kept in sand, through the winter, may be planted out in May, and will flower a week or two earlier than those raised from seed. The French or kidney bean is a different species, much more tender of frost, a native of South America. The roots of this are annual, not perennial, like those of the scarlet runner. A row of scarlet runners is often the flower garden and the vegetable garden of the poor; for as the plant thrives best when running up an upright stick or string, so it may be grown where there is not sufficient space otherwise to obtain flowers and vegetables. Where there is room for a flower pot, there is room for a scarlet runner. Not only where the country breezes blow, That God would make the lowly poor his care, The sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus) belongs to this order, and is a half hardy climber, a native of Sicily and the north of Africa. It grows about four feet high, and blows from June all the summer, according to the time it was sown, and to the soil, exposure, and general management. When wanted to flower late, it is better to sow early, and top off the shoots to prevent their flowering, than to sow late, as the late sown plants will not, in cold wet seasons, blow freely, if at all. The original blossom is white; but a great variety of colour, pink, scarlet, purple, and variegated, has been produced by cultivation. The flower stalk is two flowered; the calyx has the two upper divisions the shortest; the summit of the pistil is plain, downy above, and broader upwards; the tendrils are two leaved; the leaves are winged with egg-oblong leafits; and the seed pods are long and hairy. There are a great many ornamental species of this genus, such as the Tangier pea, (L. tingitanus ;) the everlasting pea, (L. latifolius ;) the large flowered, (L. grandiflorus ;) and the Lord Anson, or blue-blossomed pea, (L. sativus ;) one or more of which the student may procure in every garden for illustration. Of the sweet pea it has been happily said, "Almost all plants of the curly, twirly, winding, turning class, are looked upon with tenderness, and with almost tearful eyes. The sweet pea, like unto the convolvulus, doth seem to love all things that its wiry spiry stem can touch. I doubt me not, that it would grow around your finger; you can try it if it pleaseth you; but at all events, set my sweet pea, and if it twine itself not round your finger, it will twine round your heart. It will grow on one side the garden gate, or against the palisades, at the foot of the laburnum tree, and it will look lovely any where." EIGHTEENTH CLASS. POLYDELPHIA. The plants arranged in this class are but few in number, and have the filaments of their stamens united in "many" bundles, or "brotherhoods," as the term Polydelphia implies. There are three orders. 1. Dodecandria, with from twelve to twenty-five stamens, as the orange tree. 2. Icosandria, with the filaments in several parcels inserted into many the calyx. 3. Polyandria, with “ stems" unconnected with the calyx, as St. John's wort. The orange tree (Citrus aurantium) is a native of India. The calyx is five cleft; the corolla with five oblong petals; the fruit with nine cells. There are many varieties which require to be grafted; like other fruit trees, the roots raised from seed being seldom fine. In England it is a sight somewhat rare to see an orange tree with fruit upon it; but the orangery at the palace of Versailles, near Paris, is on a splendid scale. It stands on the left of the terrace, beneath the flowery parterre; and as the trees grow in separate tubs, which may be moved from place to place, so the orangery may be made to assume new forms. If to a Christian's heart the glowing petals of a flower impart joy, the golden fruit calls up emotions of thankfulness. The vegetable world is full of God. The wide creation round, through every hour, In the last order we find the common St. John's wort, (Hypericum perforatum,) an evergreen perennial, common in our woods and copses, blowing from July till August, with a yellow blossom, which, on being squeezed, gives out a dark blood-coloured juice. The calyx has five divisions; the corolla has five petals; the leaves are dotted as if perforated with a needle, a peculiarity common also to the elegant St. John's wort, (H. elegans,) a much smaller plant, with a red stem, which may be met with not unfrequently in the same places as the common one. THE SAFETY OF THE CHRISTIAN. YOUR life is hid with Christ in God. The psalmist prayed that he might be led to the rock that was higher than himself. Imagine a man seated on a high rock in the sea, where there is every thing necessary for his support, shelter, and safety, as well as all the comforts of life. He is surrounded by voracious and hungry fishes, gnashing their teeth at him, ready to devour or swallow him alive. But he is too high for their reach, and too secure for them to hurt him. The peace that is in Christ is ten thousand times stronger tower and safer refuge. We may behold some of the martyrs of Jesus attacked by the famine, nakedness, and sword; others by gloomy dungeons, wild beasts, and violent fires to consume their bodies; others sawn asunder, tempted, mocked, and scourged; being destitute, afflicted, tormented: but to finish our view of the tribulation of the world, we shall add death in all its terrors, life with all its allurements, present things with all their enchantments, things to come, covered with the wealth of futurity; the height of prosperity, nor the depth of adversity, the black angels, and their infernal principalities; these, all these, with their most formidable appearance, shall not be able to remove nor destroy the peace of those who are in Christ Jesus. They shall all be swallowed up by the mighty ocean-of peace in him. Though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof," Psa. xlvi. 2,3. This is the language of strong faith in the peace of God. How is it with you after such confusion? "There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early," ver. 5, 6. The peace of God, like a strong fort, will cheer their minds, and cause them to rejoice in the God of their salvation; as a city well supplied and defended by the king's life guards. The fear of the grave, all the darkness of the shadow of death, and all the dark mountains between us and eternity, must fly away, like 66 the mist of the morning, before the glorious beams of the Sun of righteousness. If the bright and morning Star is risen in your hearts, it will be daylight when you cross over Jordan, which will make you very comfortable and happy to go home to your Father's house above, to see your elder Brother, and be for ever with him. Look at old Simeon hoisting up his sails yonder, saying, "Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation," Luke ii. 29, 30. This peace is made between heaven and earth-between God and man, and sealed by the blood of the cross.