"I WANT TO BE AN ANGEL."

A CHILD sat in the door of a cottage at the close of a summer sabbath. The twilight was fading, and as the shades of evening darkened, one after another of the stars stood in the sky and looked down on the child in his thoughtful mood. He was looking up at the stars and counting them as they came, till they were too many to be counted, and his eye wandered all over the heavens, watching the bright worlds above. They seemed just like "holes in the floor of heaven to let the glory through," but he knew better. Yet he loved to look up there, and was so absorbed that his mother called him and said :

"My son, what are you thinking of ?"

He started as if suddenly aroused from sleep, and answered "I was thinking

"Yes," said his mother, "I know you were thinking, but what were you thinking about."

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"Oh," said he, and his little eyes sparkled with the thought, "I want to be an angel."

"And why, my son, would you be an angel ?"

"Heaven is up there, is it not mother? and there the angels live and love God, and are happy; I do wish I was good and God would take me there, and let me wait on him for ever."

The mother called him to her knee, and he leaned on her bosom and wept. She wept too, and smoothed the soft hair of his head as he stood there, and kissed his forehead, and then told him that if he would give his heart to God now while he was young, the Saviour would forgive all his sins, and take him up to heaven when he died, and he would then be with God for ever. His young heart was comforted. He knelt at his mother's side and said:

"Jesus, Saviour, Son of God,
Wash me in thy precious blood;
I thy little lamb would be,-
Help me, Lord, to look to thee."

The mother took the young child to his chamber, and soon he was asleep, dreaming, perhaps, of angels and heaven. A few months afterwards sickness was upon him, and the light of that cottage, the joy of that mother's heart went out. He breathed his last in her arms, but as he took her parting kiss, he whispered in her ear—“I'm going to be an angel.'

This is a very simple story, and it is just the way I have felt a thousand times. I have looked at the heavens, and given up to the child's thought that there are the blest, I have wished that I might be one of their company; done with sin, and a bright career of holiness and glory begun, to be ended never.

And it looks so lovely there, where God is, and the sunshine of his smile beams with matchless radiance on every heart, and love reigns through the realms of glory, and each strives to see which shall do the most for each other's bliss, that my heart goes there as to a resting place, where sorrow cannot enter, and joy flows perennially from every soul.

I feel at such times just like the child in the cottage door; just like the man of old, who sighed for the wings of a dove that he might fly away.

Yet, were it not for sin, this world would be as bright and as fair as that. God would be here as when in the morning of its being he walked in the garden with Adam, and smiled on him with parental love. The angels would be here, our companions and guides. Earth would be heaven, paradise as it was when sin was not.

Then to be happy here we must be holy. And the holier we are the happier. And when we are released from sin, and by the merits and mercy of the Saviour are introduced to the courts above, we shall be as the angels, holy, happy, rejoicing always with God.

THE MOOR-BUZZARD.

THIS bird is about twenty-one inches in length, and fifty in breadth, with a black bill, and yellow eyes. The whole crown of the head is of a yellowish white, lightly tinged with brown; the throat is of a light rust colour: the rest of the plumage is of a reddish brown, with pale edges; the greater wingcoverts are tipped with white; the legs are yellow; and claws black.

Rabbits, young wild ducks, and other waterfowl are the prey of this bird; which will likewise feed on fish, frogs, reptiles, and even insects. Its haunts are in hedges and bushes, near pools, marshes, and rivers that abound with fish. It builds its nest a little above the surface of the ground, or in hillocks covered with thick herbage: the female lays three or four white eggs, irregularly sprinkled with dusky spots. Though smaller, it is more active and bold than the Common Buzzard, and when pursued, it faces its antagonist, and makes a vigorous defence.

The HONEY BUZZARD, another of this class of birds, which derives its name from its fondness for bees, is known generally throughout Europe. Its common length is twenty-three inches, and its wings

expand fifty-two: the head is grey, the bill and talons black, the eyes and feet yellow; the plumage above is brown, and beneath brown and white; the tail is long, and has transverse ash-coloured bars; the toes are half feathered: the plumage of the female is spotted. It breeds in trees; the eggs, two in number, are grey, with obscure spots. In a nest at Selborne there was found one egg, smaller and not so round as that of the common buzzard, dotted at each end with small red spots, and surrounded in the middle with a broad bloody zone. Besides bees, this species preys on mice, small birds, reptiles, and insects.

THE DEW.

OUR God has fill'd this world with beauteous things-
With landscapes fair; with flowers of every hue;
With butterflies and birds with gorgeous wings;
And we must not forget the early dew.

In summer's prime, when day begins to dawn,
The flowers, which fill'd with precious shining gems,
Lie thickly strewn upon the verdant lawn,

Bow down with weight their tender juicy stems.

They hang their heads, as if to hide from view

The treasures which upon their bosoms lie; Or droop, as if to mourn for friends they knew Gone up before to shining worlds on high.

On every flowery bank, in every lane,

These orient pearls are then most clearly seen;
Upon the mountain height, or on the plain,
In woody glen, or smiling meadow green.

God's gracious hand has sent these pearls for all:
The gaudy tulip, or the fair blue-bell;
The huge sun-flower, or simple daisy small,
Which lives unseen in some sequester'd dell.

THE SOLDIERS AND THEIR GOAT.

When thro' the skies the sun majestic rides,
These dewy-pearls rich rainbow-tints display:
Varying in colour as the light abides;

But soon their brilliant beauties pass away!

God makes the dew each night so gently fall
For drooping earth's refreshment; and will he
Forget his servants who upon him call

For dews of grace, that they may happy be?
Leicester.

J. J. G.

THE SOLDIERS AND THEIR GOAT.

Ir has been the custom of the 23rd, or Welsh Fusileer regiment, from time immemorial, to be preceded in all its marches, and accompanied in all its parades, by a large goat, the emblem of old Cambria, whose venerable beard and grimly grave aspect might inspire the fanciful eye, under the old stupid superstition of the transmutation of souls, of being a fitting dwelling place for the departed spirit of one of those ancient bards, so famed in Cambrian story, and of whom the poet writes

"His hoary beard and tangled hair, Streamed like a meteor in the troubled air."

It is on record that the goat of the regiment accompanied the Welsh Fusileers into action at Bunker's Hill; and Cooper, the American writer, in one of his interesting national narratives, relates that such was the sanguinary nature of the contest, that "the Welsh Fusileers had not a man left to saddle their goat." The last representative of this horned and bearded dynasty lately accompanied the regiment from Canada to Barbadoes, where his knowledge of his place, at the head of the drums, his correct and soldier-like demeanour, his grave and patriarchal aspect, so struck the dusky race of Afric's blood, that on watching his