KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 

365 

STANZAS 
OCCASIONED BY THE VISIT OF AN OLD FRIEND. 
BY A. SMITH. 
Pledge me a health, my ‘‘ leal old friend,”’ 
And drink to other days; 
Our friendship is no summer flower 
That speedily decays. 
Then fill, fill up the sparkling glass, 
Raise to thy lips once more; 
And gaily let the moments pass 
As aye they pass’d of yore. 
Give me a hand, old friend and true, 
My own may warmly clasp; 
A long-lost feeling to renew 
In friendship’s fervent grasp. 
Full seven long years have glided by 
Since we were friends together ; 
Yet all unchang’d art thou and I, 
Whate’er the wind or weather. 
From friendship’s list drops many a name 
Each swiftly circling year; 
A few have pass’d the “‘ silent bourne,” — 
We miss their faces here ; 
Whilst some, and happier be their lot, 
Have cross’d the deep, blue sea; 
And some, perhaps, have half forgot 
My quondam friend and me. 
But ne’er thee mind, my ‘‘leal old friend,” 
But “ gie’s a hand of thine;”’ 
And from thine inmost heart repeat 
This wish, this hope of mine : 
Whate’er our future lot may be, 
Tho’ distant, long and far,— 
We ne’er may prove, such friends as we, 
Less friendly than we are! 
THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. 

AT ONE TIME we see before us, extracted from 
a solid mass of rock, a model of the softest, most 
delicate, and least easily preserved parts of animal 
structure. At another time, the actual bones, 
teeth, and scales, scarcely altered from their con- 
dition in the living animal. The very skin, the 
eye, the footprints of the creature in the mud, and 
the food that it was digesting at the time of its 
death, together with those portions that had been 
separated by the digestive organs as containing no 
further nutriment—all are as clearly exhibited as if 
death had within a few hours performed its com- 
mission, and all had been instantly prepared for 
our investigation. We find the remains of fish so 
perfect that not one bone, not one scale, is out of 
place or wanting; and others, in the same bed, 
presenting the outline of a skeleton, or various 
disjointed fragments. We have insects, the deli- 
cate nervures of whose wings are permanently im- 
pressed upon the stone in which they are 
embedded; and we see occasionally shells, not 
merely retaining their shape, but perpetuating 
their very colors—the most fleeting, one would 
think, of all characteristics ; and offering evidence 
of the brilliancy and beauty of creation at a time 
when man was not yet an inhabitant of the earth, 
and there seemed no one to appreciate beauties 
which we are perhaps too apt to think were called 
into existence for our admiration. 


FOOD FOR THOUGHT. 
OUR MORAL NATURE. 

THouGH ouR Mora NATURE possesses 
no restorative principle in itself, yet the deli- 
cate susceptibilities which distinguish the 
earlier periods of our experience plainly in- 
dicate our original fitness for higher ends than 
the scenes of this world afford us. The 
better feelings of childhood and youth lose 
their bloom and loveliness by the necessary 
associations of maturer years. 
Earth is not a fit place to train us in per- 
fect keeping with our capacity of enjoy- 
ment. ‘The functional and criminal are too 
nearly connected, in consequence of here- 
ditary corruption. We feel, as we advance 
in life, that neither our positions nor our 
pursuits are quite compatible with freedom of 
spirit; since we are obliged to calculate on 
consequences, instead of obeying impulses— 
simply because we are not pure. 
Who desires not to regain the acute and 
delightful sensibilities of opening existence, 
when the passions, harmonising together, 
awoke responsively to every touch of tender- 
ness andlove? The past, however, returns 
not with a wish; but yet, all that was good 
in it shall return to be lost no more. The 
finer spirits (to use a figure) have indeed 
evaporated in the more heated atmosphere 
of manhood. Nevertheless, there is pro- 
bably in the heart of every human being a 
portion of created excellence, which can 
never wholly waste away; there is always 
some germinal atom—some pure element— 
—some light within us—which has a natural 
affinity for all that is lovely and truthful, 
both as regards affection and intellect ; which, 
in a proper atmosphere, would expand into 
glory by commerce with the skies. 
But the selfishness which, like a petrifac- 
tion, or rather iciness, hardens about our 
hearts while engaged in worldly pursuits, 
cannot be broken or melted off but by some 
violence to our habits. It is necessary for 
us to be brought into the helplessness of 
childhood, to feel again a child-like spirit. 
The spring of health which, bounding from 
our eager bosoms, sustained our more selfish 
passions in their vigor, must be diminished 
in its gushings. Disease must reduce us to 
the extremity of weakness, ere the acquired 
wilfulness of our wayward souls quite yields 
attention to the still-small voice that whispers 
the remembrance of a mother’s loving care, 
or a father’s earnest prayers; and thus brings 
back upon our memories the thousand lovely 
visions that haunted the heart of our child- 
hood. 
It is in this way, if ever, that we get a re- 
trospective glance at the love of Him that 
originated our being, and again invites us to 




