that this fluid, when it appears in the form of a will-o'-thewisp, becomes ignited, by some means, near the surface of the earth, at a certain point; and that this ignition communicates itself successively to other portions of the same fluid, with which it comes in contact, occasioning that apparently capricious flitting from place to place, for which this meteor is remarkable; and, it is further supposed, that other portions of a similar fluid pass, unilluminated, to the higher regions of the air, in a continued column, till they ascend above the region of the clouds, where, from some chemical cause, the upper part of the column takes fire, and the ignition is carried backward to the portions with which it is in connexion. Such is the hypothesis; and it might certainly account for some of the appearances; but it is quite inadequate to the explanation of others; and, as to the phenomena of falling stars, recent discoveries have suggested views on that subject, of a nature far more extensive and sublime.

In the next paper for Monday, I shall advert more particularly to some phosphorescent appearances which seem to resemble those of the ignis fatuus, and which may perhaps ultimately assist in discovering the natural cause of the phenomenon; and in the mean time, without attempting to explain it, I shall merely say, that, whatever may be its own sphere of utility, there can be no doubt it is connected with a principle which abundantly exhibits the perfections of the great Creator.

We conclude this account with a beautiful description of these appearances, extracted from the British Georgics,' a work of the amiable author of The Sabbath.'

"Sometimes November nights are thick bedimmed
With hazy vapors floating o'er the ground,
Or veiling from the view the starry host;
At such a time, on plashy mead or fen
A faintish light is seen, by southern swains

Called Will-o'-Wisp; sometimes from rushy bush
To bush it leaps, or, cross a little rill,
Dances from side to side in winding race.
Sometimes with stationary blaze it gilds
The heifer's horns; or plays upon the mane

Of farmer's horse returning from the fair,
And lights him on his way, yet often proves
A treacherous guide, misleading from the path
To faithless bogs, and solid seeming ways.
Sometimes it haunts the churchyard, up and down
The tombstones' spiky rail streaming, it shows
Faint glimpses of the rustic sculptor's art,
Time's scythe and hour-glass, and the grinning skull
And bones transverse, which, at an hour like this,
To him, who passing, casts athwart the wall
A fearful glance, speak with a warning knell."

SECOND WEEK-SUNDAY.

GENERAL ASPECT OF WINTER.

THE general aspect of winter is forbidding. It is the night of the year; the period when, under a mitigated light, nature reposes, after the active exertions of spring and summer have been crowned with the rich stores of autumn. We now no longer survey with admiration and delight those wonders of creative power, which arrested our attention, in that youthful season when herbs, plants, and trees awoke from their long sleep and started into new life, under the kindly influences of warmer suns and gentler breezes; and when the feathered tribes made the fresh-clothed woods and lawns, and the blue sky itself, vocal with the music of love and joy. Nor do we now expatiate in the maturer beauties of summer, when light and heat flushed the glowing heavens and smiling earth, and when the clouds distilled their grateful showers, or tempered the intense radiance by their flitting shade. And mellow autumn, too, has passed away, along with the merry song of the reapers, and the hum of busy men, gathering their stores from the teeming fields.

Instead of these genial influences of heaven, our lengthening nights, and our days, becoming perpetually darker and shorter, shed their gloom over the face of nature;

the earth grows niggardly of her supplies of nourishment and shelter, and no longer spreads beneath the tenants of the field the soft green carpet on which they were accustomed to repose; man seeks his artificial comforts and his hoarded food; the wind whistles ominously through the naked trees; the dark clouds lower; the chilling rain descends in torrents; and, as the season advances, the earth becomes rigid, as if struck by the wand of an enchanter; the waters, spell-bound, lie motionless in crystal chains; the north pours forth its blast, and nature is entombed in a vast cemetery, whiter and colder than Parian marble.

