have fallen to the bottom, and a fresh surface would be presented for congelation; this would then descend in its turn, and unite with the other; and thus during a hard frost successive surfaces would be presented, and fall to the bottom, as long as the frost or any fluid remained. By this means the whole body of the water would become a dense concretion of ice: its inhabitants would not only perish, but the indurated mass would resist the influence of the sun of any summer to thaw it, and continue congealed throughout the year, chilling the earth in its neighborhood, and the winds that passed over it, preventing the growth of vegetation in the former, or blighting and destroying it by the influence of the latter. Winter is called a dull season; and to the sensations of some, the enjoyments of others, and, perhaps, to the vision of all, it is a most cheerless period. This is so universally felt, that we always associate the idea of pleasure with the return of spring: whatsoever our occupations or employments may be, though its sleety storms and piercing winds may at times chill the very current in our veins, yet we consider it as a harbinger of pleasurable hours and grateful pursuits. We commence our undertakings, or defer them till spring. The hopes or prospects of the coming year are principally established in spring; and we trust that the delicate health of the blossoms round our hearths, which has faded in the chilling airs of winter, may be restored by the mild influence of that season. Yet winter must be considered as the time in which Nature is most busily employed; silent in her secret mansions, she is now preparing and compounding the verdure, the flowers, the nutriment of spring; and all the fruits and glorious profusion of our summer year are only the advance of what has been ordained and fabricated in these dull months. All these advances require Omnipotent wisdom and power to perfect; but perhaps a more exalted degree of wisdom and power has been requisite to call them into a state of being from nothing. The branch of that old pear-tree now extended before me, is denuded and bare, presenting no object of curiosity or of pleasure; but, had we the faculty to detect, and power to observe, what was going forward in its secret vessels, beneath its rugged, unsightly covering, what wonder and admiration would it create!—the materials manufacturing there for its leaf, and its bark; for the petals and parts of its flowers; the tubes and machinery that concoct the juices, modify the fluids, and furnish the substance of the fruit, with multitudes of other unknown operations and contrivances, too delicate and mysterious to be seen, or even comprehended, by the blindness, the defectibility of our nature—things of which we have no information, being beyond the range of any of the works or the employments of mankind! We may gather our pear, be pleased with its form or its flavor; we may magnify its vessels,