- Christmas Evans. A COUNTRY RAMBLE. THERE is no necessity to travel into distant lands in search of natural objects to admire. If we must have the arresting, the awful, and the sublime, as a matter of course we must visit Switzerland, gaze on the giant Andes, roam the primeval forests of the western world, or listen to the roar of old Niagara! We must go Mungo Parking into African deserts, or accompany Ross and Parry to the accumulated icebergs of the Northern pole. We have neither heavenaspiring mountain, rushing river, thundering cataract, nor sterile desert in England, that may for a moment be compared with those of other lands; but if the simply beautiful be alone required, we have enough to make our hearts beat with joy, and our eyes sparkle with delight. I have now a pleasant ramble of a few miles before me, and will note down, as I pass along, the objects that interest me; but let me not stir from the spot till I have made a record of yonder glorious western sky. What an amplifier of the heart! what an expander of the soul is the clear blue arch of heaven, adorned with clouds, and lit up by the declining sun! I feel an uplifting, a purifying, a devotional influence stealing over me as I gaze on yonder glowing and glorious assemblage of blue mountains floating on a sea of burnished gold! Every imaginable colour, and every unimaginable degree of brightness is spread before me, mingling in delightful, sublime, and harmonious confusion! such the glory of created things, well may angels veil their faces in the presence of their all-glorious Creator! If The village church is scarcely a stone's cast from my path. There is the low unobtrusive tower, and there the old yew-tree near the porch! That tree must have stood sentinel over the green hillocks, the monuments, and the tombstones, for hundreds of years. Beneath its wide-spread branches must have been borne on the bier the infant of days, and the man of years, the parent and the child, the husband and the wife, in melancholy succession. The churchyard is wrapped in unbroken silence; not a solitary sheep with a tinkling bell is grazing mid the graves; not a single jackdaw is cawing round the tower. Beneath the brier-bound earth repose the departed inhabitants of the village. "The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from its straw-built shed; The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed." There is something sweetly soothing in the calm repose of a village churchyard, to one whose hopes are beyond the grave: not joyous, but tranquil; not giving pleasure, but imparting peace. A week has not passed since through that humble porch I followed the remains of the lamented pastor of this village. Oft had I heard from his lips the words that were spoken as his lifeless dust was borne along beneath the flowing pall. "I am the resurrection and the life," saith the Lord: "he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me gives the reins to his imagination he can see a lake in a six-foot pond, a forest in a woody bank, and a mountain in a rising mound of earth. Nor is there in this aught that requires repression. We do the same thing when we gaze on paintings, wherein nature in her amplitude is reduced to narrow limits. If, then, our imagination enlarges the resemblance of nature with advantage, why not with equal advantage nature itself? I shall now indulge my fancy. The Falls of the Clyde cannot be fairer than that rivulet. Neither Lomond, Geneva, nor Lago Maggiore itself can be finer than that miniature lake. The bushes and tall reeds are pines in my estimation; and that dark wood yonder equals the Black Forest, in my present mood. If you could see the little patch in the middle of the pond, beautified as it is with vegetation; if you could see it with my eyes, you would say that the "Isola Bella," the beautiful island of the Lombardian lake, did not exceed it in interest. It is absolutely lovely! Every moment some that adds a fresh beauty to the scene. lichen or creeping plant is discovered, What a costly gift is that of the imagination when controlled by reason! It enables me at this moment to revel in enjoyment with a grateful heart. This little lake has no pyramid of terraces, nor is it fringed with town and village, castle and church, orchard and vineyard, as many of the larger lakes of the earth are; but there is much of the wild, the ro shall never die," John xi. 25, 26. Glo-mantic, the picturesque, and the lively rious truth! animating consolation ! As I proceed along the fields a valley lies before me, the murmuring of a rivulet reaches my ear, and yonder stands an aged oak-tree, ivy-clad to its topmost branches. This is a pleasant place; nay, more than pleasant; it is a sweet, sequestered vale. Its beauties grow upon me. What a spot is this to muse in at summertide! "At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still, And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove; When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill, And nought but the nightingale's song in the grove." I am now in the middle of the narrow valley, and the deep hollow, yonder, filled with water, and skirted with all the wild entanglement of nettle, reed, and fern, rushes, brambles, and wild roses, is truly bewitching. An enthusiastic lover of nature has the power of amplifying the scenes on which he gazes. When he congregated here. Scotland, Switzeris that before me which makes my pulse land, and Italy, I envy ye not! There throb, and my heart beat with