Now the kind, the gentle showers
Water all the plains around;
Springing grass and painted flowers
In the smiling meads abound.

Now their vernal dress assuming,
Robes of green adorn the trees,
Odours now, the air perfuming,
Sweetly swell the balmy breeze.

Praise to Thee, thou great Creator,
Praise be thine from every tongue;
Join, my soul, with every creature,
Join the universal song.

For ten thousand blessings given;
For the richest gifts bestow'd;

Sound his praise through earth and heaven,
Sound Jehovah's praise aloud.

Fawcett.

LESSON III.

MORNING WALK.

Do you see those pretty drops of water which are standing on the grass, and hanging on the leaves of the trees, and shining like glass? They are called dew.

See with what a soft light the sun shines! It is like a plate of silver. You can bear to look at it now without its hurting your eyes. Why is the light of the sun so mild now? It is, because

C

and have no fear of death. They do not know that they must die for the use of man.

Well! now it is time to return home to breakfast, for I think that dear mama is waiting for

us.

LESSON IV.

BREAKFAST.

Now, my dear children, that we have as usual read a chapter in the Bible, that best of books, and offered our thanks to our Heavenly Father for His goodness, let us sit round the table to breakfast. Your good mama has, I see, every thing in readiness for us. She is very

kind to you, and I am sure that you love her dearly, and will do all you can to give her pleasure, and, the only way by which you can give her pleasure, is by being good, and behaving well.

Tell mama where you have been, and what you have seen this morning, and what you have heard me say to you.

You have a fine appetite, I suppose, after your walk, and after having taken the fresh air.

Will you have bread and milk, or bread and butter, and milk and water?

Mama will, perhaps, give you a little tea, and a little sugar, with your milk and water.

We may use the good things which God affords us, but let us use them with moderation and thankfulness.

If we take too much of them, we then abuse instead of using them, and they will by that means become hurtful to us; and it would be ungrateful and wrong to abuse the gifts of our kindest friend.

Oh! Ketty has just brought in the urn. Do you see that smoke which comes from its top? It is vapour, raised from the water by heat. The heat from the red hot iron, which is in a case in the middle of the urn, gets into the water round it, and turns a part of it into air, as I told you the sun does the dew.

I hold this glass tumbler in the vapour, and you see that part of it which goes into the tumbler changed by the cold into water again, and trickling down the sides of the glass; just as the cold evening air changes into dew, the vapours which had been raised by the heat of the sun. The changing of the water into steam is called evaporation, and the turning of the steam into water, is called condensation. Can you remember those two hard words, Evaporation, Condensation.

The tea which mama is putting into the tea pot, is the leaves of a plant that comes from China, a country in Asia, very, very far from us. The Chinese pick and dry those leaves, and pack them up close in chests, and ships from Europe go to fetch them, You see that your mother turns the cock of the urn, and lets some of the boiling water run from it upon the tea, in the teapot. That boiling water, after a little while, extracts, or draws out from the tea, its taste and smell, its flavour, and then it is a very

nice drink, when a little milk or cream, and a little sugar, are added to it.

When boiling hot water is poured in that manner upon any leaves or flowers, so as to extract the flavour, it is called an infusion. If the tea had been boiled in the water, instead of the water already boiling being poured on the tea, it would have been a decoction.

Sugar is the inside or pith of a large reed that grows in the American islands, and other warm countries. When ripe, the plants are gathered, and pressed between metal rollers. The juice which is squeezed out from the stems, is boiled and cleaned by various methods; and when dry, it comes into the form of brown sugar, and is so brought to Europe in large barrels. Some of it is used in that state, and some of it is still more refined, and made white and shining, as you see it there upon the table.

A little of it mixed with other food is very wholesome.

Do you know how that butter is made, which you like so well with your bread? I will tell you. When the milk, taken from the cows, has stood for some time, the cream, or more oily part, which, at first, is mixed with the milk, rises to the top of it, because it is lighter. It is, then, skimmed off with a ladle, and put into a pan by itself; and when there is enough cream, it is churned into butter in this manner: It is poured into a vessel like a barrel, fixed on a stand, and having a winch or handle by which it may be turned round, or into a kind of covered pail, having a long stick to pull up and down through

a hole in its cover. By the quick turning of the barrel, or by the movement of the stick in the pail, the cream is, after some time, changed into butter.

There is another nice thing made of milk, which you love as well as you do butter. What do you think that is? It is cheese.

A sour juice called rennet, taken from the stomach of calves, is mixed with the milk, which makes one part of it thicker and the other thinner. The thickened part is called curd, and that part of the milk which is made thinner is called whey. The curd is taken from the whey, and put into large round bags of coarse cloth, and pressed with very heavy weights, in order to squeeze out, as much as possible, of the whey or watery part of the milk. The curd is then turned out of the bags on a board having many holes in it, and left, for awhile, to drain and dry. the cheeses are finished. They become hard, you know, and may be carried to a distance, and may be kept a long time. So they are very useful and convenient, as well as nourishing. The rind is the same as the inside of the cheese; but being exposed to the air, it becomes harder and more dry.

Thus

Bread is made of the seed of some kinds of grass, called wheat, or barley, or oats. The seeds, or grains, are ground into flour or meal, which is well mixed, or kneaded, with a proper quantity of water, and is then called dough; to this is added a small portion of a bitter substance called barm or yeast, or a little sour paste; this makes an air in it, which separates and raises its