If a marriage procession, on proceeding to church or chapel, should happen to meet a funeral procession, it is considered an unlucky omen to the expectant bride; if, on returning after the solemnization of the rite, a funeral procession should pass the bridal party, it is an unfavorable sign to the bridegroom. If a young person, when seated at the tea-table, should observe one or more stalks of the tea plant in the newly poured out cup, and if, on stirring the tea and holding the spoon in the middle of the liquid, the stalk or stalks should come close to the spoon handle, it is a token that he or she will be soon married. When the house dog is unusually restless, and howls dismally in the night time, it is a sign that sickness and death are about to visit the family to whom the dog belongs. When the wick of your candle shows a bright spark in the midst of the flame, it is a sign that a long absent friend is about to visit you. When the ribs of your fire grate are more than usual covered with flakes of soot, it is a sign that a stranger is about to visit your habitation. DIVINATION BY THE BIRDS OF THE AIR AND THE BEASTS OF THE FIELD. It hath been duly observed, by the learned in all ages of the world, that our all-wise and beneficent Creator originally implanted in the frame of nature a means whereby mankind may attain to the knowledge of such future contingencies as concern their welfare and happiness; and, more especially, since we observe, even in the brute creation, that even the most inconsiderable creatures upon the earth are more or less endowed with a gift of foreknowledge. Thus the industrious bee, and laborious ant, lay in their summer store, in order to supply the necessary wants of an inclement winter, which they foreknow is yet to come; yet, even of all the whole race of reptiles, the ant, the spider, and the bee, appear to be endowed with the greatest share of sagacity. The wisdom of the ants is conspicuous in forming themselves into a kind of republic and therein observing, as it were, their own peculiar laws and policies; but the cunning of the spider seems to exceed that of most other insects; its various artifices to ensnare its prey is no less remarkable than its contrivance of a cell or retreat behind its web, where it feasts upon its game in safety and conceals the fragments of those carcasses it has devoured, without exposing to public view the least remains of its barbarity, which might tend to distinguish its place of abode, or create the least jealousy in any sect, that their enemy was near. Into what history can we look to find people who are governed by laws equal to what we observe in the republic of bees? What experience can we desire beyond what we observe in the cunning spider, to teach us to guard against the artifices of those who lay snares to catch the thoughtless and unwary? or what can exceed the indefatigable ant, in teaching us lessons of frugality and industry?