DAISIES.

These are the two great events, its birth and death, related as never daisy's history was sketched before. Poets have generally taken its prime for their theme, and found innumerable images in the changeless little plant.

It is worthy of remark how Christianity has raised and glorified the common things of creation in a way of which heathen poet and philosopher never dreamed. Our Lord Jesus Christ set the example of making nature a lesson-book, a gallery of emblems, a volume of parables. He showed how to rise to the Unseen from the seen,-how to elicit the spiritual from the material. His servants have followed him since in this matter, and sought illustrations for the kingdom of grace from the kingdom of nature. We have quoted already Dr. Mason Good's poem, where our little flower is pressed into this divine service:

"Not worlds on worlds in phalanx deep,

Need we to prove that God is here:

The daisy, fresh from nature's sleep,

Tells of His hand in lines as clear."

Voice has been given to the daisy by one "oppressed foreboding heart," and with his words we may fittingly conclude:

"Although a mean unheeded flower,

My daily wants are all supplied:
And He who brought me to this hour
Will still provide.

The light and dew, the sun and rain,
Are hourly sent to foster me;
And fearest thou God will not deign
To think on thee?'

"Ashamed I rose, rebuked my care,

And blessed the teacher of the sod,
Resolved to chase away despair,

And trust in God."

THE RETURN OF THE SWALLOW.

HERE is probably no incident in animal economy so universally welcome as the advent of the swallow to our changeful clime. All ranks are ready to hail it-to rejoice in it. And, assuredly, not without swallow is the harbinger of

good cause, for the

Spring, and is associated in all our emotions with the blooming childhood of the year. True, "one swallow does not make a Summer;" but it tells us that Spring is close at hand, and the last cold clouds of Winter are departing, to be lost amid the dark shadows of the past. Every season we expect and look for them, yet whence they come, and how they come, are yet uncertain riddles. For they do not arrive in numerous bodies, as if a common instinct impelled them all at once. At first a very small detachment shows itself, as if of an army throwing out its vedettes; and then continually increasing numbers appear, till the occupation of the country by the whole is established. We reflect a little, and we ask how this can be? They have no mariner's compass to guide them over the sea, yet their course is certain, per mare, per terras. For unquestionably the same birds find their way to the same resorts through successive years. Are the earliest visitors sent forward to reconnoitreto spy the land, and the condition of the insect commissariat, and do any of the scouts return with the necessary intelligence to guide the main body? Who is their leader, who their pilot? I have occasionally observed an absence for a day or two of several or all the first comers, and then the arrival of the usual hundreds or thousands that skirr the country round.

And forthwith the busy scene of life begins. An admirable architecture, adapted to every situation and circumstance, is immediately and most zealously resorted to; uniform indeed, and with little variety or ornamentation, but wonderfully compact, and fitted for its intended uses.