ersion to tax their own ability. Short lessons, needle: ork, or active occupation, at frequent intervals, will in ease the pleasure a little boy or girl receives from e time allowed for amusentent. The hope of being eful should be infused and animated by every cheering stive, and instruction in any acquirement should be ven, not as a task, but bestowed as a favour. If a child oves refractory, he will feel confinement to his seat a eater evil than study or work; nor should he be again ployed until he has intreated forgiveness and instrac

Care, regularity, method and foresight, may be adered desirable attainments by domestic arrangements at facilitate good order, and by calling children to ob rve the happy effects of neatness, diligence, and economy. Dung creatures, brought up in those opinions, will be rviceable at an age, when less prudent parents find it cessary to consume much time in reproving and chas-* ing their children. Let it never be forgotten, that due pains has formed the eldest of a family, his counsel d example will assist in teaching his juniors so essenally, as to overpay the trouble bestowed in establishing s principles. It is a maxim never to be disregarded in ition, that the same actions, if performed on different otives, will form very opposite characters. The child ho has been taught to avoid offences, and strive to act up his duty from piety towards his Creator, and love to his arents, will improve in estimable qualities through life; the who, solely actuated by fear or selfish prudence, as no aim beyond saving appearances, may be worldly ise, but never will possess true merit. Pride, vanity, nd a passion for frivolous distinctions, are imbibed from e nursery-maid, who probably owes her self-conceit to he folly of her mother, and parrotizing about the advanages of beauty and finery. Ladies who over-rate exteior charms, communicate to their attendants the same fatuation;-and those females, when they have families f their own, hold out to their girls inducements to make he best of Nature's gifts, which they afterwards use for fluencing their charge. Nurses may stimulate a child to 11 these attentions without introducing the hateful alloys f vanity. Let them tell little Miss, that stooping will TT2

་

7

burt

hurt her health; that a rude, slovenly walk, may distort her joints; that exposing her face to the sun, may impair her sight; and that negligence in her dress and manners, will lead to more culpable inadvertency. All the rules we have endeavoured to explain may assist the Nursery maid almost as often as the parent; and how much are the higher orders beholden to the Cottage Matron, whe qualifies her daughters for superinducing opinions and ha bits that combine personal grace with moral excellence.

"We would likewise earnestly exhort a mother to keep in remembrance, that, unless her ordinary discourse and coduct shall be conformable to the injunctions she gives her family, her reproofs or sage advice can promote neither their improvement, nor her substantial comfort. A mo ther's gadding and a father's intemperance, will have more effect, than the maxims they may occasionally recom mend; and the base arts employed to compass petty ends, or to excuse failures in punctuality, will inevitably tend to falsehood in the auditors, who are supposed to be too young and heedless to mind what is going forward. Children should learn to labour, not from a greedy covetous eager ness for money, but that they may not be burdensome to their parents; and contentment is not less necessary to happiness than to virtue. If they repine at any hardship, let them compare the poor and the guilty. The value of innocence, and the omnipotence of conscience will appear, in making a parallel between the inconveniencies of a low estate and the pangs of self-accusation, or the infamy and penalties of conviction. Stories that exhibit those truths in a striking light, would prove eminently useful for per sons in a humble station in youth or maturity, and parents ought to cultivate a taste for such works. To make chil dren acquainted with letters, and to omit forming their understanding for the choice of books, is but multiplying the avenues to corruption; but the parent who cherishes a love of their natural home, and fits his offspring to fill up intervals of leisure by domestic entertainments, has provid ed the best safeguard, except religious principles, to pre serve them from dissipation. In the most laborious life, there are half, or quarter hours, neither occupied in taking food nor sleep, and the industrious, who devote those min

utes

tes to the acquisition of new incitements for the discharge f their duty to God and man, will return to work with 1ore alacrity and vigour, than if they had strolled about in uest of news, or lounging in a gin-shop. The conduct f human beings is but the pursuit of their opinions. Perpicuity of ideas, accuracy of judgment, and habits of reection, are chiefly attained by superadding to our own bservation the recorded experience of others; and though nowledge should not find an opportunity of opening a ath to emolument, if mental enlargement shall qualify he possessor for more completely fulfilling the humble ofices belonging to his station, and for a wider circle of elf-derived enjoyments, he has not misapplied his exertions. t may be expected, that the best informed will be most exemplary in wisdom and worth, and if the time frittered away in trifling pursuits, or abused in licentiousness, were consecrated for improving the percipient faculties, old age would be in a great measure exempted from despondency, and youth from folly.

