ference to all kinds of growth,—to the growth of the lower animals, as when it is said of believers, that "they shall grow up like calves in the stall," thriving under the hand of their feeder, and rapidly increasing in size and in strength, to human growth, as when we read of babes who cannot digest strong food, but must be fed with " the milk of the word;" of children rising to the full stature of manhood; and of the aged head, surrounded with gray hairs as a crown of glory. Nor do we read less frequently of vegetable growth as an emblem of the progress of spiritual life; it is compared to wheat, which produces first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear; it is said to spring up like grass, and like willows by the water courses; to flower as the lily; to produce fruit as the fig tree and the vine.

Sometimes we see the vigor, the beauty, and the fertility thus indicated, most cheeringly exemplified in real life. There are not unfrequent instances in which the rapidity and luxuriance of spiritual growth fill all who witness it with admiration. The young convert passes so quickly through the various stages of the blade, the ear, and the full corn-of childhood, youth, and manhoodthat they can scarcely be distinguished. He acquires, as if by intuition, mature and exalted views of the things of God; his heart becomes all at once, as it were, established in grace, and depends simply and entirely on the merits of his Redeemer; he is separated from the world, yet eager to do good, and to communicate instruction to those who still continue its slaves; he has already arrived at the full strength and wisdom of manhood, and adorns the doctrine of his Lord and Saviour.

But this is not the usual course. Alas! in how many instances do we observe a slowness of spiritual expansion, which marks how little energy there is in the will we exert to call forth the powers of the soil. Notwithstanding all the advantages bestowed by the Heavenly Husbandman, the means he employs to clear the field of its noxious produce, to manure it, to dress it, and to sow good seed,-how feeble the vegetation! Spring passes away, and summer arrives, yet the progress is

scarcely perceptible. The sun shines, and the rain descends, but the soil is cold and barren. It seems as if the seasons would run their round, and winter, when it arrives, would find the plant as it was left in spring, without fruit, and of stinted growth.

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But still there is encouragement. If the seed has really taken firm root, it will grow. We are "God's husbandry." It is He who "gives the increase." sky may frown, and tempests may blow, but He who said to the winds, " Peace, be still," will not forsake his own. If we have energies which we must exert, we have also strength to help us. He who has commanded us to grow in grace, has also promised that his grace shall be sufficient for us. We know to whom we may freely apply for aid. Christ came, not merely that we might have life, but that we might have it more abundantly." If we are, indeed, under the culture of the Divine Husbandman, He will perfect the good work which He has begun in us. Let us, then, take courage, and open our blossoms to the genial influences which He sheds around us.

FIFTH WEEK-MONDAY.

VEGETABLE LIFE IN THE POLAR REGIONS.

BEFORE leaving the subject of vegetation, it would be improper to omit some account of the state of that department of nature in the polar regions, which, in so many particulars, is remarkably contrasted with the same department under the other extreme of the tropics, and this matter has been so appropriately treated in the ‘Edinburgh Cabinet Library,'* that I shall have little more to do than to curtail that interesting account.

The vegetable world does not, in this dark and outer boundary of the earth, possess such an important and commanding character as the animal, which will after

*Polar Seas and Regions, pp. 79—86.

wards be noticed. The Creator, without departing wholly from the system and laws He has prescribed to Nature could not clothe with vegetable verdure a soil which, for nine months in the year, is frozen as hard as a rock, and covered with snow many feet deep. The seeds of more genial climates, indeed, when sown during the short and bright summer, spring up, and wear for some time a promising appearance, but they are all nipt by the untimely winter. Still Nature, in the northern regions, approaching the Arctic zone, does employ resources suited to the peculiar circumstances of the climate.

The fir, the pine, and other trees of these regions, on being pierced, distil, not the balmy and fragrant gums of Arabia and India, but rich, thick, coarse juices, by which their interior heat has been preserved, and which, when prepared as pitch, tar, and turpentine, serve many valuable purposes of commerce. Through the cherishing influences of these juices, the lakes of North America are bordered with tall dark forests, which afford to more favored countries, an inexhaustible supply of valuable timber. Even their gloomy foliage, while the forests of the south are every autumn strewing the ground with their faded leaves, brave through the winter all the fury of the northern tempest. But, before reaching the inclement sky of the Arctic circle, this magnificent growth decays. Trees, which in a more southerly region, are the pride of the forest, dwindle into meager and stunted shrubs. Beyond this circle, these monarchs of the wood, if they appear, rise only to the height of a few feet, throwing out lateral branches. On Melville peninsula, the dwarf willow, and the Andromeda tetragona, almost alone afford to the Esquimaux a scanty supply of wood for their arms and utensils. Considerable quantities of drift timber are, however, frequently found along the barren shores of the Arctic regions, supposed to have floated from the mouths of the Siberian and other northern rivers.