Yet, even in this apparently frightful and inhospitable season, there are means of pleasure and improvement, which render it scarcely inferior to any other period of the revolving year; while proofs of the power, wisdom, and goodness of the great Creator are not less abundantly displayed to the mind of the pious inquirer. With reference to the angry passions of the human race, it is said that God causes "the wrath of man to praise him," and restrains "the remainder of wrath ;" and a similar remark applies, with a truth equally striking, to the troubled elements. The Almighty sets bounds to the raging ocean, saying, "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." He regulates by his wisdom the intensity of the tempest, "staying his rough wind in the day of the east wind." All the active powers of nature are his messengers: "Fire and hail, snow and vapor,' as well as 66 stormy winds, fulfil his word." Nothing, indeed, can be more worthy of admiration than the manner in which the rigors of winter are tempered, so as to contribute to the subsistence and comfort of living beings.

It is true that, even in the ordinary occurrences of life, there are, in winter, probably more distressing and fatal incidents than during the other quarters of the year. A snow-storm may sometimes overwhelm a shepherd and his flock; a tempest may cause a gallant vessel and its crew to perish; a fire may lay a village in ashes; disease, attendant on exposure to a rigorous climate, may

invade the unwholesome and comfortless huts of the poor; or, in a season when the wages of agricultural labor cease along with the power of working in the open air, famine may emaciate and destroy whole families; but such events as these, melancholy as they are, must be ranked among the common evils of life, and belong to a class, marking a peculiar feature in the government of this world, to which I have previously adverted, and which can never be far from the mind of the accurate observer of nature. At present,let us take a rapid glance at the other side of the picture, and we shall see enough to prove, that, even in these gloomy months, the paternal care of an all-wise and beneficent Governor is not less conspicuous than in other periods of the year.

Here

If we look at the lower animals, how wonderful are the kind provisions of Providence. Among the numerous tribes of insects, reptiles, birds, and quadrupeds, there appears to be a general presentiment of the coming desolation. Some, impelled by a wonderful instinct, provide for themselves comfortable retreats, each tribe adapting its accommodation to its peculiar circumstances, burrowing in the earth, or boring beneath the bark of trees and shrubs, or penetrating into their natural hollows, or lodging in crevices of walls and rocks, or diving beneath the surface of the water, and lying immovable at the bottom of pools, lakes, or marshy streams. they are preserved during this barren period, either by feeding on the stores, which, with a foresight not their own, they had collected in the bountiful weeks of harvest, or by falling into a deep sleep, during which,they become unassailable either by the attacks of cold or of hunger, or by issuing daily or nightly from their resting places, and gathering the food which a providential care has reserved for them, and taught them how to seek. Others, chiefly belonging to the winged tribes, are taught to migrate, as the rigors of winter approach, to more genial climates, where abundant food and enjoyment are provided for them, and where they are thus permitted to expatiate in all the advantages of a perpetual, yet varied summer; while these again have their places supplied

by hardier species of the feathered family, which the gathering storms of more northern regions had warned to leave their summer haunts.

If from the inferior animal creation, we turn to man, the same traces of a paternal hand are seen in providing against, or compensating for, the privations of winter. If our natural instincts and defences are not so numerous as those of the brutes, reason and foresight amply supply their place. Influenced by these, we build comfortable houses, of materials which are every where to be found, and collect supplies of fuel from bogs and forests, or dig them out of the bowels of the earth, where they are laid up as in storehouses; and we rear flocks and herds to furnish us with the means of food and clothing. Meanwhile, necessary industry occupies and cheers the dreary season; and books or social intercourse improve and exhilarate the mind.

All these proofs of paternal care deserve and will obtain a separate consideration; but the simple mention of them, is calculated to call forth sentiments of pious admiration and gratitude. "Who knoweth not in all these, that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this."

SECOND WEEK-MONDAY.

PHOSPHORESCENCE.

THE meteor known by the name of ignis fatuus, is connected, as I observed in the paper of Saturday, with some other luminous appearances, by this common property, that it gives out no sensible heat. Among other animals which possess the property of shining with a cold light, I mentioned the Medusa class, which sometimes illuminate the whole surface of the sea, and, in a dark night, show like a stream of liquid fire in the wake of a ship. But, besides these, there is a great variety of the