sunset and before sunrise, when they are fresh with morning and evening dew; beautifully diversified with tints of orange-scarlet, of pale yellow, and of bright orange, which grows deeper every day, and forms a variety of shades according to the age of each blossom that opens in the fascicle. The vegetable world scarcely exhibits a richer sight than an Asóca tree in full bloom. It is about as high as an ordinary cherry-tree."

The peculiarity mentioned by this elegant scholar of the late and early fragrance of the Asóca is of a kind that addresses itself at once to the imagination. The whole volume of nature, indeed (secondary only to that of revelation), is replete with pure and holy lessons; and if duly and properly studied, would not only enrich the mind and elevate the fancy, but amend the heart.

Pilgrim of life! if friends caress,

If youth's gay flowers thy path be strewing,

If joy so ready is to bless

He yields his gifts without the wooing;

Oh! pray that He whose hand has spread
Thy path of bliss may guide thee ever,
Pour His own dews upon thy head,

And in "all time of wealth deliver;"
And like that tree which hastes to shower
Its fragrance soon as morn has given
Her liquid balm, oh! ever pour

The incense of thy soul to heaven!

Pilgrim of life! if grief's dim eve,

Or deeper night be fallen upon thee, If youth be past- if friends deceive

Friends, who once fondly wooed and won thee;

Oh! hie thee, mourner, to the bower

What time dim eve is duly flinging

Her chilly dews on tree and flower,

And mark the sweetness thence up-springing.

Meekly to bow the willing head,

E'en when the heart is blighted — riven ;

To trust, to praise, when light is fled,

This this is incense meet for heaven!

THE MISLETOE.

VISCUM ALBA.

"Not far

away, for ages past had stood

An old, inviolated, sacred wood;

Whose gloomy boughs, thick interwoven, made

A chilly, cheerless, everlasting shade:

There barbarous priests some dreadful power adore,

And lustrate every tree with human gore;

The pious worshippers approach not near,

But shun their gods, and kneel with distant fear."

FROM time immemorial trees, either standing apart in solitary majesty, or congregated in groves and forests, have been consecrated to the solemnities of religion. "Paradise itself," says Evelyn, "was but a kind of nemorous temple, planted by God himself, and given to man." This appropriation of them to sacred purposes may be traced even in the patriarchal ages. Abraham, we are told, "planted a grove in Beer-sheba, and called there on the name of the everlasting God." It was in a bush, or, as some commentators render it, a grove, that the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses " in the wilderness of Mount Sinai :" and when the same glo