This beautiful, mysterious, and to arctic regions, most beneficent phenomenon, we presume is in its ordinary phasis, tolerably well known to our readers. For several months past it has been generally witnessed over all Britain, though for the most part its radiance is confined to more northerly latitudes. In Iceland and Greenland, and the frozen regions of Lapland and Siberia, it is seen in its most attractive and brilliant forms. Night after night it there supplies the place of the absent moon, assisting the benighted hunter in his dreary labors, or lighting the traveller in his otherwise cheerless and dangerous journey towards his home.

In the Shetland islands, though in a less degree, this surprising meteor may be almost constantly observed in the winter months. Sometimes it is of the colour of pale star-light, flashing in irregular streaks, from the horizon to the zenith, chiefly in the direction of N.E. to S.W. Sometimes black masses of clouds are seen to rest just over the hills, behind which, in strong contrast, are piled up long strata as of bright moonlight, constantly shifting their position, now fading away at one point, and bursting out in redoubled lustre in another. Then as the spectator muses and gazes, untiringly watching the panoramic phantasmagoria, the whole sky is suddenly illuminated with corruscations of every varied color, which as suddenly sink away, and all is for a short time the "blackness of darkness." During the present season we have seen it in these islands, in the form of a belt, or luminous arch, of a pale blue color, spanning the whole heavens, like a perfect rainbow, the inclosed semicircle being one dense mass of deepest black. At another time, it appeared as if the entire south-eastern sky were the reflection of some fearful wide-spread conflagration; and this continued stationary for several hours. Again, frequently, when the atmosphere was cloudy, the heavens were overspread with a serene and steady light, such as a full moon would give, and causing dark objects to cast a very perceptible shadow, so that it could hardly be credited, but yet was undoubted, that the moon was in her last quarter, and not a single star visible. The state of the weather was various during all these appearances, sometimes it was calm and frosty, sometimes blowing a gale from any quarter, sometimes clear, and at others quite cloudy.

There is another fact connected with this beauteous pheno

menon, which has been often doubted, but which the present writer can vouch for, and this is, that a singular noise is sometimes heard at the time of its most vivid and changeful representations. It is a low fanning sound, altogether unlike any other, except it might be the " sweep" that the swift wing of a small bird may be imagined to give. But then it seemed to be now close to the observer's feet, and now rustling over his head; so that while he starts at the proximity of an occurrence so unusual, it might be pardonable if an undefined feeling of awe, were to steal over the anxious listener. Twice within the last few years has this been distinctly experienced by the writer, when abroad on a still, clear midnight, in absolute solitude, engaged in watching the flashing corruscations of the Aurora. On one of these occasions also, a very faint crackling was heard, as if some grass shoots were being burnt by fire, or as it were the echo of footsteps on snow, where no snow was, or footsteps could be near. Several intelligent seamen, who have made many voyages to Hudson's Bay, have assured us, they had heard repeatedly, sounds precisely similar in the same circumstances.

We have before remarked, that the ignorant peasantry of North Britain, universally regard the “ pretty dancers" with superstitious fears. It is believed to foreshadow political or atmospheric commotions. With respect to the latter, it is certain, that in Shetland, whenever the Aurora is particularly brilliant and constant, stormy unsettled weather is always to be expected. This season the prognostic has been fulfilled to the letter. The winter has been one unvaried succession of sudden and violent storms, often accompanied by much thunder and lightning.

In so far as the Aurora Borealis may be prophetical of political convulsions, of course our opinion must be more cautiously expressed. In the former case, changes in the atmosphere may be intimately connected with its appearances. With the present, so far as we can see, it can have no possible association. But yet, had we observed the same phenomena last season that we have during the present one, we should at least have regarded it as a curious coincidence. And who dares say, that though Britain hugs herself in imagined safety, while

thrones and constitutions are trembling around her, her time may not yet be coming. Let us be humble and prayerful. Our Lord himself conjoined the prediction of "wars and rumours of wars," with "signs in the heavens above, and on the earth beneath." Humility and faith in things beyond our comprehension, are something better than self-sufficient, ignorant scepticism.

And now again we enquire, what is this Aurora Borealis, so lovely, so changeful, so unique, “which cheers, but warms not?" Whence its source or cause?

"Some modification of the electric phenomena!" This is all science can say. We can in some measure direct and control the lightning, as it bursts from the overcharged clouds. We have impressed into our service the galvanic battery, so as to telegraph our thoughts with almost the lightning's own speed, and to produce a steady light, rivalling that of the sun. Yet of the nature of this mysterious and even terrific agent, of its mode of operation, and of its effects on life and vegetation, we know absolutely nothing. Some celebrated astronomers spent a summer thirty years ago in Shetland, for the purpose of making scientific observations on the pendulum. The Aurora Borealis attracted much of their attention, though it was not the season favorable for observing it. But they have never ceased to desire, and collect information regarding its different phenomena. And still they are as much in the dark as everstill any plausible theory respecting it, is a desideratum in science. Will this teach those who are called "savans," humility? Will it suggest to them, that the loftiness of science ought ever to bend in lowly abasement, before the might and majesty of Him, who wings the lightning, and wields the thunderbolt? And may each reader be hence reminded how many things there are in heaven and earth, that cannot be solved by our philosophy, and that the modesty of the immortal Newton is not less admirable than his genius, when he said, "that the more he knew, the more he found he had still to learn, and that he was but as a child gathering pebbles on the shore, while the ocean of undiscovered truth lay stretched out before him."

Shetland.

E.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT WORDS.

WORDS are very wonderful things. They help us to see and realize objects hundreds and thousands of miles away. Lord Rosse has at vast cost, and after prodigious and protracted labor, constructed a telescope between fifty and sixty feet long and seven feet wide, by means of which he may learn something more about the heavenly bodies than has hitherto been known. But this wonderful tube, though it carries the eye millions of millions of miles into the regions of space, is not to be compared with that most common, but most curious of all things-a word.

For words can transport us to worlds unseen and eternal. They can tell us of the ineffable glories of heaven; they can startle us by picturing the awful realities of hell; they can bring down God to our poor finite capacities, and can carry up our minds to the very throne of the universe itself. And all this they can do by a plain, unvarnished statement of facts, independently of any of the graces of oratory, or the helps derivable from a finished elocution. But if these should be added, as they sometimes are, their power or pathos may be heightened to a wonderful extent. It is recorded of Whitefield that he could give such varied emphasis to one and the same word, as to produce either a smile or tear at will from any of his auditory.

Words are very graphic things. They draw pictures often more cleverly and strikingly than the pencil of the artist. Children are proverbially fond of pictures, but they are still fonder of words, when those words are suited to their small capacities. When a father “"talks pictures" to his child, that child is more deeply interested than he would be in looking at a mere collection of prints or drawings. He is speaking, perhaps, of a walk in the country, over the wild moor or along the deep road or through the park with its old oaks and crooked thorns and silverstemmed birches, and how he waded knee-deep in fern and withered leaves towards the herd of deer that lay in some sheltered bottom far off from the beaten way; and the child sees them all just as vividly as if they were placed before him in a painting.

Words, too, are very affecting things. They go down into people's hearts, and make them feel. That good man, Richard Cecil, was a reprobate in his younger days, but even in his hours of sin and heedlessness he could not forget his pious mother's

words. "They hampered,” as he said himself, "the wheels of evil." He could not get on so fast as his own wicked heart would otherwise have led him, but felt, when he appeared most headstrong and determined in his foolish pursuit of worldly lusts, as if he were pulling against the stream. A mother's words were stronger than "the strong man armed,” taking from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and dividing the spoil.

Words are very suggestive things. They get into the head and set it thinking. That little word "Try" has made more fortunes than all the gold of California will ever do. It has set people contriving, and found them work for a whole life.

"Tis a lesson you should heed,

If at first you don't succeed,

Try, try, try again!"

When the queen opens Parliament she makes a speech to both houses. And all the country reads it, or hears it read, and builds a thousand theories on every paragraph. Almost every word in it becomes the seed of other words, growing up into the "largest of all trees," till it darkens still more the already murky atmosphere of party politics.

Words are very instructive things. What should we be worth without them? The child learns much more before it can read than afterwards; and all this knowledge it acquires through the medium of words. This is indeed the case throughout our whole lives, the transition being merely from words spoken to written words. Something to be sure we pick up from observation, but even in facts thus ascertained, we require words for their due development and exposition.

Words are very important things. We may feel and work through their influence, but after all we may not feel rightly, and not work as God would have us work. But "right words" will set all right; and it is therefore of first-rate importance that we should find these And we know where to look for them, for "the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes."

If human words then be such wonderful things, how much more wonderful must be God's words--"the Words of the Book of this Prophecy," as they are called in that epitome given of their nature in the closing chapter of the Bible.