WILD FLOWERS FROM THE SCOTTISH HILLS.

y the side of a mountain rivulet, that stole along the bottom of a deep ravine, sat two children, basking in the sun of noon. Their ages might be ten and six. The one was dark haired and slender, with a countenance thoughtful in its character; the other was fair and plump, with blue eyes and sunny curls. The elder and darker held in her hand a quantity of the plant Pyrola, that she had gathered by the banks of the stream, and which she examined with great delight, smelling the flowers, and shaking the graceful blossoms till they gave forth fresh odors.

'They are very pretty Helen," said the younger, but they are no prettier than the little Speedwell that we find in the fields among the long grass; nor the Forget-me-not that grows in the swamp, with its yellow eye looking up to the sun; nor the Campion, nor the Asphodel, nor any of the flowers you used to love long ago."

"To love long ago!" repeated Helen. "I love them all yet, Mary; I only prize these flowers more, because that sweet lady liked them, and bade me gather them for her. She did not know how plentiful they were farther up the stream, or she would not have risked herself, as she did last night, leaning over the great pool, to get one that was not half so pretty as any of these."

"I wonder what she will do with them when you give her them," said Mary, looking up to Helen with an enquiring glance.

"She will take them with her pretty white fingers," said Helen, "and look at them so lovingly. Then she will arrange the leaves and flowers, and lay them all straight in her book: then she will clasp it, and looking at me, will smile so sweetly, and thank me in such a kind manner, that I shall think of it for many days, and be happy all my life after when I look at these flowers."

"There she is," said Mary; and as she spoke a tall delicate-looking lady advanced towards them, leaning on the arm of a gentleman, who seemed to watch over her with great care, walking slowly and cautiously, and giving her all the support that lay in his power.

"So you have got my flowers, I see," said she, in a sweet voice. "You were right when you told me that this plant was abundant higher up the stream. I have passed several spikes of it in coming to seek you here;" and saying so, she arranged her white dress, which seemed scarcely whiter than her complexion, and seating herself by the children, took the flowers from Helen's hand.

As the little girl had foretold, she did indeed examine them with the eye of love, lifting the spikes of blossom one by one, and then, selecting two of the finest, she laid them on the white page of a little book, and, appealing to the gentleman, who stood thoughtfully looking on, she asked, "Are they not very beautiful, Reginald? Did I exaggerate when I spoke to you in such high terms of this graceful little wild flower ?" 'They are indeed very beautiful,” he replied; “but looking on their but be sad when I think of the purpose for which you preserve them. forget how soon we shall be obliged to part."

beauty, I cannot

I wish rather to

"We cannot part, Reginald!" she answered, her dark eye gleaming with a spiritual light. "No; souls which are one cannot be separated. I go to this southern land to seek health, without reluctance. My body goes, but my spirit remains with your spirit, or

L

takes yours into those sunny regions along with it. I shall love to look on these flowers that grew on my own mountains-to compare them with the more gorgeous blossoms of a warmer clime. Every plant in this little case," said she, turning over the leaves, "has some story to tell me, some sweet remembrance all its own, some picture to recall of the sober grey of twilight, the freshness of the dewy morning, on the hushed stillness of noon. When I look on them I shall hear the carol of the lark, the sweet song of the linnet, and the full liquid notes of the blackbird, mingling with the noise of the mountain streamlet, or the rush of the winds thro the pines. And these beautiful seaweeds, which we gathered by the shore of the great ocean, so fragile, so delicate, will they not suggest to me the beautiful thoughts and feelings that have gathered around us, thrown up by the troubled waters of life. Nature has given thee a robust frame, and vigorous health, Reginald, but denied thee the sweet sad thoughts of illness, the power of retiring into the holy ideal, where alone is the spirit's home."

"These little ones even feel

What must I feel, then, when

Reginald looked upon her with an expression of deep tenderness, as her check glowed for a moment with a bright, but hectic flush, then became deadly pale as before. "You are a favored one my Beatrice," said he, with a sad smile. the spell of your presence, and are holier when near you. deprived of this charm. You carry these mountains and secluded dales along with you into other climes. I feel that in losing you, I lose them also. I am alive to their beauty only thrö you."

Beatrice drew the younger child near her, and parting the sunny curls which hung around her face with her delicate fingers, she kissed her forehead, and pressed her to her heart.

"The Saviour," she said, "addressed little ones such as these, because he knew that the Spirit which alone can discern Beauty, Goodness, and Truth, is in them not yet obscured by contact with the world. He will be the truly great man, who passes thrö every sphere of knowlege, every fiery trial of affliction, yet remains humble and simple as a little child."