delight. and am now standing by a moat. I have left the middle of the valley, A more secluded spot I scarcely remember to have seen. Its dark and almost inky waters are yet clear, for I can trace downwards the stems of the broad leaves that cover the surface. There are tall trees over my head; their butts are rugged and mossed to their very tops. The bark of that birch, yonder, is beautiful; its black cracks set off its silvery whiteness. There is an assemblage of trees, and shrubs, and creepers, a prodigality of colours in the autumnal tinted vegetation, and an influential loneliness that tells me no eye but mine is enjoying the varied scene. The long grass, the high nettles, and light reeds; the rushes, with a bunch or spray of seeds springing out near their tops; the black thorn, that the stream forms a continued series "armed at all points; "the bramble, of cascades. There is nothing wilder, struggling far over the neighbouring nothing more surpassingly beautiful in bushes; the green holly, the brown, sere, the scenery of Devil's-bridge than is crumpled oak leaves, the dried fern of here presented to the eye. darker brown, and the crimson leaf of the wild rose, drab coloured underneath, | form a gorgeous spectacle. The weedy, rushy, sedgy, and solitary character of the place binds me to the spot. A wild duck is now paddling on the moat, a water rat has just splashed beneath the surface, two magpies have fled over the birch tree, making a noise like the shaking of small pebbles together, and a score or two of rooks are winging their way to their nests in the high elm trees of a distant rookery. Such scenes as this are dear to those who delight in the beauties of creation. Thoughts, reflections, and aspirations are called forth, which nature seldom fails to excite in hearts that blend their admiration of created things, with a reverential and grateful acknowledgment of their Creator's goodness. In the vast and the minute, nature is beautiful! "To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell; And mortal foot hath ne'er, or rarely, been. I am now standing by the side of a high bank, on which the setting sun is shining. The receding earth has formed a hollow, a kind of cavern on a small scale, from the roof of which are hanging thousands of slender roots, with little dry clods of earth adhering to them. The breeze has put the slender roots in motion, and they and the suspended clods are fantastically moving in all directions, apparently mingling with the shadows they occasion against the farther side of the hollow; There is something exquisite in the wild witchery of this scene. I have gazed delighted on many an excavation of nature and art, Chambers fair, and glorious halls, Sparkling roof, and glittering walls; but this is entrancing. Caverns of Derbyshire, ye are outdone! Grotto of Antiparos, here is thine equal! For some time I have been tracing the windings of this babbling brook. The ground is irregular and broken, so The fissure, the rift in the ground, through which the stream is forcing its way, begins to deepen and darken. I hear the waters, but I see them not. The sides of the rift are clad with diversified brushwood, mosses, and straggling plants. A painter might here revel with his pencil; a poet might here lose himself in his sublimities. Were I about to purchase an estate, the valley and moat that I have described, and this tumbling miniature torrent should be mine:—but I must hasten onwards. A louder din of falling waters bursts upon me. Here is a sudden break in the ground; now then for the cataracts of the Nile! This is truly splendid! This six-feet fall is to me an infant Niagara ! "How profound The gulf! And how the giant element, From rock to rock, leaps with delirious bound, While I throw the reins on the neck of "Horribly beautiful! and on the verge Here are the smooth brow, the silvery JEWISH SYNAGOGUE. Ir appears that the Jewish people, from their first settlement in Canaan, used to meet in the open air, in high places, and in proseuchas, which were enclosures built in private and retired spots, frequently in high places and on mountains, with no other covering than the shade of trees. They met also in houses, and particularly in those of the prophets; and as after the captivity their meetings became more general and regular, houses were built expressly for them, and the synagogue worship became regularly established. The engraving exhibits the interior of a modern structure of this kind. The law has just been brought forth, and is held up to the view of the people. It is deeply to be lamented that the word of God has long been made void among the Jews by the traditions of the elders, and that the New Testament is entirely rejected. Soon may they learn that "life and immortality are brought to light by the gospel!" THE PERAMBULATOR. THE PANORAMAS OF BENARES AND MACAO. NEAR six thousand years have rolled onward to eternity, since the Almighty's command went forth, "Let there be light, and there was light." And near two thousand years have passed since the Redeemer, the Dayspring from on high, visited the world as a Light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of the true Israel of God. Patriarchs, prophets, priests, apostles, and evangelists; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses, Aaron, and Joshua, David, Isaiah and Daniel, Paul, Peter, and John have proclaimed the true God. Miracles have been performed, and the Old and New Testaments have alike declared to the world the true Messiah. What then has been, and what now is, the state of mankind with respect to idolatry? Has the Lord of life and glory been honoured and obeyed; or have the inhabitants of the earth followed the devices and desires of their own hearts, refusing to have God to reign over them? Let Osiris and Isis, Horus, Anubis, Serapis, and Harpocrates answer for Egypt; Ormund, Mithras, and Ahriman for Persia; Belus for Babylonia; Moloch, Baal, Dagon, and Rimmon for the Canaanites, Philistines, and Syrians; Brahma under his different names Brahma, Seeva, Vishnu, Rama, Chrishnu, and Buddha for Hindostan ; Jupiter, Neptune, Mercury, Apollo, Mars, and Vulcan, for Greece and Rome. The Sun, the Moon, Pochamunana, and |