I HAVE seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upward, singing as he rises, and in hopes to get to heaven and climb above the clouds; but the poor bird was beaten back with the singing of an eastern wind, and his motion, made irregular and inconstant, descended more at every breath of the tempest than all the vibrations of his wings served to exalt him, till the little creature was forced to sit down and pant, and stay till the storm was overpast; and then it made a prosperous flight; for then it did rise and sing, as if it had learned music and motion from some angel as he passed sometime through the air. So is the prayer of any good man when agitated by any passion. He fain would speak of God, and his words are of this earth, earthy; he would look to his Master, but he could not help seeing also that which distracted him, and a tempest was raised and the man overruled; his prayer was broken, and his thoughts were troubled, and his words ascended to the clouds, and the wandering of his imagination recalled them, and in all the fluctuating varieties of passion they are never like to reach God at all. But he sits him down and sighs over his infirmity, and fixes his thoughts upon things above, and forgets all little, vain passages of his life, and his spirit is becalmed, and his soul is even and still, and then it softly and sweetly ascends to Heaven on the wings of the Holy Dove, and dwells with God, till it returns, like the useful bee, loaded with a blessing and the dew of heaven.—Jeremy Taylor.