"You speak of what is impossible, Beatrice," said Reginald. "No man may pass thrö every sphere of knowlege, yet retain his simplicity of character. The approval, the plaudits of his fellowmen, must influence a man more or less."

"All our contact with the world has a tendency to foster vanity and self-seeking," said Beatrice; "but in the quiet citadels of thought, and waiting for the next intuition, the scholar knows very well how to value the praises of men. Baulked in his endeavor, there is a higher court to which he must appeal, pleading, in the absence of achievment, the strenuous effort, the holy attitude of mind. These, with the worldling, are of no account. Yet when the answer is granted to such earnest prayer, even should it be after long months of supplication, the mind of the supplicant is filled with joy, and so full seems the compensation, that the common hour is hallowed by feelings of the deepest devotion. is this trustfulness, this acknowlegement of a higher than himself, that makes a man truly great. We forget what was said of old-A man can receive nothing, unless it be given him from heaven."

It

"Would you then have a man remain passive, believe in the possibility of high attainments, yet make no exertion to secure them ?" said Reginald.

"I would have him work earnestly, in season and out of season," answered Beatrice: "but I would also have him revere his intuitions,' know that what he receives, is greater than what he does. Each day shows us that high talent is no guarantee against temptation, nay rather, the reverse. There is, then, no safeguard for a man but to renounce himself, to wait upon God. Before this awful presence, pride, dogmatism, bitterness, crumble We have the testimony of earth's highest, that loneliness and privation are bles

down.

sings, because they bring us to this heavenly FAITH-this assurance of a present Divinity. Earth's valleys are fertile, her mountains beautiful, but what were they both without the clear heaven beyond ?"

"I confess the beauty of your creed," said Reginald, "but cannot grasp it!"

"It is but reliance on the voice of God in the soul," said Beatrice;-" Kindling in you love and emulation, you still dispute its power, and demand its formula. Inspired, you will not acknowlege the Inspirer. Serene and beautiful as the azure of this noon-day sky, and calm as yonder sleeping ocean, lies this hidden region, behind the mists of the emotions. Believe that it is then, and its light will penetrate these, and become a lamp unto your path. Believe in this upper or inner world of being, and you shall be at once virtuous and enthusiastic; be able to cheer as well as teach-a man of the old heroic stamp, ingenuous, intrepid, every action begirt with the freshness of the living spirit."

"Besides you, Beatrice," said Reginald, "I could be all things you would wish. You speak to my better nature. While others merely tax my intellectual faculties, your words fill me with devotion. A breathing beauty mingles with their sadness, and binds me as with the spell of enchantment. I dare not think of the hour when this spell is to be withdrawn."

"Believe that God knows how to govern his own creatures," said Beatrice.

"When the half-Gods go

"The Gods arrive.

"In order to the due development of the soul, all experiences are necessary. The true Artist must be familiar with the sombre, as well as the gay hues of nature-the true singer with the evening zephyr, must give us also the reveil of the storm. Fruitful, most fruitful, is the period of sorrow! Without the grey mists of the mountains, and the early and latter rain, these fragrant rose-tipt blossoms had never been. The better part of the plant must have perished."

K. B.

MEDICAL TESTIMONY
[FOR THE PRESENT AGE.]

Ir is my deliberate and conscientious conviction, founded on personal observation, that nine-tenths of the disease, insanity, poverty, wretchedness, and crime in existence, may be traced to the use of intoxicating drinks. No one but a medical man can conceive of the amount of personal and relative misery attendant on their employment as ordinary articles of beverage.

I believe the majority of persons, however long and deeply they may have indulged in the pernicious habit, may at once abandon it with perfect impunity, altho for a little while they may feel some degree of languor.

It is my opinion that the mass of people would be stronger and healthier, and capable of the endurance of a larger amount of physical and mental labor, by the total disuse of intoxicating drinks, and altho here and there a rare case occurs in which a little wine or spirits may be beneficial. I am growingly convinced that such cases are few.

London, April 18th, 1850.

J. T. CONQUEST, M. D.

LETTERS ON CARLYLE.

No II.

WITHOUT further preamble, Dear A., altho, in the way of preface, I have not yet said half my say, I shall proceed at once to some analysis and exposition of these remarkable papers, which you have been kind enough to send me; and we will e'en (for the present, at least) let the four meaningless winds tear their unfortunate style to tatters, if they will.

