THE BOG

ON THE SCOTTISH BORDER.

IF you have never suffered from high-mindedness, your experience has been very different from that of Old Humphrey. It is but a comical figure that a man cuts in crossing a moor on horseback, on the Scottish border, if he happens to be confident in his own judgment, and unaccustomed to moorland travel. Too proud to drag along at the heels of his mounted guide, he bravely leaps on to a patch of dark brown heather, which he takes to be hard and dry, when his horse sinks into the treacherous bog up to the girths, and he himself is literally bespattered with mud. Well there is no help for it; and, if he has obtained nothing else that is likely to be of service to him, he has, at least, gained the benefit of experience.

Again proceeding onwards, carefully avoiding every dark brown patch within his view, he makes for a strip of bright green herbage, near the bottom of the hill, nothing doubting that there he

THE BOG ON THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 69

shall find firm footing. Alas! he is now worse off than before. His steed is knee-deep in a plashy moss, occasioned by a spring from the mountain side, and he himself is thrown over his head into the wet grass and yielding mire. Crawling through the mud and water, and thoroughly cured of his self-confidence, he submits his own judgment to that of another. Once more mounting his affrighted steed, he follows his guide with all the humility of a beaten spaniel, and arrives at his journey's end without any additional calamity.

Is there not much in this description akin to the boggling and floundering of a backsliding Christian, when forsaking the guidance of God, and following for a season the devices and desires of his own heart? Oh! what muddy bogs, what miry sloughs, does he get into; and what a spectacle to men and angels does he present! But no sooner is his heart humbled, no sooner does he patiently submit to the guidance of his heavenly Father, than he gets again into the right road: "I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear,

70 THE BOG ON THE SCOTTISH BORDER.

and shall trust in the Lord," Psa. xl. 1-3. He no longer wishes to take the lead, but humbly and gratefully cries out to his Leader and Lord, "Thou shalt be my rock and my refuge," Psa. lxii. 7; "Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory," Psa. lxxiii. 24.

TREES AND PLANTS.

WHAT an interesting page in the volume of creation is that of plants, and shrubs, and trees! I loved to look on it in my childhood, and I delight to linger on it in my age.

Of all plants that flourish in the wild garden of the woods and commons, you will surely not find one more curious and beautiful than the fern. But it is not its curiosity nor its beauty of which I am now going to speak, but a characteristic it possesses in common with many, indeed with most other plants and trees, and one that possibly you may not have observed. When you next meet with a fine fern plant in your country rambles, take out your pencil, and make a rough sketch of the shape and character of the plant as it grows.

Break then one branch from off the stem, and observe how precisely it will bear the leading features of the whole plant: you hold in your hand a complete fern, but of smaller dimensions. Strip off then one feathery spray from the branch, and

72

TREES AND PLANTS.

there is still a complete bush, bearing all the

marks of the parent tree.

Pull off the spray one little sprout of green, and still you have a fern bush in miniature.

The peculiarity I have mentioned may be traced, though not marked quite so strongly, in the holly tree, the fir tree, the sycamore, and also in large trees: the branch, the spray, and the leaf of the oak, the elm, the poplar, and the willow, all bear the image and character of the whole tree.

Christian, canst thou not apply this, in some way or other, to thine own advantage? Is it not written, that He whom thou servest is the Head, and his people are the members? That he is the true Vine, and his followers are the branches? Pursue for a moment this thought.

Perhaps it may be found that the church of Christ, the whole family of God, bears Christ's image, not as a body only, but as individuals; and that as a single leaf bears the likeness of the branch, and the branch the likeness of the tree, so a single member of the church bears the image of the whole church, and the whole church the image of Christ. Thus, then, Christ is the Tree, the church is a branch; a Christian congregation or family is a spray, and a disciple of Jesus is a leaf.