restrial paradise, which was a delicious garden. They had the liberty of eating of all sorts of fruits, excepting those of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." God had also created pure spirits, which are the angels.

THE END FOR WHICH MAN WAS CREATED.

Of all things necessary for man to know, the end for which he came into this world deserves his first attention: because, being a rational creature, he ought to act for a final end, in the enjoyment whereof he may find his eternal happiness. Now, he cannot act for this end without a knowledge of it, which, exciting a desire, makes him search for, and employ the means of obtaining it. A man who knows not his last end, is like a beast; because he regards only things present, things material and sensible, after the manner of brutes: and in this, he is much more miserable than they, since they have in these exterior objects the felicity they are capable of; but he, instead of finding repose, meets with nothing but disgust, and the source of endless misfortunes.

From the ignorance of their last end, originate all the disorders discernible in the lives of men; because, forgetting that noble and divine end for which their Creator designed them, they are wholly taken up with the pleasures of this mortal life, living upon earth as if made for the earth.

It would move compassion, to see a child destined by his birth one day to hold a high station, apply himself wholly to till the earth, confining all his pretensions within the scanty limits of earning a miserable livelihood with the sweat of his brow, without having the least thought of the high fortune to which he was born. But it is much more to be deplored, to see men, who are the children of heaven, designed by the Almighty to abide there eternally, live in an entire forgetfulness of that end for which they were created; and setting all their affections upon earthly things, wretchedly deprive themselves of that immense happiness which the bounty of their Creator prepared for them in heaven.

REMEMBER GOD IN THE DAYS OF THY YOUTH.

In the soft season of thy youth,
In nature's smiling bloom,

Ere age arrive, and trembling wait

Its summons to the tomb,

Remember thy Creator, God;
For him thy powers employ;
Make him thy fear, thy love, thy hope,
Thy confidence, thy joy.

He shall defend and guide thy course
Through life's uncertain sea,
Till thou art landed on the shore,
Of bless'd eternity.

Then ever seek the Lord, and choose
The path of heavenly truth;
The earth affords no lovelier sight,
Than a religious youth.

CONTEMPLATION OF ANIMATED NATURE, ONE OF THE MOST STRIKING PROOFS OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE.

Having devoted to natural history, says Chateaubriand, that assiduity which we should never have suspended, had not Providence ordered otherwise, we had made a large collection of materials. We had often visited, at the midnight hour, the little solitary valley inhabited by beavers, while the moon, peaceful as the ingenious nation whose labors she illumined, shed her mild beams over the silent scene. And shall it be asserted that this valley was devoid of Providence, devoid of its bounty, and of its beauty? Who, then, placed the square and the level in the eye of that animal, which has the sagacity to construct a dam shelving towards the water, and perpendicular on the contrary side? What philosopher taught this singular engineer the laws of hydraulics, and made him so expert with his incisive teeth and his flattened

tail? Alas! by disputing the right of the Deity to his miracles, men have struck with sterility all the works of the Almighty. Atheists have pretended to kindle the fire of Nature with their ice-cold breath, but they have only extinguished it; by blowing upon the torch of creation they have poured around it the darkness of their own

bosoms.

O Preserver of the universe! O parental Providence! it is thou who softenest the ferocity of the lioness that feeds her whelps; it is thou who givest courage to timidity itself, to the hen that defends her chickens; it is thou who alarmest her heart, when deceived by the treasures of another nest, little strangers escape from her, and hasten to sport in the neighboring lake. The terrified mother runs round the brink, claps her wings, calls back her imprudent brood, sometimes entreating with tenderness, sometimes clucking with authority: she walks hastily away, pauses, turns her head with anxiety, advances even into the water, and is not pacified till she has collected beneath her wings her weakly and dripping family.

THE HORSE.

THE Various excellences of this noble animal, the grandeur of his stature, the elegance and proportion of his parts, the beautiful smoothness of his skin, the variety and gracefulness of his motions, and, above all, his usefulness, entitle him to a precedence in the history of the brute creation.

