that in the hour of death we have such a friend to stand by our bedside.

And, Oh! what would the chamber of death be without the presence of Christ? If with his presence it borders on heaven, and if the dying Christian is in a flood of light that comes down from the throne of God, his absence must make it border on the verge of hell, and place the dying sinner in that deep darkness of spirit that is the foreshadowing of his eternal death.

Oh, blessed promise to the Christian, that when needed, Christ is near. When human aid fails, when the strong man becomes weak and timid as a child; in that hour when the teachings of philosophy cannot save, when kind words of friends cannot comfort, then Christ is with us.

I have read that when the pure minded Herder, the German poet and philosopher, was dying, his son offered him wine to sustain his sinking frame. The dying man turned and said, "Put away the wine and give me a great thought!"

I would have whispered in his ear, He that believeth on me shall never die;" or the promise to the disciples, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end."

Look at the results of such communion through life with Christ. He who has Christ for his daily companion, to accompany him in all the walks of life, must necessarily become like Christ become joined to the Lord. You will mark such a Christian, not by his loud professions of

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zeal, but by the purity of his life, the quietness of his spirit, in a word, by his having that mind in him that was in Christ Jesus. The soul is becoming prepared for communion with a higher order of beings. The grossness of its earthly nature is consumed. It is seeking higher sources of enjoyment than the world has to offer, setting its affections on things above, where Christ sitteth.

And if such are the results of the presence of Christ when so imperfectly revealed to us, when seen in the glass darkly, what will they be when we see them face to face! "Neither does it yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he who is our life shall appear, we shall be like him."

THE SONG OF WINTER.

BY THE EDITOR.

ONWARD! I come! My steed the storm ;
A snowy robe invests my form;
A glittering girdle binds me round;
My voice the howling tempests sound.

In jewelled pendants on my breast,
My hoary locks in beauty rest;
Aslant the shivering sunbeams play
On my chilled brow, the scanty day,

And haste to hide their blushing light,
From the drear scene, the live-long night.

They call me tyrant - say I reign
With icy hand o'er earth and main,

That with relentless feet, I tread
Upon the grave of nature's dead.
Not so! I'm nature's truest friend,
Though seeming stern the aid I lend.

No flowers would blush in opening Spring, Without my snowy covering;

No verdant leaves upon the trees

No harvests waving in the breeze

Hope would be lost in boding fears,
Unless I "ruled the inverted years."
Nature all wearied with her tasks,
Like toiling man, some respite asks,

And sinks into a grateful rest,
With all her children on her breast.
Her verdant robe the fierce winds tear,
And leave her sleeping bosom bare.

The naked trees imploringly,
Stretch out their shiv'ring arms to me;
Of spotless white, a robe I form,
To shade earth from the beating storm;

Cover the seed and slumbering flower,
From bitter frost's unsparing power;
Lock the brooks with a silver key -
Safe in my care the swimmers be.

O'er the trees my mantle I throw,
Woven throughout of purest snow;
Their arms I hang with jewels fair,
Resplendent in the frosty air.

On glassy lake, in starry night,
The skaters shout in wild delight;
Or round the bright and cheerful hearth,
Partake the purest sweets of earth.

What season of the circling four,
Of richest blessings offers more?
Call me not then, a tyrant king,
As on I come with fleecy wing.