THE FRIENDLY VISITOR, EDITED BY THE REV. C. CARUS-WILSON, A LESSON FROM NATURE. "I LIVE not alone for myself," said a beautiful flower, one fair morning, as it lifted to the sun its crest, sparkling with dew-drops. "Mortals come and gaze on me my fragrance, and go away better than they minister to their perceptions of the beautiful. to the bee, and food to the insect; I help to beautify the earth." they breathe came,—for I I give honey "I live not alone for myself," said a wide-spreading tree ; "I give a happy home to a hundred living beings; I grant support to the living tendrils of the vine; I absorb the noxious vapours in the air; I spread a welcome shadow for man and beast." 66 I live not alone for myself," said a laughing mountain streamlet; "I know that my tribute to the ocean is small, but still I am hastening to carry it there. The tree and the flower love my banks, for I give them life and nourishment; and even the grass, which feels my influence, has a greener hue. The minnows find life and happiness in my waters, though I glide onwards only a silver thread; and men and animals seek my brink to assuage their thirst, and enjoy the shadow of the trees which I nourish." "I live not alone for myself," said a bright-hued_bird, as he soared upward into the air; "my songs are a blessing to A man. I have seen the poor man, sad and despondent, as he went home from his daily work, for he knew not how to obtain food for his little ones. Then I tuned one of my sweetest lays for his ear; and he looked upward, saying, 'Behold the fowls of the air! for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet my heavenly Father feedeth them. Am I not better than they ?'” "I live not alone for myself," is the language of every earnest follower of our Lord Jesus Christ. Reader, is this your language? Can you say, with the Apostle, and all God's true people, "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead: and that He died for all, that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them, and rose again?" A VOICE FOR THE TIMES. ALL the heavy judgments that we feel or fear, are they not the fruit of our own ways? All cry out of hard times, evil days; and yet who is taking the right way to better them? Are we not ourselves the greatest enemies to our own peace? Who looks either rightly backward, reflecting on his former ways; or rightly forward, to direct better his way that is before him? Who either says, What have I done? or, What ought I to do? And indeed the one of these depends upon the other. "I considered my ways," says David, "and turned my feet unto thy testimonies." Are there any, for all the judgments fallen upon us, or that threaten us, returning apace with regret and hatred of sin; hastening unto God, and mourning and weeping as they go; bedewing each step with their tears? Yea, where is that newness of life that the Word has called for so long, and now the Word and the rod together are so loud calling for? Who is eschewing evil and doing good; labouring to be fertile in holiness; to bring forth much fruit unto God? This were the way to see good days indeed; this the way to the longest life, the only long life and length of days, one eternal day, as St. Augustine, on the words, One day in thy courts is better than a thousand, says, "Men desire thousands of days, and wish much to live here long; they may rather contemn thousands of days, and desire but one, which has no rising or setting, to which no yesterday yields, and which no morrow urges." the TRUST IN GOD. Ir is sweet to trust a faithful Father; and that exercise of mind to which he calls us, when we cannot see what he is working, is sometimes, in the hands of the Spirit of Love, very choicest blessing to the soul. Every fresh exercise of trust and confidence in Him strengthens and prepares for yet stronger confidence, for greater joy in the Lord, for more unbroken "peace in believing." And what a boon this is! to feel earthly and laudable sources of enjoyment receding from our touch, yet our happiness not only undiminished, but growing exceedingly in degree and in kind, by realising how entirely independent it is of all created sources-how immediately from the fountain, God. Yet we are so prone, after all, to cling to some earthly thing, which, even if a spiritual and hallowed thing in itself, yet becomes by the tenacity with which we hold it, so that our Father's love often takes from us even this, lest a rival, though a holy one, enter the heart with Him. The fulness of His love can never be understood till no rival is theretill he has the whole sovereignty, without the thought of another; and to secure this unutterable joy, he sends trial upon trial, to wean us from the beloved but too engrossing object, that we 66 may be filled with all the fulness of God." a snare THE HIDDEN TREASURE. THERE died recently, in the great city of Lyons, a poor widow who had been so fortunate as to become possessed of a great treasure in her old age. Her parents were very poor, and her husband had nothing but his industry to depend on; as long, however, as he was able to work they honestly gained their daily bread, though they were never able to put anything by for a rainy day. But when the old man died, leaving his poor widow childless and infirm, want entered her desolate dwelling as an armed man. She sold everything but what was indispensible, and removed to a miserable garret to spend the remainder of her days. She was not entirely without some feeling of dependence upon the God of the fatherless and the widow, but she was a poor Catholic, and knew much more about saints and guardian angels than of Jesus Christ, and what He has done for us. One day, as she was sitting alone in her comfortless, halfempty room, it struck her that there was a singular outline on the beams of the wall. The walls had been whitewashed, but she thought it looked as if there had been a square opening in one of them, which had been carefully closed with a kind of door. She examined it more closely, and the thought occurred to her, "Perhaps there is some treasure hidden there," for she remembered as a child the fearful days of the Revolution, when no property was safe from the men of liberty and equality. Perhaps some rich man had concealed his treasure there from rapacity, who had himself fallen a victim to the revolution before he had had time to remove it. And perhaps one of the saints to whom she daily prayed had preserved it there for her to sweeten the evening of her days. She tapped with her finger, and the boards returned a hollow sound. With beating heart she tried to remove the square door, and soon succeeded without much difficulty; but, alas, instead of the gold and silver she hoped to see, she beheld a damp, dirty, mouldy old book! In her disappointment she was ready to fix in the boards again, and leave the book to moulder and crumble away; but a secret impulse induced her to take it out, and see if there were any bank-notes or valuable papers in it; but no, it was nothing but a book, a mouldy book! When she had a little recovered from her vexation, she began to wonder what book it could be that some one had hidden away so carefully. It must surely be something extraordinary. So she wiped it clean, and set herself to read. Her eyes fell upon the words"Therefore say I unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat and what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air; they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than |