OUR IRISH SONG BIRDS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



are two books of God He Himself is the 

 1 author of both the Book of Nature and the Book 

 of Revelation. It is with the former of these my con- 

 cern lies in these simple pages. And it has always 

 seemed to me that it is most important that the atten- 

 tion of the young in particular should be directed to 

 God's wonders in the heavens above, where night -after 

 night the solemn and glittering pageant, so little heeded 

 in its silent progress, passes across the sky and to His 

 creatures in earth and sea, full of beauty, full of instruc- 

 tion, as are all His works "sought out by all them 

 that take pleasure therein " pronounced by their Divine 

 Creator Himself to be "very good." 



Our children should be taught to study God's works 

 in the open fields, or on the breezy hill to admire His 

 wisdom and goodness, equally visible in the least as in 

 the greatest of His creatures, and thus acquire habits of 

 observation and research which may prove valuable and 

 pleasurable in the extreme. 



B 



