surfaces are smooth and bright as mirrors, dense fogs and noxious gases stagnate in the lower parts of the earth, the cloud furniture of the sky becomes a huge fixture, and all nature is motionless and mute. So important are my wakefulness and action to the world, that if I slept long the atmosphere would be noisome and be fatal to vegetable and animal life, and the surface of the earth would soon become inconceivably vile. But I occasionally awake in great fury, and then I tear up trees by the roots. I overthrow buildings as though they were houses of cards. I lash oceans into wild surges, and cover them with boiling foam, and I evoke thunders from the depths and from above.

My vocal powers are so great that I can breathe forth the softest and gentlest whispers, or utter forth most deafening sounds. I am to be heard in solitudes and dismal wastes, where no stream wakes pleasant murmurs, and no insect sings its monotone hum. I travel invisibly, but not silently, for I commune with every object on my way, and call forth varied voices from all the forms of nature. I sigh in soft plaintiveness, and all through the dark and dreary night I pour forth melancholy moanings, like some lost spirit pouring forth its anguish to a listening world. I pass over ripe cornfields and through orchard foliage, uttering mysterious whispers, and evincing my presence in rustlings like those of silken robes. But mine are not tours of mere recreation. Utility is the object of my existence. I am always intent upon my business, and am, in fact, the busiest of all busy beings; for I am always bustling round street corners, hurrying along alleys, lanes, narrow passages, and broad thoroughfares, howling dismally or whistling merrily in my course; and neither walls nor hedgerows, rivers nor rocks, marshes nor mountains, can hinder my progress. I creep slowly with reptiles on the ground, and above the cloud regions I career along in silence. Being a great traveller, I am equally familiar with the horrors of polar cold, and with the heat of arid and burning deserts, and I fulfil my useful offices as I course round icebergs and volcanoes.

But I have some confessions to make. In me, as in all nature, incidents of evil are mixed with good. I have been the bearer of fatal infection. I have occasionally devastated fruitful provinces. In the fatal drought I have sent forth the withering breath of the king of terrors. I have wrecked myriads of ships, and have sunk untold millions of property to the depths of the sea, so that it has become a vast sepulchre of the dead. But my character must be estimated as a whole. Though evil is an incident of my existence, goodness is the end.

I have the honour to be one of the chief ministers of the God of love, and my services to his creatures are at once both homely and public. Though jealously excluded from nearly every house, as a dangerous intruder, I nevertheless go in laden with healthgiving influences, and I go out laden with all the impurities that float in air. When a laundress has washed her clothes, and hung them out, she invokes my services to dry them. I lend useful aid in kindling fires. I make merry sport with lambent flames, and go roaring up dark chimneys, carrying away all the sulphur and smoke. During long and silent nights I enter cottages and mansions, despite all locks and bolts, and go stealthily from room to room, and, as an invisible angel, I move gently and noiselessly among the slumbering inmates, aiding the functions of life and distributing the blessings of health. 1 ventilate the palaces of kings and the lairs of wild beasts, and am an unpaid scavenger, in every street, working seven days per week, and twenty-four hours in each day. I bear away the deadly gases that are exhaled in cellars and in garrets, in alleys and courts, and in every hiding place of filth; and in the crowded haunts of men I circulate pure life-giving air from the green

country, the open sea, and the heavens above. When some dense throng of men pants for fresh air, I wait patiently without for admittance, and then pass among the gasping crowd, breathing the breath of life, and imparting delicious sensations of relief. And often when ignorant fear stands sentinel at the door of a sick chamber, expressly to repel me, I quietly pass through and fan the patient's fevered brow with gentle airs, grateful as those of an angel's wing.

I claim to be a great benefactor of all creatures. On every coast I am found in readiness for work, and to every man who needs my services I tender them. I fill the sails of the cockle-shell boat, of the richly freighted merchantman, and of the man-of-war, and propel them from coast to coast, or waft them round the world. I whisk round the sails of all the windmills, and am thus the corn-grinder of the mankind. While vegetable forms of life breathe for the animal, and the animal for the vegetable, I am the bearer of the airfood which each gives out for each. When fields are soaked with rain, and roads are impassable from mire, I dry them well for the tenderest feet, and bear away all the superabundant moisture to water the dry places of the earth. In truth, I am the grand water-carrier of all countries; for I convey the clouds, formed of ocean vapours, over islands and continents, where they are turned into fruitful showers.

