It teaches us thus the touching lesson that the grandest things in nature may be made more beautiful and picturesque by the simplest—as the greatest man may be indebted for his chief happiness to the smiles and prattle of the little children that climb on his knee. And how open to all the flowers and shrubs of the wild wood are its wide-spreading arms! The grass may grow up to the very foot of its trunk unreproved by any dark frowning shadow cast by its leaves. The hyacinth may make a fragrant mist of blue about its roots, and the primrose need not blanch its sunny cheek as it creeps up to its venerable bole. Royal as it is, its dignity consists in its hospitality; and its nobility is indicated by its freeness of access and kindly generous welcome to all that may hold within it the sacred principle of life. The gates of its hospitality, like the Bukharian nobleman’s, are “nailed open.” Sturdy and independent as it is, there is thus no object that is more closely linked with the genial life of nature, that blends more harmoniously with the operations which different creatures carry on for their own advantage, and makes of them one genial system of mutual benefit.—_London Sunday Magazine._ PERPLEXITIES. “Nothing can possibly fail, because the sole true end or object is redemption of man; and this is attained ever and for ever, with no exception, in good and evil, in each largest and most trivial thing.”—JAMES HINTON. How crooked is our life! Its ins and outs We can not scan; How often do we say, “That’s just too late And spoils our plan.” How often we perplex ourselves, because Of efforts vain, And try, without success, to make things come Round right again. How disappointment will not let us hold The course we would, But throws us off from every hoped-for boon That we think good. How little things perplex our onward path From day to day, Seeming to render futile all our work, Stopping our way. Oh! could this crooked life be straightened out, And every bit Met fairly by another, point to point In sequence fit; The difficulties then were not so hard To meet and bear, Were there a carrying on of some wise plan, And purpose fair. What if the Master’s plan _be_ utter good, Too vast, in sooth, For us to grasp it with our puny powers? In this grand truth, For such it is—although things look not so To our weak sight— Lies the true meaning of these crooked things If read aright. The source of all the discord that we feel, Is that our will Is not made one with God’s, and so we strive To make life still A thing that we call good—a little good That we can know; Instead of in our ignorance content God’s way to go.