end, and making them meet at top; this we call 'footing.' In another ten days we place them in 'rickles;' taking about ten footings, we lay them on their sides, placing them in such a way as to make the heap about two feet high. They are left so for a fortnight, and are then made into stacks of about twelve feet long, six high, and four wide; then, when they are sold, the carts carry them away. Those who are careful stack them in a sheltered place near the cottage when they get them home, and thatch them, as of course they will not burn well when wet. You ask what a dark of peat costs. If you buy it on the ground, it is not above six or seven shillings; but the drawing home is the greatest expense, often making the same quantity come to more than double the money."

"Thank you, good woman, for the information you have given us. Now, will you let your children show us where we may walk in safety to gather bog-plants, for we must carefully avoid holes and wet places ?"

Here is a wild bit of bog indeed, and we may meet with all the species of Sphagnum mentioned by muscologists, though we shall have some difficulty in distinguishing them, as they so greatly resemble each other. Linnæus and the older naturalists called them all Sphagnum palustre (1), and the four species into which they are now divided are only distinguished by the form of the leaf and branch; but it is very likely that these variations may only be caused by the situation or soil in which they grow. You perceive how peculiar the colour is, pale green,

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shading nearly into white, and where the water has dried up, and left the moss exposed to the sun, it is tinged with red.

Under the microscope you will find the construction of the leaf (2) very curious; I never look at it but with wonder and delight. The cells (3) of which the leaf is composed are large, the sides forming waved lines, running parallel to each other. These are connected together at intervals by cross lines; then each cell is again crossed by eight or ten finer waved lines, some of them forming even little circles, the whole looking like a double net-work; it is highly transparent, and forms a most beautiful object for the microscope. You will observe that there is no nerve running through the leaf, as in many other mosses. The capsule (4) is large, and dark brown, which renders it very visible amidst the light coloured foliage. When the lid falls off, the mouth is seen to be naked, having no pretty fringe as in the Bryum described in the former paper; the veil is small, and also soon falls off, giving egress to the seeds when ripe.

These are interesting facts, and will cause the student of mosses henceforth to look upon the genus Sphagnum with greater interest when he finds that so small a plant produces such immense results. It ought to be a proof to us that all the works of the Creator are great and wise, and that though our ignorance may render us unaware of the working of many of the natural laws, we ought not to despise the smallest production of that Almighty hand, but feel assured that the deeper we enter into the investigation of Nature, the more inexhaustible we shall find its wonders.

SUNDAY THOUGHTS FOR WEEK-DAY PRACTICE.

"THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL:"

A LENTEN MEDITATION.

Ir must always be profitable to compare Scripture with Scripture, and to observe how one passage of God's inspired Word sheds light upon another. In this way many points of interest and instruction are brought before the mind, and many important subjects are furnished for our meditation. Among the multitude of such subjects which must present themselves to every thoughtful reader of the Bible, there is one point of coincidence which may not perhaps be so obvious to all our readers as some others, and which yet appears to us so curious and striking, that we can hardly suppose it to be undesigned or incapable of profitable application.

The point of coincidence and illustration to which we allude is the

close resemblance between the temptation to which our first parents were subjected, and that which was endured by our Lord Jesus Christ when He dwelt on the earth in human form, and "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." And we also find this subject further illustrated by the apostle St. John, in his First Epistle, where he speaks of the temptations to which all who dwell on this earth must be more or less subjected.

It appears from the passages of Scripture to which we immediately refer, and also from several others which bear upon the same subject, that all the temptations to which our nature is liable may be classed under three heads-namely, the world, the flesh, and the devil; or, as St. John expresses it, "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life."

Under these three forms of temptation the first Adam and his more guilty partner were assailed by the great serpent, the devil, and they fell; and with them all their race were involved in utter ruin. Under these three forms the second Adam was assailed by the great enemy of God and man, and He came off victorious; for the prince of this world "found nothing in Him" by which he could drag Him into sin. By this victory He showed his perfect fitness to be the Redeemer of mankind from the ruin of the fall; and He also set a perfect example of the means by which temptation, in all its most subtle forms, may be resisted.

"The woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired also to make one wise." The tempter had applied his temptation to "the lust of the flesh," by representing the forbidden fruit as of exquisite flavour, and more gratifying to the taste than even any of the other fruits of the garden which the Lord had given to her and Adam for food. He had also suited his temptation to "the lust of the eye," by pointing out to Eve the lovely form and colouring of the rich overhanging clusters, and thus inducing her to remain in their dangerous vicinity, and gaze on their fatal beauty. And he had likewise appealed forcibly to that "pride of life" which seems to be the weakest point in many of the most gifted among the sons of men: he had awakened that yearning desire for knowledge and spiritual exaltation which is often the greatest trial of the greatest minds: he had persuaded his poor victim that, by disobeying the command of her Master, she would become "as a god," and that her eyes would be opened to a knowledge of good and evil.