From

I am also the carrier of heat and cold. among the horrors of polar regions I come forth and hasten on to regions of sultry heat, where I refresh the oppressed and perspiring frames of men with cooling airs. And among the regions of high northern latitudes I perform a similar office of love, by returning from the sunny south laden with genial warmth for the comfort of chilled and shivering men and animals, and for the growth of vegetation. I go to one country with a burden of snow to spread it all over the land, and to another with hot and arid sand. As I journey in one direction I am like the breath of an oven, and, as I travel in a second, I turn rain-drops into hailstones, clouds into flakes of snow, and water into solid ice; and I strip the trees of their foliage attire, suspend the growth of all things, from the tiny moss to the largest tree, drive shivering nations to their warm firesides, bind up the streams and lakes in fetters of ice, and make soft earths to be hard as rocks.

I govern the weather. It is my office to make it wet or dry, as well as hot or cold. If drizzling mists or heavy rains are falling, I can bring a current of warmer or of drier air which quickly absorbs the sea of vapor, and reveals the clear blue sky; or if the earth be all athirst, and an arid season threaten the world with famine, I bring welcome vapours, which condense into rain, and cover the land with plenty.

I am the obedient servant of God. After the Deluge I dried up the saturated earth at His word; and in obedience to Him, I opened a pathway for Israel through the Red Sea. I was sent to punish Jonah, the disobedient Prophet; and bore among the hosts of Sennacherib, the noisome blast by which they were cut off. Like diseases, demons, dead bodies, and departed spirits, I was obedient to Christ; for, having descended in fury from adjacent hills to the Sea of Galilee, and thrown the water into such violent confusion that His disciples, being in a fishing boat, were filled with terror for their lives, Jesus, who was sleeping at the stern, was awakened by their frantic cries. He deigned to address me in words of command, and at His word all my fury was spent, and all my strength was gone, and even the foamy billows instantly disappeared beneath a calm and mirror-like surface. Not only am I one of earth's greatest benefactors, and one of God's mightiest ministers of mercy and of judg ment, but I have been elevated to the dignity of being a symbol of the Holy Spirit.

WOLVERHAMPTON.

OR,

Oswald Manse;

THE WANDERING STAR. A Scottish Temperance Story founded on facts.

On the breaking up of the classes Oswald returned home and received a most hearty welcome from his parents and sisters, who were astonished at the visible improvement both in his appearance, manner, and gentlemanly address. Oswald, whose perceptions were quick, and imitation extraordinarily large, had indeed made rapid advances in the cultivation of the outer as well as the education of the inner man. His constant intercourse with educated persons had removed much of his rusticity, and, though not designedly bold, yet he had considerable self-reliance as well as self-possession. He had done a fair session of work with his varied studies, and therefore did not feel any great cause for self-reproach or condemnation. Of course his mother gazed upon him with the usual amount of maternal delight and admiration, which almost approached to idolatry. He repaid this by giving sundry long accounts of Edinburgh and Edinburgh life, relating the various strange things he had seen and the striking incidents with which he had been conversant.

A few days after his return, the good minister was invited to dine with the family, and though he had received several letters from Oswald as to progress in his studies, he now thought it right to test him by a careful but kind personal examination. The result was most satisfactory, and it was evident that Oswald stood in higher favour than ever. In the evening several other neighbours increased the party both in number and excitement, and the bottle did its duty to the satisfaction of the guests.

Oswald related the tragedy that had recently occurred at Macduff's, and they all agreed that such places as he kept were awfully dangerous in more senses than one, and that Government should refuse to license men to sell spirits in a retail way, unless they could produce good testimonials of moral fitness for carrying on so dangerous a calling, evidently concluding that the more morally perilous the business the better the man should be who conducts it. Oswald had many opportunities during the vacation to converse with Mr. Peden, who endeavoured to give him the best counsel, and who really evinced the greatest interest in his welfare. "Oswald," said he one day, "I almost venture to predict that you will be the bright star in this part of the spiritual heavens, and it would delight me to hear you spoken of as the most popular of our ministers in this district."