"There are inherent defects in all codes of human jurisprudence, that can be compensated only by religious and moral restraints, that render the young and unguarded more afraid of doing wrong than of present self-denial; and when we have outlived the capacity for entertaining others, or being entertained in society, what a happy resource arises from books, or from recollecting the contents of those we have read in former years. In comparing our actual with our possible efforts for charitable performances, let us not forget, that the privation of corporeal indulgences may be in a great measure rendered supportable to the poor, by affording them intellectual pleasures. Let them be rationally convinced, that the most painful disadvantages of their condition are created by misconduct: let them be furnished with means for recreation, independant of what is falsely called good fellowship,-recreations that may confirm them in rectitude and sobriety. Their worst transgressions originate in irregularities by which they were first ensnared, through want of some engagement at once interesting and safe, for passing away the short spaces that intervene betwixt their several employments, and A BOOK IS THE MOST INNOCENT, CHEAPEST, AND MOSE BENEFICIAL PASTIME. Th. N. R.

TT 3

The Book of Nature laid Open.

(Continued from p. 465.):

"These, as they change, ALMIGHTY FATHER, these Are but the varied GOD. The rolling year

Is full of THEE!"

THE CHANGES OF THE SEASONS,

AND

VICISSITUDES OF DAY AND NIGHT.

HE Earth, surrounded by the Atmosphere, remains not paper, the latter is made to revolve with the former in its diurnal motion, and to circle with it in its annual course.

Before proceeding farther in my researches, I will, there fore, turn my attention for a few minutes to this twofold motion of the earth, which, although it would not, but for external objects, be perceptible to our senses, is rendered extremely important, on account of the beneficial effects it produces.

14 "Of all the effects resulting from this admirable scene of things," says BONNYCASTLE," nothing can be more pleasing and agreeable to a philosophic mind, than the alternate suc cession of day and night, and the regular return of the seasons. When the sun first appears in the horizon, all na ture is animated by his presence: the magnificent theatre of the universe opens gradually to our view, and every object around us excites ideas of pleasure, admiration, and wonder. After riding in all his brightness through the vault of heaven, he is again hidden from our sight; and we are now presented with a new spectacle of equal grandeur and sublimity. The heavens are on a sudden covered with innumerable stars; the moon, rising in clouded majesty, unveils her peerless light; whilst the silent solemnity of the scene, fills the mind with sentiments and ideas beyond the power of language to express.

"

Variety is the source of every pleasure; and the bountiful Author of Nature, in the magnificent display of his wisdom and power, has afforded us every possible means of entertainment and instruction. What a pleasing succession of scene! results from the gradual vicissitudes of the seasons! Summer, Winter, Spring and Autumn, lead us insensibly through the varied circle of the year; and are no less pleasing to the mind, than necessary towards bringing to maturity the various

productions

roductions of the earth. Whether the sun flames on the ropic, or pours his mild effulgence from the equator, we qually rejoice in his presence, and adore that Omniscient eing, who gave him his appointed course, and prescribed the ounds which he can never pass."

But, how is this pleasing and useful variety produced?-How this perpetual succession of Day and Night, of Spring and ummer, of Autumn and Winter, kept up?-It is by means imple, but evidently striking, to the man of science and disernment. By the revolution of the earth on its axis, once in. wenty-four hours, we have the alternate succession of day and night;-By its annual circuit round the sun, together with the inclination of its poles (lying always in the same irection) to the plane of its orbit, we experience all that var ety of season, which is so indispensibly necessary for the springing up, ripening, and in gathering of the fruits of the earth*.

Let us attend a little to some of the beneficial consequen ces of this "ever varying, ever changing scene.” SPRING is characterized

By this constitution of things, that part of the earth's surface which is turned towards the sun, must have the largest share of his visible presence at the time; hence, when the earth is south of that luminary, the inhabitants of the regions north of the equator, must: have their Summer; and, on the contrary, those who dwell in the southern latitudes, must have their Winter: but reverse the case, and suppose the earth in that part of her orbit which is north of the sun, and the inhabitants between the equator and south pole must have their longest days, while those who dwell on the opposite side, of course, must have their shortest At the equinoctial points, the axis of the earth being parallel to the sun, and neither turned in to, nor out from, him, it necessarily follows, that at those precise times, and no other, the days and rights must be equal throughout the globe; for the instant that the north pole gets beyond the vernal equinox in Spring,. it immerges into the sun's light, and the people who inhabit the ar tic regions, have six months of perpetual day; while those at the south pole, or contrary extremity of the earth, have an equal dura. tion of protracted night. At the opposite season of the autumnal equinox, the reverse takes place. In the intermediate spaces between the poles and the equator, the inhabitants experience all that vicissi tude of light and shade, to which their situations expose them; and which, in the absence of a globe, may be tolerably well illustrated by suspending a large wooden bowl from the hand, and making it revolve round a lighted candle, with its axis inclined a little to one side, and pointing always in the same direction. If, at the same time, this bowl could be made to turn incessantly round on its axis in the progress of its revolution, it would afford a pretty accurate idea how the vicissitudes of day and night are produced.