INTEMPERANCE.

THERE is no vice which more debilitates and degrades a human being than Intemperance. While the virtuous eat and drink to live, the intemperate live to eat and drink. In the horrid sin of excess, their health, property, reason, and peace, are swallowed up and lost. How many thousands, alas! around us, are ruined by Intemperance? Let youth then, who would shun the paths of destruction, stand constantly on their guard, against the baits and snares of luxury.

Alexander, having invited several of his friends and general officers to supper, proposed a crown as a reward for him who should drink most. He who conquered on this occasion was Promachus, who swallowed fourteen measures of wine, that is, about eighteen or twenty pints. After receiving the prize, which was worth about a thousand crowns, he survived his victory but three days. Of the rest of the guests, forty died of their intemperate drinking.

The native Indians of America are known to be remarkably addicted to intoxicating liquors; but there are some instances, in which the power of religion has gained the better of this propensity. The preaching of Brainerd turned many to a sober life who before had been the worst slaves of Intemperance. We have a more recent example in Skenandon, the famous Oneida chief, who died March 11, 1816, at the advanced age of one hundred and ten years! In the revolutionary contest he joined the Americans, and rendered them eminent services. Being present at the treaty made in 1755, at Albany, in the evening he was excessively intoxicated, and next morning found himself in the

street, stripped of all his ornaments, and even of his clothes. Ashamed of this self-degradation he resolved that he would never again give himself up to the power of strong water. This resolution was strengthened and confirmed by the benevolent instructions of the late Rev. Mr. Hirland, Missionary to his tribe. Skenandon lived more than sixty years after, and died full of Christian hope.

He was long distinguished among the Indians by the appellation of "the white man's friend." In extreme old age he became blind. The expression used by him a short time before his departure, is peculiarly characteristic of the once wild woodland chief, and that which follows not less of the simplicity of the Christian. "I am an aged tree. The winds of more than a hundred winters have whistled through my branches. I am dead at top. The generation to which I belonged have run away and left me. Why I live the great good Spirit only knows; pray to my Jesus that I may have patience to wait for my appointed time to die."

SINGULAR ANECDOTE.-Birds often choose singular places for building their nests, but none more singular than that we are about to record. A coal vessel from Newcastle, or some place in that neighbourhood, having lately been at Nairn, two sparrows were frequently seen to light on the top of the vessel's mast; and the crew, after being several hours at sea, were much astonished at seeing the two creatures following the sloop. After being exhausted with flying, they perched themselves on the top of the mast. Crumbs

of bread were thrown on the deck with a view of alluring them down; but they resisted the temptation for a considerable time. Pressed by hunger, they at last

descended to the deck, and ate up with avidity the fragments that were scattered before them. Having eaten a hearty meal, the feathered voyagers returned to the topmast. By the time the vessel was two days at sea, they descended from their high altitude once on an average every three hours, when, after partaking of some food, they regularly returned to their elevated quarters. Matters proceeded in this way during the voyage, which was a long one, the crew all the while being alike ignorant of what had attracted them in the first instance to the vessel, and what could have induced them to put to sea. On reaching the river Tyne, the matter was explained. A nest, with four young ones in it, was discovered at the topmast. The nest, with its young inmates, was taken down by the sailors, and being put, in the presence of the old birds into a crevice of an old house on the banks of the river, the unfledged creatures were left to parental care, which they doubtless received.

THE LEAF.

SEE the leaves around us falling,
Dry and wither'd to the ground;
Thus to thoughtless mortals calling,
In a sad and solemn sound:

Sons of Adam, once in Eden,
Blighted when like us he fell,
Hear the lecture we are reading,
'Tis, alas! the truth we tell.

Virgins, much, too much presuming
On your boasted white and red,
View us, late in beauty blooming,
Number'd now among the dead.

Griping misers, nightly waking,
See the end of all your care;
Fled on wings of our own making,
We have left our owners bare.

Sons of honour, fed on praises,
Flutt'ring high in fancied worth,
Lo! the fickle air that raises,
Brings us down to parent earth.

Learned sophs, in systems jaded,
Who for new ones daily call,
Cease, at length, by us persuaded,
Ev'ry leaf must have its fall.

Youths, though yet no losses grieve you
Gay in health and manly grace,
Let not cloudless skies deceive you,
Summer gives to Autumn place.

Venerable sires, grown hoary,

Hither turn th' unwilling eye,
Think, amidst your falling glory,
Autumn tells a Winter nigh.

Yearly in our course returning,
Messengers of shortest stay,
Thus we preach, the truth concerning,
"Heaven and earth shall pass away."

On the Tree of Life eternal,

Man, let all thy hope be staid,

Which alone, for ever vernal

Bears a leaf that shall not fade.

THE DATE PALM.

It is one of the sweetest employments in which the human mind can engage, to turn itself attentively to the beauties which spring beneath our feet in the garden and in the field, and turn an attentive glance to those giants of vegetable life which supply to man so many of the comforts and luxuries of life. Botany is itself one of the most beautiful-perhaps the most beautiful of the sciences; in its every feature are the lineaments of loveliness; the sweetest and softest petal of the brightest, and most beauteous flower is lovely; and the bark of the old tree, if examined through a glass, will shew a loveliness too. Botany may be studied in all seasons, and in all seasons seen to advantage: in winter, when the crocus and the snowdrop smile in their meek brilliancy, amidst snows and chilling storms; in summer, when the rose and the lily court every eye; in spring, when buds and blossoms, bright as stars, and tremulous as tears," sparkle on every tree; and in autumn, when the brown russet tints all the foliage, and breathes a deepening solemnity emblematic of the season.

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The Date Palm, though some of the family are more majestic, is still a beautiful tree; the stem of it shoots up in one cylindrical column to the height of fifty or sixty feet, without branch or division, and with the same thickness throughout its whole length; when it attains this height its diameter is from a foot to eighteen inches. From the summit of this majestic trunk it throws out a magnificent crown of leaves, which are equally graceful in their formation and their arrangement. The main stems of these leaves are