NIGHTSHADE.

Solanum Nigrum.

LANGUAGE-DARK THOUGHTS.

So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
Farewell remorse; all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good.

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
And at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;

MILTON.

My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
And the hopes of my youth fall thick on the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Your fate is the common fate of all;
In every life some rain must fall,

Some days must be dark and dreary.

LONGFELLOW.

LIVE NOT TO YOURSELF.

On the frail little stem in the garden hangs the opening rose. Go ask why it hangs there.

"I hang here," says the beautiful flower, "to sweeten the air which man breathes, to open my beauties, to kindle emotion in his eye, to show him the hand of his God, who pencilled each leaf, and laid them thus on my bosom. And whether you find me here to greet him every morning, or whether you find me on the lone mountain side, with the bare possibility that he will throw me one passing glance, my end is the same. I live not to myself."

Beside yon highway stands an aged tree, solitary and alone. You see no living thing near it, and you say, Surely that must stand for itself alone. "No," says the tree, "God never made me for a purpose so small. For more than a hundred years I have stood here. In summer I have spread out my arms and sheltered the panting flocks which hastened to my shade. In my bosom I have concealed and protected the brood of young birds, as they lay and rocked in their nest; in the storm I have more than once received in my body the lightning's bolt, which had else destroyed the traveller; the acorns which I have matured from year to year have been carried far and near, and groves of forest oaks can claim me as

their parent. I have lived for the eagle, which has perched on my top; for the hummingbird, that has paused and refreshed its giddy wing, ere it danced away again like a blossom of the air; for the insect that has found a home within the folds of my bark; and when I can stand no longer, I shall fall by the hand of man, and shall go to strengthen the ship which makes him lord of the ocean, and to his dwelling, to warm his hearth and cheer his home. I live not to myself."

On yonder mountain side comes down the silver brook, in the distance resembling a ribbon of silver, running and leaping as it dashes joyously and fearlessly down. Go ask the leaper what it is doing. "I was born," says the brook, "high up in the mountain; but there I could do no good; and so I am hurrying down, running where I can, and leaping where I must; but hastening down to water the sweet valley, where the lark may sing on my margin, where I may drive the mill for the accommodation of man, and then widen into the great river, and bear up his steamboats and shipping, and finally plunge into the ocean, to rise again in vapor, and perhaps come back again in the clouds to my own native mountain, and live my short life over again. Not a drop of water comes down my channel in whose bright face you may not read, 'None of us liveth to himself." "

Speak now to that solitary star that hangs in

the far verge of heaven, and ask the bright sparkler what it is doing there. Its voice comes down the path of life, and cries, "I am a mighty world. I was stationed here at the creation. I was among the morning stars that sang together, and among the sons of God that shouted for joy at the creation of the earth. Ay, ay- I was there

'When the radiant morn of creation broke,
And the world in the smile of God awoke,

And the empty realms of darkness and death

Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath,
And the orbs of beauty and spheres of flame
From the void abyss by myriads came.

In the joy of youth, as they darted away
Through the widening wastes of space to play,
Their silver voices in chorus rung,

And this was the song the bright ones sung.'

And thus God has written upon the flower that sweetens the air, upon the breeze that rocks that flower on its stem, upon the raindrops that swell the mighty river, upon the dewdrop that refreshes the smallest sprig of moss that rears its head in the desert, upon the ocean that rocks every swimmer in its channel, upon every pencilled shell that sleeps in the caverns of the deep, as well as upon the mighty sun which warms and cheers the millions of creatures that live in his light-upon all has he written, "None of us liveth to himself."

And if you will read this lesson in characters

still more distinct and striking, you will go to the garden of Gethsemane, and hear the Redeemer in prayer, while the angel of God strengthens him. You will read it on the hill of Calvary, where a voice, that might be the concentrated voice of the whole universe of God, proclaims that the highest, noblest deed which the Infinite can do, is to do good to others- to live not to himself.

REV. J. TODD.

O, SWEET the jasmine's buds of snow
In morning soft with May;

And sweet, in summer's silent glow,
The brooklet's merry play;
But sweeter, in that lovely place,
To God it must have been
To see the maiden's happy face
That blessed the home within.
Without the porch, I hear at morn
A voice that sings for glee,

Or watch the white face glancing down
To the book upon the knee.