A horse is a very sagacious creature; he knows his own stable, and can smell it afar off; when he sees or smells any horse that he knows, he neighs to it, and often gets an answer in the same way. He never forgets any place where he has once been; and he will find his way home from a great distance, even by a road on which he has never gone before.

He is also a very docile creature; and, when taught to carry a person on his back, his rider governs him by his sense of feeling, that is, by the curb, which he gives him with the bit, by a touch with his spurs, or by a stroke with his whip.

The horse is quick-sighted; he can see things in the night, which his rider cannot perceive; but when it is too dark for his sight, his sense of smelling is his guide. When he smells a ditch, a pond, or a lake, he will start back, to the great surprise of his master.

A horse sleeps much less than we do. He requires so much time to feed in, that (if we allow for the hours which he has to work, often twelve in the day, and sometimes more) he seldom rests above three or four hours out of the twenty-four; yet he is not soon tired, though his work is often hard, and his time of fasting often long.

In summer, horses in the country, feed on grass, or on grass and oats; and in winter, they eat oats, corn and hay. When grazing in the pasture, they always choose the shortest grass, because it is the sweetest, and, as they have cutting teeth in both their jaws, they can eat very near the ground.

The age of the horse may be known by his teeth until he is six or seven years old, but with certainty no longer; yet horse-dealers, by an art well known to themselves, can make a horse appear to be four or five years old, when he is not more than three, or three and a half. By this trick, they not only deceive the buyer, which is very wrong, but also ruin the horse, by making him subject to harder labor than his strength can bear.

A horse, if properly treated, commonly lives to the age of twenty-five or thirty years; and, when he dies, his skin is taken off, and sold to the tanner, to be made into leather for shoes and boots, and for many other purposes. The leather made from it, however, is not so strong as that made of the calf-skin.

The flesh of a horse is not good for us to eat; his mane and tail are made into very good coverings for chair bottoms and sofas, and answer a good purpose for fishing lines.

There are many varieties of the horse. Among those in a domestic state, we find the racer, slender, with elegant limbs, and capable of great speed; the truck-horse, heavy and clumsy, but very strong and useful; the carriage horse, with his beautiful and smooth skin, polished by high feeding; and the charger, or war horse.

Horses are found in a wild state, in the extensive plains of Arabia and Africa, where they range without control.

They are also found wild in the immense plains west of the Mississippi river, and in South America, having been originally brought from Europe by the Spaniards.

In these plains, the wild horses may be seen feeding together in herds of several hundreds, and sometimes thousands; one of them acting as a sentinel to give notice of the approach of an enemy. This he does by a kind of snorting noise, upon which they all set off at full speed, making the very ground tremble with the noise of their hoofs. The wild horses of Arabia are esteemed the most beautiful in the world.

DOCILITY OF THE DOG.

WE are daily presented with wonderful examples of the docility of animals, but none is so universally susceptible of education as the dog. He is more the natural companion of man; his attachment is warmer, his fidelity more unshaken; he is ever alive to the interests of his master, and seems to have no enjoyment equal to his society. It is not surprising, if a creature possessing such properties has sometimes been rewarded with reciprocal regard; and that unusual care should be taken to teach him, in preference, peculiar feats of address, which seem denied to the powers of others.

Our limits prevent us from here entering upon what would be an amusing narrative, except to remark, that Plutarch has preserved an account of a dog exhibited to the emperor Vespasian, which has scarcely been rivalled in any example of modern tuition. This dog belonged to an actor; and nothing could be more skilful in scenic representation, and in imitating various circumstances and situations. It exhibited in itself the execution of a malefactor, feigned the taking of poison, and the tremor following its sudden operation; then, falling down, its limbs were stretched out in perfect resemblance of death; and so it remained for a certain time, until, by a word from its master, it gradually opened its eyes, looked languidly around, and at length recovered.

But, in the course of the last century, an exhibition somewhat similar took place in Britain, where the storm