. Every moment should be improved, for we have a journey before us, and if we linger by the way, the time in which it is to be performed will pass, and while we are yet unhoused, or

unsheltered in the wilderness, the sun will set, and the shadows of night will fall upon us.

Middle age is a time of action, and it is important to lay up knowledge and wisdom in youth, that we may act well and wisely in these after days. Old age is the evening, or the winter of life. It is dimmed with the shadows of coming night, or chilled by the frost of coming death. Yet it is not a period from which we should shrink, unless, indeed, we have wasted our time, and made no preparation against the season that is to follow.

THE following fable was written by Cowper, and the moral, or meaning of it, is this; let no person be envious or jealous of another. We know, indeed, that flowers never speak or quarrel, as they are represented

I

LIFE, DEATH AND ETERNITY.

17

to do in this fable; but it is a pleasant mode of show-
ing the folly and wickedness of that strife which the
meaner passions above alluded to, may create.

WITHIN the garden's peaceful scene
Appeared two lovely foes,
Aspiring to the rank of queen,-
The lily and the rose.

The rose soon reddened into rage,
And, swelling with disdain,
Appealed to many a poet's page
To prove her right to reign.

The lily's height bespoke command.
A fair, imperial flower;

She seemed designed for Flora's hand,
The sceptre of her power.

This civil bickering and debate

The goddess chanced to hear;

And flew to save, ere yet too late,
The pride of the parterre.

"Yours is," she said, "the nobler hue,
And yours the statelier mien;
And, till a third surpasses you,
Let each be deemed a queen."

LIFE, DEATH AND ETERNITY.

A SHADOW moving by one's side,
That would a substance seem,

That is, yet is not,-though descried→→
Like skies beneath the stream:

A tree that's ever in the bloom,
Whose fruit is never ripe;
A wish for joys that never come-
Such are the hopes of Life.

A dark, inevitable night,

A blank that will remain ;
A waiting for the morning light,
When waiting is in vain;

A gulf where pathway never led
To show the deep beneath;

A thing we know not, yet we dread-
That dreaded thing is Death.

The vaulted void of purple sky
That everywhere extends,
That stretches from the dazzled eye,
In space that never ends;

A morning whose uprisen sun

No setting e'er shall see ;

A day that comes without a noon-
Such is Eternity.

THE LEAF.

It came with spring's soft sun and showers,
Mid bursting buds and blushing flowers;
It flourished on the same light stem,
It drank the same clear dews with them.
The crimson tints of summer morn
That gilded one, did each adorn.

The breeze that whispered light and brief
To bud or blossom, kissed the leaf;
When o'er the leaf the tempest flew,
The bud and blossom trembled too.