The plants which abound most in these dreary climates, belong to the tribes of mosses and lichens, the cryptogamia of Linnæus, the acotyledones of Jussieu. The

meager vegetation with which the Arctic surface is covered, thus appears rather as if it were the produce of the rocks than of the soil. Yet the moss and lichen, which form the prevailing features, are not only copiously produced, but possess a nutritious and salutary quality, not displayed in more fortunate regions. One species of lichen (L. rangiferinus) forms, as it were, the main staff of life to the Laplander. It supports the rein-deer, and the rein-deer supports him. The lichen of Iceland, boiled in soup, or even converted into bread, is to the natives a substantial part of their subsistence.* Further north, where the depth of the snow, and the continuance of frost, drive the inhabitants to the shore and to animal food, these vegetables still afford support to the deer, and to the other quadrupeds, which they use as aliment. It is even with a species of moss that they trim their lamps. The fungus, or mushroom, which draws nourishment without the aid of a proper root, and the filices, or ferns, which consist only of one spreading leaf, the middle rib of which forms all their stalk, while their slender roots spread under the ground,—these find the means of existence even in Greenland.

The fucus tribes, comprehending nearly all the varieties of marine botany, grow in vast abundance on the northern shores. These rude plants, which have little or no distinction of stem, root, or leaves, and whose fructification is often included within the substance of the frond, cover the Greenland coast with submarine meadows. The conferva, too, with their numerous filaments, spring up in confusion.

A few plants, not belonging to this imperfect order of vegetation, embellish, during the short summer gleam, the northern fields. Under the bright influence of the sun at this season, indeed, some of the most beautiful among the floral tribe expand their petals. The ranunculus and anemone display their rich and varied tints; several species of saxifrage flourish; and the yellow

*[The rein-deer moss is now called Cenomyce rangiferina, and the Iceland moss goes by the name of Cetraria Islandica.-AM. ED.]

poppy has even a gaudy appearance, so that the poppy genus, which enriches the plains of Hindostan, is among the last to expire under the snows of the pole.

The nobler fruits do not ripen under this ungenial sky; yet shrubs, producing delicious berries, appear on the borders, at least, of the Arctic zone, in great profusion. The northern Indians consider the fruit of a bush, called Aronia ovalis, as the most agreeable food; besides which, they have the strawberry, the raspberry, the red whortleberry, and various others. Some of these are covered beneath the first snows of winter, which are supposed to mellow them, and which, when dissolved by spring, show the berries still hanging on the branches, thus furnishing an early supply of grateful food, while the buds of all the others are bursting, the whole producing a delightful impression, unknown to those who have not witnessed the desolation which immediately preceded.

These bleak regions enjoy a precious boon in the plants which act as an antidote to scurvy, and which defy the most severe cold of the Arctic zone. The coch

léaria, a thick-tufted juicy plant, of extreme fecundity, is emphatically called scurvy-grass; and different species of sorrel were found by Captain Parry flourishing under the snow, at the very furthest limit of vegetation.

Among the other phenomena of the Arctic regions, may be mentioned that singular production which astonished the northern voyagers by the appearance of red snow. The following is the account of this appearance contained in the work which I am at present following. "This singular aspect of a substance, with which we never fail to associate an idea of the purest and most radiant whiteness, has been ascertained to result from an assemblage of very minute vegetable bodies, belonging to the class of cryptogamic plants, and the natural order, called algo. They form the species named protococcus nivalis, by Agardh, which is synonymous with the uredo nivalis of Mr. Bauer. This plant seems by no means peculiar to the Arctic snows, but occurs on limestone rocks on the island of Lismore, in Scotland, as well as among the Alpine and other countries of Europe.'