SHEPHERDS OF THE LANDES. THE Landes, or desert in the South of France, is a tract of country between the mouths of the Adour and the Gironde, along the sea coast, and, according to tradition, was once the bed of the sea itself, which flowed in as far as Dax. It is a bed of sand, flat, in the strictest sense of the word, and abounding with extensive pine woods. These woods afford turpentine, resin, and charcoal, for trade, as well as a sort of candles, used by the peasantry, made of yarn dipt in the turpentine. The road is through the sand, unaltered by art, except where it is so loose and deep as to require the trunks of fir trees to be laid across to give it firmness. The villages and hamlets stand on spots of fertile ground, scattered like islands among the sands. The appearance of a corn-field on each side of the road, fenced by green hedges, a clump of trees at a little distance, and the spire of a rustic church tapering from among them, gives notice of the approach to an inhabited spot. The shepherds are mounted on stilts, and stride, like storks, along the flat. These stilts raise them from three to five feet: the foot rests on a surface adapted to its sole, carved out of the solid wood; a flat part, shaped to the outside of the leg, and reaching to below the bend of the knee, is strapped round the calf and ancle. The foot is covered by a piece of raw sheep's hide. In these stilts they move with perfect freedom and astonishing rapidity; and they have their balance so completely, that they run, jump, stoop, and even dance, with ease and safety. We made them run races for a piece of money, put on a stone on the ground, to which they pounced down with surprising quickness. They cannot stand quite still without the aid of a long staff, which they always carry in their hands. This guards them against any accidental trip, and when they wish to be at rest, forms a third leg, that keeps them steady. The habit of using the stilts is acquired early, and it appeared that the smaller the boy was, the longer it was necessary to have his stilts. Thus the feet are kept out of the water during the winter, and from the heated sand during the summer: and the sphere of vision over so perfect a flat is materially increased by the elevation, as the shepherd can see his sheep much farther on stilts than he could from the ground. Once, when Napoleon was on a journey through the south of France, he travelled faster than his guard, which these shepherds observing, two hundred of them assembled about his carriage, formed a guard of honour, and kept pace with it on their stilts, at the rate of seven miles an hour, for two hours together. WILLIAM HOLDEN He WAS a scholar in the baptist sabbath school, Melbourne, Derbyshire. He had not reached his fourteenth year before he was called to resign all connexion with the present world, and enter into a world of spirits. About six years previous to his death he met with an accident, of which he never entirely recovered, but which was supposed to be the cause of his death. He was always fond of his school and his Bible; and it was his constant practice to remember the texts preached from, and find them when he returned from places of worship. also shunned the company of boys who were addicted to swearing, lying, or sabbath-breaking. He likewise remembered and regarded the command, "Honour thy father and thy mother." He gradually sunk under the influence of a lingering affliction; but his patience and confidence in Christ increased. On one occasion his mother referred to his great sufferings; he replied, "My sufferings are nothing to what my Saviour endured." A pious gentleman often called to see him, and was much interested with his simple but heartfelt expressions of happiness. He took great delight in reading serious books; "The Society of Heaven" he especially loved. Three months before his death, his grandmother was called to eternal rest. On being informed of this event, he said, "I shall soon be with her, and we shall sit and sing together in glory." He often visited his pious neighbours; one in particular, to whom he freely opened his mind; and who was fully satisfied that he enjoyed the truth as it is in Jesus. When he was evidently fast sinking in the arms of death, his mother asked him if he was happy; he replied, with peculiar emphasis, "O yes; I can see Jesus, his hands, his feet, his side, that were pierced for me. Bless him, he 66 He wants me to come to him." The night before he died he was in agonies of pain, but was consoled by those precious words of the Saviour: "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." In the midst of excruciating pain he exclaimed, "I shall soon be with my grandmother and sing hallelujah to the Lamb." His pain being increasing severe, he cried out, 'Do, Lord, take me to thyself." A little before death he was asked if Christ was then precious: he replied, with much energy, 'I do feel him to be precious." longed to meet his parents and a brother and two sisters in heaven: to one of the latter he said, "If you tell stories you will never go to heaven." On observing his mother to be nnhappy on his account, he said, "Mother, if I had lived to grow up I might have been led into sin, and so have been lost; but now I am happy, and am going to heaven." His father being in the field a little before he died, he was asked if he should like to see him. "O yes," he replied; "I love my father, but I love Jesus Christ more; and I am going to him." He had prayed that he might die easy, and his prayer was answered. With perfect composure he fell asleep in the arms of the blessed Saviour whose love he enjoyed, and whose name had been his constant theme, on the twenty-second day of February, 1831. 66 Youthful reader, if suddenly called to die, would your end be like that of William Holden. In the midst of your play and the delights of early life, do you ever think of death? It may overtake you in an hour, when you are not aware of its approach; and O! how awful if you should be called away without an interest in Jesus Christ. You will not then, with William Holden and millions more, sing, "Hallelujahs to the Lamb;" but you will mingle your cries with those of the inhabitants of the pit, where not one solitary gleam of hope is known, but where all is blackness of darkness for ever! Do not think you are too young to seek the Lord: satan will tell you so to deceive you. Turn a deaf ear to that father of lies, and listen to the God of truth, who says: "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth; while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them." SOWING AND REAPING. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." WHO are sowing? who are sowing? |