RETIREMENT.

IN Winter we take care to keep in our houses as much as we can, but in summer we love to roam abroad over the green fields and along the old lanes with their moss-cover'd banks, adorned with all kinds of wild flowers,

refreshing to the sight

and fragrant to the smell.

In summer I love, when I can, to take some interesting book, and set out to seek a retired spot, far from the noise, and dust, and smoke of the town, "And the busy hum of men,"

where, all alone, I can sit and read my favourite volume, undisturbed, except by the song of birds, the hum of bees, or the chirp of the tiny grasshopper my feet.

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I hope this desire for retirement is sometimes felt by you my young reader. It is not well to be always

in the bustle of play or business, or even in the company of those we love. It is well, sometimes, to leave these and be alone with ourselves, and let our thoughts go out in meditations which can only be indulged when we are alone. I do not say that it is good always to be alone, but it is very good to be alone sometimes.

For when alone we are more in the company of ourselves; that is, we can think more about ourselves what we have been doing in the world, and what we had better try to do. We are more in the company too of the great God. We feel that we are alone with him, and that he sees and knows usknows all we have done and all we wish to do. And we can then lift up our hearts to him with reverence and love, and pray that he will guide us through all our future life, and take us at last unto himself to dwell in a brighter and a better world.

If, my young reader, you have read the lives of some of the greatest and best of men, you would always find they were, when young, fond of retirement and meditation. In the early ages of the world there was much of this. Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide.'

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Jacob, and Moses, and David, and the Prophets, were much

alone in solitary places, John the Baptist retired into the wilderness, and our blessed LORD himself often spent whole nights alone in lonely and secluded places for meditation and prayer.

If you wish then, my young reader, whoever you be, to prepare yourself for acting a useful and honourable part in your day and generation on the great stage of human existence-if you wish to commune with your own heart and with your God, you will now and then seek for retirement, in winter in your own chamber, in summer in some retired spot, where you may gird up the loins of mind and prepare your yourself for the great struggle in which you will have to engage. Let me recommend you to begin. You will find it both agreeable and pleasant.

FAR from the world, O Lord, I flee,

From strife and tumult far;

From scenes where satan wages still
His most successful war.

The calm retreat, the silent shade,
With prayer and praise agree;
And seem by thy sweet bounty made,
For those who follow thee.

There, if thy Spirit touch the soul,

And grace her mean abode,

Oh, with what peace, and joy, and love,
She communes with her God.

Ah! well do I remember those

Whose names the records bear;

Who round the hearth-stone used to close After the evening prayer,

And speak of what these pages said,
In tones my heart would thrill!
Though they are with the silent dead,
Here are they living still!

My Father read this holy book
To sisters, brothers dear;

How calm was my dear Mother's look,
Who lov'd God's word to hear,
Her angel face-I see it yet!

What thrilling memories come!
Again that little group seems met
Within the halls of home!

Thou truest friend man ever knew,

Thy constancy I've tried;

Where all were false I found thee true-
My counsellor and guide!

The mines of earth no treasures give

That could this volume buy:

In teaching me the way to live
It taught me how to die!

LOVELY JUNE.

BY AN OLD WRITER.

FRESH Aurora* issued from her saffron bed and ivory house. She was clothed in a robe of crimson and violet colour; the cape vermilion, and the border purple. She opened the windows of her handsome

* Morning.