Still he pur

glittering initfelf within For awhile

runs, through brake and brier, over hedges and ditches, up hill and down dale; the fun, at the fame time, pours down its burning rays upon his uncovered head. See how he fweats, and puffs, and toils! 'Tis all in vain-just as he comes up with the prize, away it flies far above his reach. Still he follows on; now it has fettled upon a favourite flower. He is fure of it now; he puts forth his hand. Lo! it is gone. fues-on and on he runs after the fect. Presently it alights, and hides the leaves of the lily of the valley. he lofes fight of it; again he discovers it on the wing, and again he renews the chafe. Nor is it until the fun defcends the western sky, that he comes up with the object of his laborious race. Weary of the wing, the butterfly seeks shelter for the night within the cup of the mountain blue-bell. The boy, marking its hiding-place, makes a desperate spring, and feizes the trembling beauty. In his eagerness to poffefs it, he has crushed its tender wings, and marred entirely those golden colours. With deep mortification, and bitter regret at his folly, he beholds nothing left but a mere grub, an almoft lifeless worm, without form and without loveliness.

This emblem aptly fhows the folly of those who, whether young or old, leaving the folid paths of knowledge, of industry, and of lawful pleasure, follow the vanities of this life. Corrupt and unbridled paffions and vitiated taftes lead, in the end, to ruin.

The way of tranfgreffors is hard, as well as foolish and vain. To follow after forbidden objects is far more laborious than to pursue those only that are lawful. It is faid of wisdom, that all her ways are ways of pleasantness, that all her paths are paths of peace.

The mind of the youth who is in pursuit of vanities, or of unlawful pleasures, is ever raging, like a tempeft. Now up, now down-he knows nothing of true pleasure, nothing of folid peace. The object he defires and pursues so ardently mocks him again and again. "To-morrow," he fays to himself, "will give me the object of my wishes." To-morrow comes-once more it eludes his grafp. Now he becomes uneasy, then impatient, then fretful, then anxious, and then defperate; now he resolves at all hazards to seize upon the prize-it is his own; but ah! the flowers have faded, the beautiful colours have difappeared; the angel of beauty is transformed into a loathfome object. His eyes are opened; and, alas! too late, disappointed and remorseful, he learns the truth of the maxim, that "it is not all gold that glitters."

Man has a foul of vaft defires;

He burns within with restless fires :
Toff'd to and fro, his paffions fly
From vanity to vanity.

In vain on earth we hope to find
Some folid good to fill the mind;
We try new pleasures, but we feel
The inward thirst and torment still.

So when a raging fever burns,
We shift from fide to fide by turns
And 'tis a poor relief we gain,

To change the place but keep the pain.

Great God! fubdue the vicious thirst,
This love to vanity and duft;
Cure the vile fever of the mind,

And feed our fouls with joys refined.

DR. WATTS.

DANGER OF GREATNESS.

The clouds affemble in the blackening weft, Anon with gloom the sky becomes o'ercaft, United winds with wide-mouth'd fury roar, Old ocean, rolling, heaves from fhore to fhore; With boiling rage the waves begin to rife, And ruffian billows now affail the fkies; The hardy forefts, too, affrighted quake, The hills they tremble, and the mountains shake; The oak majeftic, towering to the fkies, Laughs at the whirlwind, and the storm defies : Spreads wide its arms, rejoicing in its pride, And meets unbending the tornado's tide; The winds prevail, one loud tremendous blow The monarch proftrates, and his pride lays low; While the low reed, in far more humble form, Unknown to greatness, safe, outlives the storm. THE ftorm rages. The fturdy oak, the growth

of centuries, lifts its proud head towering to the heavens; it spreads abroad its ample branches, giving fhelter to birds and beafts. For a long time it refifts the fury of the hurricane, but 'tis all in vain with a mighty crash it is overturned; its very roots are laid bare, its branching honours are brought low; birds, beafts, and creeping reptiles now trample upon its fallen greatness.

But fee: the humble reed, bending to the ftorm, efcapes unhurt. Its lowly pofition has preserved it from deftruction; while its mighty neighbour is no more. It still lives, and grows,

and flourishes.

This is an apt emblem of the danger attending upon high ftations, and of the fecurity afforded in the less elevated walks of life. It is calculated to damp the ardour of ambition, of, at leaft, that ambition that seeks to be great only that felf may be enriched, or vanity gratified.

This kind of greatnefs is indeed the most dangerous, and the most uncertain. It is fure to be a mark for others, equally aspiring and unprincipled, to fhoot at; while the poffeffor of this greatness, not being protected by the shield of confcious integrity, falls to rife no more, and the flatterers and dependants being no longer able to enrich themselves, unite in trampling under foot the man they formerly delighted to honour.

Love is not an evil of itself, neither is ambition; they may both be expended on worthless or finful objects. Let the youth feek out a proper object for the lofty afpirings of the foul;