1 do with little brothers, and with schoolmates younger and weaker than themselves. 66 A large ox, walking along the road with a heavy tread, met a gay horse with a boy on his back. The child was guiding him with the bridle, while he stepped very softly, as if afraid of hurting his little rider. The ox stopped in front of them, and cried out in his most unmusical tones, Oh, shame on you! a great, strong, spirited horse, as people call you, letting a tiny fellow like that rule over you; you have not the spirit of a sheep, and are a disgrace to the noble family you sprang from. If the little tyrant should try to mount my back, I'd soon throw him off! I'd toss him into the air with my horns, and trample him under my feet when he came down!" And he cast a look of terrible scorn on the noble horse. Fleetfoot, as the horse was called, did not hang down his head and paw the dust, as if he was ashamed to be caught in business beneath his station. Not he. He raised up his forefeet, threw out his broad chest, and bending his neck like a warhorse, asked, "But suppose, sir, I should follow your advice, what glory should I get to myself, a great strong steed, by killing a poor, weak child, whom my kind master trusted to my care? I should add the meanness of treachery to the guilt of cruelty. No, sir! I am not ashamed to spend my strength for the pleasure of the weak!" And he walked on as softly as if the proud ox had not taunted him. When we see a great boy snatching a ball, or pulling a kite from a little one, or refusing to play with those younger than he, saying, "Do you think I, a great stout fellow, will let a baby get the upper hand of me; or stoop to play with little boys ?" we think of the mean ox and the brave horse. Remember, boys-at home in the nursery, out on the play-ground, wherever you are-that it is the glory of the strong to be kind and gentle toward the weak. If you should have a contest with one too small to take his own part against you, and you came off the victor, what credit do you get yourself? None. The finger of scorn is pointed at you, and every one despises you as a mean oppressor. We know of no nobler sight than a large boy yielding to, amusing, and petting the little ones, at home or at school. He will be the brave fellow when the conflict of life comes on, never giving up the right himself, and assisting all weaker ones to stand firmly their ground against such as seek to impose on them.-Child at Home. "DON'T CARE." THERE was a little boy who always had a naughty phrase in his mouth. I will give you a few specimens of the way he used it. "Oh, Charlie, you broke a pane of glass when you threw that snowball!" "I don't care," said Charlie; "there is plenty more glass where that came from." "You must not eat any more cake, my dear," said Charlie's mother. "But I want more, mother," said Charlie. "But it will make you poorly." "I don't care if it does," is Charlie's reply. Please show me where my lesson is," he said to his sister; "I can't find it." "No, I won't. I don't care if you can't find it," she said to Charlie one day. "Here, get up out of my seat. I had it first." "I don't care if you had, I shan't get up," said Charlie to his sister at another time. "Little brother cried this morning because I ran away from him; but I don't care," said Charlie to his schoolmates one morning. "Mother said it was wicked in me to frighten little sister so, but I don't care," said Charlie, after pretending to be a ghost. "My cousin beat me running down hill; but I don't care." "Father wouldn't take me riding with him yesterday, because I stayed out too long at my play; but I don't care; there's more ways than one to get a ride." "My sister always knows her lesson better than I do; but I don't care." "I missed my lesson this morning, and got down to the foot of the class for talking; but I don't care." "I forgot to say my prayers this morning; but I don't care.' "Don't care, Charlie ?" said I to him one day. "Don't care, did you say? You surely did not stop to think of the importance of these three little words. When you go to your father, and tell him you are hungry, does he say, 'I don't care?' When you go to your mother, and tell her you are sick, does she say, 'I don't care?' If she did, you would open your eyes in astonishment to find her turning you off in that manner; but if it would sound strangely for your parents to talk so, it certainly does for a child, and especially not to care when you forgot to say your prayers." I hope none of my little readers will have occasion to point to any of Charlie's sayings, and say, "That belongs to me.' I won't even suppose that one of our little Sundayschool scholars would say, "I don't care." It must be those little children who, like Charlie, don't go to Sabbath school, who make use of such words; but you may, dear reader, be tempted to; and if you are at any time, just keep your lips shut, and pray in your heart until the temptation has passed away. The Fragment Basket. THE DREAM. I ONCE heard a minister, who stated that he preached a number of years in a certain place, without any visible benefit to any one. Finally, he concluded it was not right for him to preach, and, in consequence, thought he would give it up. But, while musing on the subject, he fell asleep and dreamed. "I dreamed," said he, "that I was to work for a certain man for so much, and my business was splitting open a very large rock with a very small hammer, pounding upon the middle of it in order to split it open. I worked a long time to no effect, and at length I became discouraged, and began to complain when my employer came. Said he : 'Why do you complain? Have you not fared well while in my employ ?' Oh! yes.' 'Have you not had enough to eat ?' 'Then,' said he, 'keep to your work-cease your complaints, and will take care of the result.' He then left me. "I then thought I applied my little hammer with more energy, and soon the rock burst open with such force that it awoke me. Then," says he, "I ceased to complain. I seized my little hammer with new vigour,-I hammered upon that great rock (sin) with renewed energy, nothing doubting, and soon the rock burst. The Spirit of the Lord rushed in, and the result was a reward of a glorious ingathering of souls to the heavenly Shiloh. "Thus you see, my brother, that to persevere in well-doing is the sure way to gain the prize."