Oswald was a welcome guest all the country round, and there was no important party in the vicinity where he was not expected to be present. A few miles from his native place there was the picturesque village of Dalbreathe, where the Burghers had a large meetinghouse, a venerable minister, and an overflowing congregation. The hotel-keeper was one of the elders, a generous-hearted soul, who had not a mean or sinister feeling in his moral nature. He was hospitable to a fault, kept a first-rate table, was a liberal contributor, and was generally liked and well spoken of by all classes. Gentlemanly parties, groupes of tradespeople, and religious and godly social companies, were staple frequenters of his house; besides, it was the only house that deserved the name of a hotel in the place. Commercial travellers and the gentry, when travelling, made it the place of their call, if not of their temporary stay. The wife of M'Dougal, the worthy proprietor, was handsome, though past the meridian of life; she was a most excellent matron, cheerful, good-tempered, and, though

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as generous as her sire, was most thrifty, and had been invaluable to her husband as his counsellor, daily coworker, and faithful helpmate. Their family was limited to one daughter, who inherited the good looks and handsome form of both her parents, and that was saying a great deal; but, besides, she was receiving a first-rate education; so that beauty and intelligence, a lovely exterior, and a well-adorned mind, were in close and happy union. No marvel that Bella was the pride of the village, the general object of attraction, esteemed by the minister, and the admired of all who paid a visit to the Dalbreathe Arms Hotel. Her voice was exquisitely musical, and her manners so genteel and refined that you would have expected to find her rather a priestess of some holy temple than the resident daughter of the proprietor of a village hotel. There were a few young farmers, and several of a higher class, who looked forward to a time when they could make an effort at least to carry off this prize. But modesty and a retiring manner, with a most exemplary regard for the service of religion, produced, even in warm-hearted lovers, just the reverence that kept Bella from annoyance, and her parents from anxiety. Oswald spent two or three days in this enchanted spot, and, like every one else, he was conscious that his heart beat more rapidly when gazing on, or conversing with Bella. She, too, felt more at her ease with Oswald than most-first, because they had been somewhat acquainted for years, and then because she considered him devoted to the loftiest of all callings, in his purpose to become a minister of Christ. She had been several times to Edinburgh, and therefore was quite at home in all conversation concerning that city of literature and learning.

When Oswald left he pressed her much to promise him that if she visited it again during his studies, she would not forget to call and see him. Besides, her father and mother had for many years known Robson, with whom Oswald stayed. Oswald received every kindness that warm-hearted hospitality could bestow, and M'Dougal pressed his hand on his leaving, and said, "Who knows, Oswald, but that some day you will become our own minister? And I am sure our aged pastor would rejoice if he could anticipate such a successor." Oswald concluded in his own mind that if ever that day came, which it truly did, he should like to make Bella M'Dougal the mistress of the manse just by. And, reader, this she became-but bide your time, and see what marvellous events had to be realised before then, and what tangled threads both preceded and followed that consummation. Ah! Bella, happy would it have been that thou hadst dwelt anywhere rather that in the manse which should one day be named after thy handsome young friend who has been spending these days of unexampled enjoyment beneath your hospitable roof. Mrs. M'Dougal, who had a great insight into character, said, when Oswald was gone, the only fear she had for him was his social tendencies, and the somewhat over attachment he had early imbibed for stimulating liquors. She thought of several who had been as promising as he, whose downward steps to premature death and ruin had been rather too closely connected with the establishment they kept. Her husband laughed at her observations, and said they were more becoming an ascetic prophet than a hotelkeeping landlady. And so used was their daughter to the everyday drinking customs of their house, that she saw no difference between Oswald and their most respectable visitors. "No," said Mrs. M'Dougal, "and that is what alarms me. I should like to see a difference-such a difference as ought to exist between a student destined for the Church and mere men of the world ;" and she added: "However silent prudence may compel us to be, we have seen enough of ruined reprobates and blighted hopes, to make us anxious about those in whom we are specially interested."

that

It would have been well for Oswald if he could have heard this conversation, for "the words of the wise are

as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd." Eccles. xii. 11. But these words unheard by Oswald, were almost as true as if prophetically spoken, and the seeress who uttered them lived to mourn over their sad realisation. Oswald in due course returned to his studies, as was to be expected, and again had Barton for his college friend and home companion. Oswald fancied that Barton had not improved either in morals or manners since they had parted, for in their individual reheasal of events that had transpired at home Barton did not hesitate to refer to several scenes of a most drunken, riotous character. He seemed to delight in the tricks they had played on the clerk of the parish kirk, a venerable old man, whose consequential airs laid him open to the ridicule of intelligent observers.