The reason for the name is evident: Pamphlets they are, and to these Latter Days directed; and in the mottoes which they carry on the title-page, their aim and tendency may be at once discerned. 'But as yet struggles the twelfth hour

of the night. Birds of darkness are on the wing; spectres uproar; the dead walk; the living dream. Thou, Eternal Providence, wilt make the day dawn!' Such is Jean Paul's brief description of these latter days, resembling very much one of Carlyle's own, which I quote imperfectly from memory to this effect: 'It is now the night of the world and still long till it be day; and two immeasurable Phantoms, Hypocrisy and Atheism, with the Ghoule, Sensuality, stalk abroad over the earth and call it theirs. Well at ease are the sleepers to whom existence is a shallow dream! but what of the awe-struck wakeful?' Now of these two epitomes of the present, I prefer the latter: I think it to possess a time-wide and world-wide meaning. Both, however, very happily express the prominent characteristics of the age. Natheless you, and many others, I fear, look on all this fuss about our own days as simply so much fudge; and consider it mere mare's-nesting to pretend to discover all these fine things in them. For your part, you cannot see much difference between times at all: there was always Vice, you say, and always Virtue, always Belief and always Unbelief; and you cannot see how we are entitled to such a claim of diversity from our forebears. If there be a difference, it is to our advantage, you think, as witness our Railways, Engines, Steamers, Docks, Libraries, Rosse-Telescopes, Electric Telegraphs, etc., etc.; and you feel assured that all this howling over the present is baseless and hysterical.

To you, pre-occupied with such thoughts, these papers can only bring impatience and vexation and rejection; while to us, who can make their mottoes ours, and believe every word of them, they come with gratulation and with hope.

Carlyle, it would seem, accepting the greater part of the first motto, rejects its conclusion; and amends it by a second, derived from some law book: Then said his Lordship, 'Well, God mend all!'-' Nay, by God, Donald, we must help him to mend it!'-said the other.' And by this, he most graphically, if apparently irreverently, expresses his conviction that we must not leave the making of the Day-dawn to Providence alone; but that it is our duty to labor towards that end which Providence shows to be its end.

The leading ideas and principles of his theme, then, are in this way very felicitously exhibited; and we shall now examine in what manner he practically proceeds towards the accomplishment of his design.

The first of these papers he denominates, 'The Present Time;' and, without specially marking what are quotations and what are not, I shall just set down here a current abridgment of it, or rather of the first heat of it; for the paper has been written plainly in three parts.

"To know the Time that now is, and what it bids us do, is ever the sum of knowlege for all of us; nor is there any sin more fearfully avenged on men and nations than misinterpretation of it. In such days, indeed, as these are, even fools are arrested to ask their meaning. Days they are of disruption and dislocation; of endless hope, or else of utter despair. For it is vain to think that things in Europe can ever return to the old sorry routine; these days of universal death must be days also of universal new-birth: there must be a new world, if there is to be any world at all.

Of later disturbances, the Pope seems to have been the beginning. He took in hand once more to rule by the rule of the New Testament: he took in hand, in fact, to reform his Popedom. Now, an old kettle you may make useful for a while by puttying the holes; but once try to solder and hammer at it and it falls to pieces. So fared it with Pope and Popedom. But, meanwhile, by thus attempting to rule all things according to the truth and the right, he had awakened some old questions-questions which all Official men wished, and almost hoped, to postpone to Doom's day so there was ferment everywhere. Sicily, for instance, questioned the right that Naples had to rule over her; and shed her blood, denying it. Then the French, nettled that they, the Barricaders par excellence, were having the trade taken out of their hands, suddenly opened their eyes to the shameless unbelief in any thing but human baseness they lived under, and arose to change it. The rising of the French was the rising of the whole of Europe; and everywhere Kings and other Officials took to ignominious flight. They seemed, indeed, to have been aware that, all this time, they were not in their right places; that they were there only from being undetected or from sufferance; and that it was decidedly their part to run and hide at the very first sound of approaching footsteps. Conscious that they were but Kings and Officials in name, and not, as their ancestors had been, Kings and Officials in fact, they skulked off, scared by the very first noise they heard; and so everywhere the populace was triumphant; and the order of the day was anarchy, Kinglessness. Such cheering and vociferation as there was everywhere! The old men, hardened into sceptical selfishness, and surrounded by frigid cautions, avarices, and mean timidities, had given up the place which better times accorded them as Seniors, Seigneurs, Lords, to the young, unexperienced, hot-heads: so there was nothing but bellowing, and vociferation, and tumult of rejoicing. And so far as France was concerned, Lamartine musically presided and perorated over this gas, and believed in it as the good and the new, till the natural collapse took place. And the natural collapse did take place; for such state of matters could not last long; the ordinary necessities of men's daily existence cannot comport with them; and so a recurrence had to take place to the old form temporarily re-mounted. Temporary, however, this can only be; for it is plain that these alternate risings and subsidings are but the death-throes of the old and the birth-throes of the new.

The question forced upon us by all this is: What does Democracy mean and want ? For the existence of Democracy must now and for ever be admitted. What is it, then? and what does it mean? and what is our duty concerning it?