If thus ’tis, from the eagle to the dove, Say, how can we upon our fetters smile, Save those that, woven by the hand of Love, Are round us flung with many a tender wile? So pure a shrine of Freedom is the soul, That could our chains lose all their weight and chill, And, ’twined with light, extend from pole to pole, We’d sigh and feel that we were captives still. * * * * * NATURE AND ART. BY SAMUEL MARTIN. When we see an insect in the fields pumping a sweet fluid from the nectaries of flowers, and carrying it home and storing it in convenient receptacles, which it carefully covers so as to exclude the dust and hinder evaporation, we are filled with devout astonishment; and as we write hymns about the “Little Busy Bee,” in her industry and foresight, and curious contrivances, we recognize an all-pervading Mind and an all-controlling Hand. And in this we are right. But here is another animal, still more resourceful and provident. The bee collects the honey from such flowers as happen to contain it, and which yield it almost ready-made; but she takes no trouble to secure a succession of those flowers or to increase their productiveness. This other creature is at infinite pains to propagate and improve his favorite mellifluent herbs. From the sweet juices of flowers the bee can only elaborate a single fluid, while her rival from the same syrup can obtain a multitude of dainties; and, according to the taste of the consumer, he offers it in the guise of nectar or ambrosia, in crystals of topaz or in pyramids of snow. And when the manufacture is complete, the bee knows only one mode of stowage; this other creature packs it, as the case may require, in bags or baskets, in boxes or barrels, all his own workmanship, and all cleverly made. What, then, is the reason that when we look at a honeycomb we are apt to be reminded of the wisdom and goodness of God; but looking at the same thing magnified—surveying a hundred hogsheads of sugar piled up in a West Indian warehouse—we have no devout associations with the ingenuity and industry which placed them there? Why are chords of pious feeling struck by the proceedings of an insect, and no emotion roused by the on-goings of our fellow-men?