116 JULY. 



flowers, leaving their places to be supplied with new 

 friends, perhaps equally lovely and worthy of our affec- 

 tions, but whose even greater loveliness and worth will 

 never comfort us for the loss of those who have departed. 

 Like flowers, they smiled upon us for a brief season, and, 

 like flowers, they perished after remaining with us but 

 to teach us how to love and how to mourn. The birds 

 likewise sojourn with us only long enough to remind us 

 of the joy of their presence and to afford us an occasion 

 of sorrow when they leave us. We have hardly grown 

 familiar with their songs ere they become silent and pre- 

 pare for their annual migration. They are like those 

 agreeable companions among our friends who are ever 

 roaming about the world on errands of duty or pleasure, 

 and who only divide with us that pleasant intercourse 

 which they share with other friendly circles in different 

 parts of the earth. 



It is now midsummer. Already do we perceive the 

 lengthening of the nights and the shortening of the sun's 

 diurnal orbit. We are reminded by the first observation 

 of this change that summer is rapidly passing away ; and 

 we think upon it with a painful sense of the mutability 

 of the seasons. But let us not lament that Nature has 

 ordained these alternations ; for though there is no change 

 that does not bring with it some lingering sorrows over 

 the past, yet may it not be that these vicissitudes are the 

 true sources of that happiness which we attribute only to 

 the immediate causes of pleasure ? Every month, while 

 it sadly reminds us of the departed joys and beauties of 

 the last, brings with it a recompense in bounties and bless- 

 ings which the preceding month could not afford. While 

 rejoicing, therefore, amid the voluptuous delights of sum- 

 mer, we will not regret that we cannot live forever among 

 enervating luxuries. With the aid of temperance and 

 virtue, all seasons as they come may be made equal 



