such plants as minister especially to the wants of man. Corn, which serves for the general subsistence of the human race, is not produced by vegetables of a lofty growth, but by simple grasses. It is not, consequently, liable to be overthrown by tempests, nor is it exposed to the fury of high winds. We may observe in this arrangement a most striking instance of evident design. If corn had been the produce of lofty trees, the most disastrous consequences might have occurred in the event of war or tempest; the forest might have been set on fire, or overthrown by winds, and ages must have passed away before the injury could have been repaired; but instead of this, our waving corn grows low, and is easily gathered in. This valuable plant also carries its flowers in an ear, and they are generally surmounted with long awns. Cicero remarks, that these are apparently designed as shelter from the rain, without, at the same time, excluding the beneficial influence of air and light. The grasses of hot countries generally produce their seed in flowing or drooping plumes; they are consequently sheltered from the heat of the sun; but when collected into ears, as those, which grow in cold and damp situations, they reflect the rays of light, and ripen fast, in even the most unfavourable seasons. The suppleness of their stems is also worthy of remark, as likewise the admirable manner in which they are strengthened with joints at certain intervals. The leaves, too, how curious they are! how long and slender, how well adapted to bend before the wind! Hence their weakness often avails them more than the giant stems, and firmly interlaced roots of the loftiest forest-trees.

One species is adapted to humid places, as rice, which grows abundantly in the muddy swamps on the banks of

the Ganges.

Others thrive best in warm and dry lands, as the maize and millet of Brazil and Africa. In this country wheat prefers a strong soil, rye a sandy one, buck-wheat agrees best with rainy declivities, oats with humid plains, barley with stony ground, and dry upland situations. In the latter the leaves are broad and open, for the evident purpose of conveying water to the roots. The long beards, which surround the grain, are most curiously indented, and hence they readily adhere to the hair of animals, by which means they are re-sown in lofty and dry places, on mountain-sides, and wild sheep-walks. Oats, on the contrary, which grow best in damp places, are provided with narrow leaves, that gather close around the stem, in order to keep off the rain.

These valuable plants abound in almost every part of the known world, amid the snows of Siberia, and under the torrid zone. In such as produce wheat, and barley, for the use of man, and in grasses yielding seed for the pasturage of cattle, and the support of small birds, a spirit of life, independent of all soils and climates, preserves and reproduces them. The pyramids of Egypt are fallen into decay, but the grasses which grew around them when Pharaoh filled the throne, continue even to this day. The proud trophies of Greece and Rome, palaces and temples, obelisks and fountains, the marbles of which were rivetted with iron, are known only in their ruins; while long waving grass, and often that wild corn,

with which the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom," and yet is so acceptable to the wayfaring bird, continue to wave in green luxuriance, and have done so ever since they sprang around the base, or mounted the broken ramparts of those splendid ruins.

"When Jehovah was pleased to command Isaiah the prophet," said the celebrated Hale, in reference to these transient, though continually renewed grasses, "to make a public proclamation in the ears of the people, what was it, think you, that he was ordered to announce ? Was it some profound secret of nature, which had baffled the inquiries of philosophers, or some great political convulsion, which was to change the destiny of empires? No, these were not the sort of communication most suited to the grandeur of his nature, or the exigency of ours. The voice said, Cry, and he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it, surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand for ever.'"*

Instead of presenting to our eyes the mutability of power, and the revolution of states and empires, he exhibits a more awful and affecting spectacle. He draws a comparison, from the withering grass, and the fading flower, of the destiny of all on earth; and by those natural objects, which continually present themselves to our attention, he recalls the recollection of our evanescent nature, and the perpetuity of those promises, of that eternal word which subsists from generation to generation.

We have spoken of those trees and plants, which minister especially to the wants of man; there are others which seem equally designed for the arts of civilized life. Witness the Dutch Rush, or Thave grass. and the Teazel.

*Isaiah xl. 6, 7, 8.

The first of these affords a striking instance of natural productions being applied to mechanical purposes; its stems have long been imported from Holland, to polish cabinet-work, ivory, plaster-casts, and even brass. Ingenious men have unavailingly endeavoured to supply by art this admirable contrivance of nature, but every invention has been abandoned, as either defective or injurious. The same remark may be made with regard to the Fuller's Teazel (dipsacus sylvestris). This plant, which derives its name from a Greek word, signifying to be thirsty, in allusion to the leaves, forming cavities capable of holding water, is common to uncultivated places and moist banks, though never seen to the north of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire; on this, in a cultivated state, the vast woollen clothing fabric materially depends. The teasel is employed to raise the nap from woollen cloths, and for this purpose the heads are fixed round the circumference of a large broad wheel, which is made to turn in contact with the cloth; if a knot, a roughness, or projection catch the hooks, they break immediately, without resistance; but any mechanical invention, instead of yielding, tears them out, and injures the surface.

Those arts which either adorn or improve life, are undoubtedly the gift of God. We may read in the twentyeighth of Isaiah, v. 26 and 29, that the High and Lofty One, who inhabiteth eternity, has not disdained to direct the labour of the husbandman. Throughout the twenty-sixth, the twenty-seventh, and twenty-eighth of Exodus, we find that various beautiful and curious arts were first revealed to man, neither sought out by human ingenuity, nor suddenly brought to mind by any quickness of apprehension, but immediately made known to

Moses, and by him communicated to such as were selected for the purpose. It appears, from the thirty-first of Exodus, that many of those arts, which are now essential to the comforts of civilised society, as the carving of timber, and the shaping of stones, the working of gold, of brass, and silver, were bestowed as peculiar gifts on one, whom the Lord "had filled with his own spirit, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all workmanship." We further learn, that even the twining of fine linen, with blue, and purple, and scarlet, the arts of dyeing, and engraving, were derived from the same pure source. And to His glory, who first gave them, might they ever have been consecrated, had not man, bent upon his own injury, marred every gift which his Creator assigned him.

It seems as if these beautiful and valuable arts were first bestowed for the accomplishment of a peculiar purpose, namely, the erecting, and adorning of, a splendid tabernacle, in which the Divine Presence was to be gloriously manifested; but when this purpose was accomplished, it is evident that mankind were allowed to apply the knowledge, which they had thus divinely acquired, to their own immediate benefit. How important to a pastoral nation, must have been the arts of squaring stones, and carving timber! They are the groundworks of our proudest structures in the present day; and when we see around us materials for various elegant and pleasing arts, surely we cannot doubt that the Almighty has assigned them to his creature man, as recreations from those often laborious and wearisome pursuits, to which he is subjected; or else, that he might find in them, a preservation from dangerous and frivolous amusements. Such are the arts of painting, of sculpture,