Few, perhaps, but an ardent admirer of Nature, would climb a hill in January, unless his road lay over it; and yet there is something indescribably grand and lovely in a mountainous district when clad in ice and snow. 'Tis true the trees are leafless, and deserted by their Summer warblers,-that the murmuring stream, in which we hear such soft music as it flows along and sparkles 'neath a Summer sun, is ice-bound. 'Tis true that even the pines and firs seem bowed down towards the earth in this season, when all Nature seems to sleep; but see the brilliant icicles that hang from their boughs, and gem the delicate tracery of their branches; while the very quiet and solitude that reigns around, induces reflection.

The Naturalist will think of the numerous living things kept warm and preserved in life, to fulfil the end for which they were created, beneath that snowy

mantle.

The Geologist, perchance, would think, how different the appearance of our island now to that it wore unnumbered ages ago; when the fruits that but ripen beneath a tropical sun; the flowers and trees that but wave in the sunny lands of the East, adorned our hillsides; when the vast monsters of this by-gone age, the mammoth, the iguanodon, and the mastadon, traversed the valleys, and the hippopotamus drank of our rivers; when man was yet uncreated: and his thoughts would be elevated to a contemplation of the great Being who, throughout these countless ages, was working out His own grand designs; and he would, perhaps, exclaim with Socrates, "There is but one good thing-knowledge."

The Astronomer would think of the glorious array of the starry hosts of Heaven, which would meet his eye from that elevated spot, and well nigh dazzle it with its resplendent brightness when night cast her shadows over the earth, and reflect that the cold and frosty air of January, chilling and deadening in its effects to so many of the things of this world, but showed the heavenly bodies, with their attendant satellites, more radiant and more brilliant; and the mind, passing beyond the high and spangled vault, and soaring higher and higher, as thought followed thought, the Christian Astronomer would rest in imagination only in the presence of the Infinite-in that city "where the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof."

Even the Historian would not be without his subject for reflection in this month. Memory would be aroused by the silence and solitude, and the apparent lifelessness of all around, to that period of time, when honour and true religion seemed as dead in England, or what little there was, as completely dormant, and covered with hypocrisy and fanaticism, as the herbage of the mountain under its covering of snow. He would think of the murder of the "Lord's Anointed;" the--it may be erring, but saint-like Charles of England, a greater king, perhaps, upon the scaffold than upon his throne, when his meek, but noble spirit gave a dignity to his countenance and conduct such as this world's history has seldom testified; but yet always kingly, and never more so, except when the stroke of the executioner's axe laid his royal head low, that he may exchange a corruptible for

an incorruptible crown-than when he looked with benign pity upon a wretch who spat on him, and following the example of the King of Glory he was so soon to join, in a higher and nobler court than the court of England-frankly forgave him.

It has been well observed by a French writer, “la félicité est dans le gout, et non pas dans les places, ou dans les choses," and strikingly is the truth of this remark exemplified in all places, and in all seasons, but more especially at that season when the fashionable belle, enveloped in her sable mantle, turns a withering look upon an icicle, even at the moment when a ray of rich sunlight has converted it into a tiny column, decked with all the varied colours of the rainbow, more fit to grace the entrance to a fairy's palace, than to adorn the houses of the creatures of earth, and simply remarks, "How freezingly cold;" or, when the modern beau from the depths of a cushioned chair, from which, perhaps, he might see a graceful birch robed in hoar-frost, exclaims, "How miserably dull, let us back to London."

How different the feelings of those who, though not gifted with the magic words of Cowper to describe those feelings, can yet accompany him in thought, when looking over the wide field of Nature even in her most dreary aspect, and reflect,

"One spirit-His,

Who wore the platted thorns with bleeding brow,
Rules universal Nature. Not a flow'r

But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain

Of His unrivalled pencil. He inspires

Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues,

And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes

In grains as countless as the seaside sands,

The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth.
Happy who walks with him! whom what he finds
Of flavour or of scent, in fruit or flow'r,
Or what he views of beautiful or grand
In Nature, from the broad majestic oak
To the green blade that twinkles in the sun,
Prompts with remembrance of a present God;
His presence, who made all so fair, perceiv'd,
Makes all still fairer. As with Him no scene
Is dreary, so with Him all seasons please."

The Philosopher too, may, on the bleak mountain-top, take up the words of the Christian Poet, and exclaim:

"Meditation here

May think down hours to moments. Here the heart

May give a useful lesson to the head,

And learning wiser grow without his books.
Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one,
Have oftimes no connexion. Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge, a rude, unprofitable mass,

The mere materials with which wisdom builds,
Till smooth'd and squar'd, and fitted to its place
Does but encumber whom it seems t' enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
Books are not seldom talismans and spells,
By which the magic art of shrewder wits
Holds an unthinking multitude enthrall'd.
Some to the fascination of a name
Surrender judgment, hoodwink'd-Some the style
Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds
Of error leads them, by a tune entranc'd;
While sloth seduces more, too weak to bear
The insupportable fatigue of thought,

And swallowing, therefore, without pause or choice,

The total grist unsifted, husks and all.
But trees and rivulets, whose rapid course
Defies the check of Winter, haunts of deer,
And sheep-walks populous with bleating lambs,
And lanes in which the primrose, ere her time

Peeps through the moss, that clothes the hawthorn root,
Deceive no student-"

No-nature deceives none-but it may teach all. It has lessons adapted equally to the deep-thinking Philosopher and the child-the monarch and the peasant-the polished student of modern times, and the warrior of other days, who came from the deserts of Scythia to lay the world at his feet; and to learn from an ant, that even he, whose superiority was acknowledged by all; whose fame but shone the brighter, when a cloud of adversity was passing over him, could only attain glory and honour by perseverance. (')

And if a barbarian chief could learn from Nature how to conquer a world, shall not the Christian learn from the same source, with the finger of unerring wisdom to point the way, and the map spread before him, sketched by the same hand that created the universe, shall he not learn to conquer the world within him-his own heartand learn the way to that land, where

66 Kings for harps their crowns resign,
Crying as they strike the chords,
'Take the kingdom, it is Thine,

King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.'”

Oh! may we improve the time allotted to us, and amid the countless wonders which each month unfolds to the reflecting child of Nature; in all the blessings and com