DEVOTED TO AGBICTJIiTUHE, HOKTICDXjTTIRE. AND KIlinDBED AETS. 



NEW SERIES. Boston, December, 1807. VOL. L— NO. 12. 



R. P. EATON & CO., Pl'bushers, 

 Office, 34 Merchants' How. 



MONTHLY. 



SIMON BROWN, ) Editors 

 S. FLETCHER, | -Editors. 



DECEMBER, LAST OF THE MOUTHS. 



He come-- 1 The tart'y winter comes I 

 I lienr liU fjot^tcps Uir- ^ugh the nights! 

 I bear Ins viuiL'iiard from ihj liciglits 



Alarch through ihe piues with muffled drums. 



OME persons think 

 that this last of the 

 vfA ^\^o months is one of 

 sheer destruction — 

 of cold, and gloom, 

 and decay of all 

 that was beautiful 

 through the glow- 

 /_i"g portions of the 

 year; that Decem- 

 ber and Death are 

 kindred. But it is 

 not so. "There is 

 more dying in sum- 

 mer time, if we only 

 knew it, than there 

 is in all the year 

 besides. There is 

 /l.^N^^I^C- no dying now; the 

 l7^/0Kfm|l hopeofunotherMay 



(y'lll ""^^^^f ^^ locked at last in 



V/ ^ Nature's heart, a 



deep and great happiness. Winter has come 

 and the ro^es are safe for June." 



The answer of the old Friar to the weeping 

 maiden was a happy one : — 



"Wliy art thou weeping, maiden mild?" 

 Said u Friar grey to a lonely child. 



"I weep for the swallows gone over the sea, 

 Who used to come and be fed by me." 



' Then dry your tears," said the Friar grey, 

 They will ail come back in the month of Ulay." 



So they will, and with them ten thousand 

 beautiful things that the casual observer thought 

 were dead and buried. The world is as full 

 of life and animation as ever. Some of it 

 may have changed form before us. Some of 

 the birds — not all — have left us to animate 

 other localities. They are not dead, but true 

 to their instincts, like the Friar's swallows, 

 will return to us another May. The hum and 

 activity of insects are not seen and heard 

 around us as in "the leafy month of June," 

 but life is not extinct in them but lies buried 

 in unnumbered forms, dormant in the earth, or 

 under the bark of trees ; ineggs,protectedbythe 

 skill of those that produced them, beyond any- 

 thing which the art of man has ever devised ; 

 in cocoons, impervious alike to heat, moisture 

 and cold, and in countless numbers on the 

 branches of our fruit trees, and in numerous 

 other forms. 



Life is still everywhere about us in Decem- 

 ber. See how the plump buds glisten on the 

 twigs of the trees, — the germs of future life 

 and activity. In them lies folded the embryo 

 that shall expand into the most beautiful and 

 fragrant forms, — but not till their appropriate 

 season has come, when softening rains and 

 warming suns shall bring them forth in beau- 

 teous vigor, much — it seems to us, — as the 

 resurrection of the just shall take place ! See 

 the cones upon the white pines, pendant, 