--Youth's Guide. THE RIGHT KIND OF NOISE. Rigid disciplinarians in the army are often annoyed by the religious zeal of Christian soldiers, but great generals, like Cromwell and Wellington, know how to turn this zeal to good service. Here is a characteristic anecdote of General Jackson. PROCRASTINATION. Persons gifted with genius or fine talent often throw life away by a habit of putting off till to-morrow what ought to be done to-day. The following paragraph is pithy: "Going to do it" never made a fortune, built a house, or won a name. "Going to do it" has been the bane of more people than would fill the census of a dozen New Yorks. The man who is always "going to do it," rarely, if ever, does it. The only thing he does do, is to go out of the world without doing it. If he has a task which must be done, he at once announces, with a deal of boasting and a great waste of words, time, and breath, that he is "going to do it." And while he is thus "going to do it," somebody else, who is not suspected of "going to do it," does it, and reaps the reward. "PLEASE, SIR." Sir, do you want to know how I was converted-I, an old grayheaded sinner?" said a good old man to his minister. "Tell me," answered the minister. "I was walking along one day, and met a little boy. The little boy stopped at my side. 6 Please, Sir,' he said, 'will you take a tract? And please, Sir, will you read it?' Tracts! I always hated tracts and such things, but that 'Please, Sir,' overcame me. could not swear at that kindspoken 'Please, Sir;' no, no. I took THE THRONE OF GRACE. If you want your spiritual life to be more healthy and vigorous, you must just come more boldly to the throne of grace. The secret of your weakness is your little faith and little prayer. The fountain is unsealed, but you only sip a few drops. The bread of life is before you, yet you only eat a few crumbs. The treasury of heaven is open, but you only take a few pence. O! man of little faith, wherefore do you doubt? Awake to know your privileges; awake and sleep no longer. Tell me not of spiritual hunger and thirst, and poverty, so long as the throne of grace is before you. Say rather you are proud, and will not come to it as a poor sinner; say rather you are slothful, and will not take pains to get more. Cast aside the grave-clothes of pride that still hang around you. Throw off that Egyptian garment of indolence which ought not to have been brought through the Red Sea. Away with that unbelief which ties and paralyses your tongue. You are not straitened in God but in yourself. Come boldly to the throne of grace, where the Father is ever waiting to give, and Jesus stands by Him to intercede. Come boldly, for you may, all sinful as you are, if you come in the name of the great High Priest. Come boldly and ask largely, and you shall have abundant answers; mercy like a river, and grace and strength like a mighty stream. Come boldly and you shall have supplies exceeding all you can ask MY WIFE. WRITTEN BY AN INVALIDA I HEARD her, oh, how cautiously, Poetry. To my couch across the floor; Her face was hovering over mine, Her whispered prayer of thought divine Rose fervently but meek. Her bosom rested on my arm, I felt its tremulous throe; I knew the cause of its alarm, And then the blood my system through I thought I loved her years ago— Thus watched that tried and patient AUTUMN. SWEET Sabbath of the year! Amid thy silent bowers 'Tis sad but sweet to dwell, Where falling leaves and drooping flowers Around me breathe farewell. Along thy sunset skies Their glories melt in shade, And, like the things we fondly prize, Seem lovelier as they fade. A deep and crimson streak Thy dying leaves disclose, As, on consumption's waning cheek, 'Mid ruin blooms the rose. Thy scene each vision brings Of fair and early-faded things, Of joys that come no more; Of flowers whose bloom is fled; Of farewells wept upon the shore;' Of friends estranged or dead Of all that now may seem, HUMILITY. THE bird that sings on highest wing Builds on the ground her lowly nest, And she that doth most sweetly sing, Sings in the shade when all things rest; In lark and nightingale we see What honour hath humility. Personal Religion. SPECIAL VIEWS OF PRAYER. We lose many prayers for the want of two things which support each other,―specificness of object and intensity of desire. One's interest in such an exercise as this, is necessarily dependent on the co-existence of these qualities. In the diary of Dr. Chalmers we find recorded this petition: "Make me sensible of real answers to actual requests, as evidences of an interchange between myself on earth and my Saviour in heaven." Under the sway of intense desires, our minds naturally long to individualise thus the parties, the petitions, the objects, and the results of prayer. Sir Fowell Buxton writes as follows::-"When I am out of heart, I follow David's example, and fly for refuge to prayer, and he furnishes me with a store of prayer. I am bound to acknowledge that I have always found that my prayers have been heard and answered; received what I asked for. in almost every instance I have Hence, I feel permitted to offer up my prayers for everything that concerns me.. I am inclined to imagine that there are no little things with God. His hand is as manifest in the feathers of a butterfly's wing, in the eye of an insect, in the folding and packing of a blossom, in the curious aqueducts by which a leaf is nourished, as in the creation of a world, and in the laws by which planets move. I understand literally the injunction: 'In everything make your requests known unto God; and I cannot but notice how amply these prayers have been met." 66 Again, writing to his daughter on the subject of a division" in the House of Commons, in the conflict for West Indian Emancipation, he says: "What led to that division? If ever there was a subject which occupied our prayers, it was this. Do you remember how we desired that God would give me His Spirit in that emergency; how we quoted the promise, 'He that lacketh wisdom, let him ask it of the Lord, and it shall be given him ;' and how I kept open that passage in the Old Testament, in which it is said, 'We have no might against this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon |
