outward. They will perchance crack their dry joints at one another and
call it a spiritual communication.

But to confine ourselves to the Maples. What if we were to take half as
much pains in protecting them as we do in setting them out,--not
stupidly tie our horses to our dahlia-stems?

What meant the fathers by establishing this _perfectly living_
institution before the church,--this institution which needs no
repairing nor repainting, which is continually enlarged and repaired by
its growth? Surely they

"Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Themselves from God they could not free;
They planted better than they knew;--
The conscious trees to beauty grew."

Verily these Maples are cheap preachers, permanently settled, which
preach their half-century, and century, ay, and century-and-a-half
sermons, with constantly increasing unction and influence, ministering
to many generations of men; and the least we can do is to supply them
with suitable colleagues as they grow infirm.

THE SCARLET OAK.

Belonging to a genus which is remarkable for the beautiful form of its
leaves, I suspect that some Scarlet-Oak leaves surpass those of all
other Oaks in the rich and wild beauty of their outlines. I judge from
an acquaintance with twelve species, and from drawings which I have seen
of many others.