Spring's a va-ri-a-ble sea-son; First comes zeph-yr, mild and meek; Sun and shower play hide and seek. Sum-mer is a sul-try time, Then the glare of light op-press-es, Parts with all her gold-en tres-ses. Then we view the gor-ge-ous flowers; Au-tumn time is mel-an-chol-y; Then the har-vest glads our sight; Fruits grow ripe, and, glit-t'ring pheas-ants, Sara Coleridge. LESSON LIX.-THE THREE KINGDOMS. The va-ri-ous things which God in His good-ness has cre-a-ted, are di-vi-ded into three clas-ses, which are called the three king-doms of na-ture the An-i-mal, the Veg-e-ta-ble, and the Min-e-ral king-doms. The crea-tures be-long-ing to the an-i-mal king-dom are a-live, can feel pleas-ure and pain, they can move from one place to an-oth-er, and are so made that they can feed them-selves, and can take care of their young. The veg-e-ta-ble king-dom is al-so a-live; and veg-eta-bles are so made that they can feed them-selves, if food comes with-in their reach; but they can-not move a-bout in search of it, nor can they take care of the young plants. God has there-fore pro-vi-ded that the young plants, as soon as the seed be-gins to grow, should be able to take care of them-selves; or, rath-er, I should say, He takes care of them, by send-ing them rain from the clouds, and heat from the sun, to feed and warm them, and en-a-ble' them to grow. Min-er-als nei-ther feel nor move, for they are not a-live: they there-fore want no nou-rish-ment themselves, and they have no young to take care of: but yet you have seen what use-ful things min-er-als are, and how dif-fi-cult it would be for ei-ther an-i-mals or veg-eta-bles to do with-out them. We must, there-fore, feel grat-i-tude towards the Al-migh-ty for hav-ing made all these ex-cel-lent things, but a-bove all for ma-king us su-pe-ri-or to all the rest of the cre-a-tion; for it is we a-lone whom He has made rea-son-a-ble crea-tures, so that we can learn to know God, to a-dore and love Him, and to be tru-ly thank-ful for all the good things He has giv-en us.-Mrs. Marcet. LESSON LX. THE HEBREW MOTHER. Sup-pose you had lived while the chil-dren of Is-ra-el lived in E-gypt. And sup-pose you had walked out some pleas-ant day, in the eve-ning, down to-wards the y are! ent the :but Sare, S or ve fore, made of: of t riv-er. Look now, and see what is be-fore you! Yon- are poor slaves. But just look in. What is that a-king it is tures, Ove H ings F σε LESSON LXI.-THE NILE. Chil-dren, you have all heard and read of E-gypt. It is a won-der-ful coun-try. There is no rain there, and yet the land is wa-tered, and ver-y fer-tile. Of old it was a land of plen-ty, and the great grain-house from which the old Ro-man em-pire used to fetch its bread. And that whole land is wa-tered and made fruit-ful by one sin-gle riv-er. Take that a-way, and it would at once be on-ly a drea-ry sand-heap. Ev-er-y spring that riv-er ri-ses and o-verflows its banks, and the peo-ple have their lit-tle ca-nals dug, and their lit-tle dams built to catch the wa-ter; and then they go out and sow their rice on the wa-ters. The rice sinks down, and the wa-ters after a while dry up, and the rice grows, and they have a great har-vest. Thus they cast their bread up-on the wa-ters, and find it after man-y days." For a great while it was a mat-ter of won-der what made the riv-er rise so, and o-ver-flow its banks. At last a man, named Bruce, fol-lowed the riv-er till he got far up a-mong the moun-tains, near-ly a thou-sand miles from the mouth of the riv-er, and there he found that these great moun-tains were cov-ered with snow. It is the melt-ing of this snow in the spring that makes the riv-er rise so high. Up, far a-mong the hills he went, till he came to a lit-tle pond, or spring. It was the foun-tain and head-wa-ter of the Nile! How ver-y he sat down and re-joiced o-ver his toil, and how he looked at that lit-tle foun-tain! It was the be-gin-ning of great things! Now are we not to be-lieve that for thou-sands of years be-fore Bruce ev-er saw it, the eye of God was watch-ing it, as it poured out its wa-ters, and sent them down to fer-til-ize the whole of E-gypt? Are we not to be-lieve that the Lord re-joiced o-ver this won der-ful work of His, when, for the first time, the gushing stream found its new chan-nel, and marked out the line of its march from the moun-tain to the great sea? -Todd. LESSON LXII.-SWALLOWS. The con-fi-dence which these birds place in the hu-man race is not a lit-tle ex-tra-or-di-na-ry. They not on-ly put them-selves, but their off-spring, in the power of men. I have seen their nests in sit-u-a-tions where they were with-in the reach of one's hand, and where they might have been de-stroyed in an in-stant. I have observed them un-der a door-way, the eaves of a low cottage, a-gainst the wall of a tool-shed, on the knock-er of a door, and the raf-ter of a much fre-quent-ed hay-loft. A pair of swal-lows built their nest a-gainst one of the first-floor win-dows of an un-in-hab-it-ed house in Merri-on Square, Dub-lin. A spar-row, how-ev-er, took posses-sion of it, and the swal-lows were re-peat-ed-ly seen cling-ing to the nest, and en-dea-vour-ing to gain an entrance to the a-bode which they had e-rect-ed with so much la-bour. All their efforts, how-ev-er, were defeat-ed by the spar-row, who nev-er once quit-ted the nest. The per-se-ve-rance of the swal-lows was at length ex-haust-ed; they took flight, but short-ly after-wards re-turned, ac-com-pa-nied by a num-ber of their compan-ions, each of them hav-ing a piece of dirt in its bill. By this means they suc-ceed-ed in stop-ping up the hole, and the in-tru-der was im-mured in to-tal dark-ness. Soon af-ter-wards the nest was ta-ken down, and ex-hibit-ed to sev-e-ral per-sons with the dead spar-row in it. In this case there appears to have been not on-ly a rea-son-ing fac-ul-ty, but the birds must have pos G |