Eve could conceive no greater enjoyments and no higher gifts than those which the beguiling serpent thus offered. She dared to set his word and her own will in opposition to the word and will of the Lord her God; "and she took of the fruit and did eat, and gave also to her

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husband with her, and he did eat." Adam and Eve yielded to "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life," in the only forms in which such temptations could be presented to them; and they lost the "image of God," and brought condemnation and death on themselves and on all their posterity.

Our Lord Jesus Christ-the second Adam, as the representative of perfect manhood-was also subjected to the temptations of the devil. The arch-fiend knew that all the fruits of his victory in the garden of Eden were imperilled by the sinless obedience and the inestimable sacrifice that were to be offered by the God-man for the redemption of the human race; he knew also that one flaw in that obedience would render the sacrifice unavailing, and would leave himself prince of the world, without a rival. We may well imagine, then, how deep-laid were his crafty designs, and how fierce his assaults upon the human nature of the suffering Redeemer !

As with Eve, so also with the "Seed of the woman," he adapted his temptation to the lowest part of our nature-"the lust of the flesh." Eve had never known a want; it was by luxury and needless indulgence that she was tempted. Jesus "had fasted forty days and forty nights, and He was an hungered." What He endured from this long privation of food we probably cannot even conceive. It could not kill Him, "for His hour was not yet come;" but we know that He was a partaker of our nature, and subject to all its sinless infirmities, and to all the sufferings to which we ourselves are subject; and therefore we know that when the devil tempted Him to exercise His divine power and "command these stones to become bread," he was suggesting to Him the gratification of a very strong desire-the supplying of an urgent necessity. But even this He resisted, and proved His faith and patience to be perfect.

The second temptation of our Lord by Satan corresponded in like manner to the second device of the tempter in Paradise-he endeavoured to beguile the Son of Man through "the lust of the eye." From the summit of a lofty mountain "he showed unto Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them." In some miraculous way it was permitted to the devil to present to the eyes of the meek and lowly Jesus-the despised and rejected Man of Sorrows-all the pomp and magnificence of earthly courts, and earthly dominions, and he also was permitted to make it appear to the human mind of Jesus that the possession of so much glory and beauty was in his gift-" If thou wilt worship me all shall be thine.” Our Lord did not gainsay this boasting lie; but He spurned the tempting offer rather than fail for one moment in his allegiance to his God and Father.

Again, the third temptation with which our Brother in the flesh was assailed was of the same nature as that which seems to have

finally overcome our first parents. "The pride of life" was the point which he hoped to have found unguarded in the human nature of Jesus. He accordingly tempted Him to assert His spiritual dignityto give proof of His divinity-and to presume on the promise of God, by casting Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple in the sight of the multitudes who thronged its courts, and crowded the streets of Jerusalem, and who would doubtless have hailed Him as their Messiah and their God when they saw that He was borne up as on angel's hands, and not suffered even "to dash His foot against a stone.”

All these three forms of temptation our Great Exemplar resisted. He passed through the fiery trial unscathed, and came off victorious— "leaving us an example that we should follow His steps."

How then did He baffle the designs of Satan, and keep his integrity? Not by trusting to any strength of His own human nature, but by resting implicitly on God's Word. Three times He uttered those powerful words, "It is written," and quoted an appropriate scripture that showed the falsity and weakness of all the devil's arguments, and the stability of all who trust in God's Word and rest upon His precepts and His promises in simple faith and obedience. And may we not class every temptation to which we ourselves are subject under these same three heads? Does not "the lust of the flesh" include all physical and sensual temptations of every kind? and ought not they all to be resisted by the recollection that "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God"? That man was not created to pamper his body, and indulge its passions, and thus be "subdued to the flesh;" but that he is commanded to "keep under the body, and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means he should be a castaway," and so fail to attain to that better life which is held forth to him in God's Word. It was thus that our Lord overcame "the lust of the flesh," and thus, thus only, may His followers likewise overcome.

"The lust of the eye" is a more insidious temptation-it appeals to a higher and more refined part of our nature; and therefore appears less animal and degrading. But it may be no less dangerous to those who give way to its allurements, and suffer themselves to be beguiled by a too vivid sense of beauty, into a neglect of the more important purposes for which they were created.

God made our world beautiful, as well as good" in every other sense; and but for the sinful folly of Adam and Eve, its perfect beauty, and the beauty of all its inhabitants, would surely have never been marred. Sin has done much to disfigure what was once so surpassingly fair; but there are many "things of beauty" still left for the eyes of man to rest upon with delight. We may look with pleasure and deep gratitude upon the works of God's hand, and say,