IN the course of the second and third session little occurred to break the regular routine of events in the life of Oswald. He was filled with the spirit of laudable emulation to excel as a scholar-and excel he did. No one could fail to admire his earnest devotedness to his various studies, and sometimes ten or twelve hours a day were expended in real, thorough brain work. He very soon distanced his companion, Barton, and he wisely kept his resolution as a rule not to visit the weekly student's club, but on one melancholy occasion he was over persuaded, against his better judgment, to do so. That evening there was a bitter discussion that had materially to do with the inferiority of everything Highland, and in which what might have been true in the times of Rob Roy were insisted upon as being still universally characteristic of the real condition of the people. This greatly incensed two or three young Highlanders, who felt that the taunts and jibes were absolutely unbearable. All the party were inflamed with whisky; from words they came to personal rudeness, and there was a scuffle, in which probably a dozen violently assaulted the three young men from the Highlands. The landlord was unable to reduce the parties to reason. The room in which they assembled was private, and out of the way of the police, so that it was a mercy that blood was not shed. One of the three, the son and only hope of a highly respectable widow lady, in trying to escape, fell down several stone steps into the area below, broke his collar-bone, and was so bruised that he was confined to bed for weeks; fever set in, and he had a hair's-breadth escape of his life. The magistrates threatened to indict the house, and all the professors considered that the college had been indelibly disgraced by this shameful scene of cruel madness. Barton was not guilty of this cowardly assault personally, but he was one who by his fellowship conntenanced the whole thing. This almost tragical occurrence caused a warm conversation between Oswald and Barton, in which the former contended that all who had been implicated in the affair should cease from attending such questionable meetings, and that it was evident they were fraught with degradation and peril. Barton, on the other hand, said in reply that a certain amount of folly and evil were in the world, and that was simply an occasion for its development, and that if it had not been produced there it would have been in some way or place at a future period. But he did not perceive in this kind of reasoning that excuses could be made for all the diabolical infamy that ever cursed the world. The fact was, Barton had become so fascinated that drink and drinking society were almost a necessity of his nature, and the true way of escape had not then been revealed to European society. Hard study, late hours, and spirituous excitement, soon did their fatal work on his health and brain. Before

the session was half over he was seized with brain fever, became delirious, and a horror to all around him. His constitution, which was originally robust, gave way; the most efficient medical skill was fruitless; and at twenty-one he passed from the responsibilities of life to an early grave and the realities of an eternal state. His parents were overwhelmed by the stroke, so unexpected, so sudden, and so totally shutting out all communion between themselves and him. They will go with mourning and sorrow to the grave; bereaved of their son, their only son, and bereaved under circumstances so unspeakably sad and distressing.

Oswald was literally crushed, his spirit seemed to faint within him-everywhere his friend seemed to stand before him-his voice, his manner, all seemed as ever attracting his attention. He felt his own life a burden. It almost took spirit and life out of him; 'Yet," he said, while weeping bitterly on his bed, "I thank God that I tried to save him. I did not go with him to his midnight revelries; if I had done so I should feel that his blood, yea, the blood of his soul, was on my garments." Well, all this was just literally true, and Oswald had great cause for the thankfulness he felt. At one time he thought he could not abide in the same lodging, but Robson's wise counsel and kind words of comfort became as a healing balm to his soul, and he resolved that the calamity should be met in the spirit of deep humility before God and prayer. Here was one taken and another left, and he desired, in thus being spared, that the goodness and long-suffering of God should lead him to a deeper repentance and to a more active consecratedness of his life to divine pursuits. For a season he was certainly a graver and wiser man, but his nightly toddy seemed now to be more necessary and to give him better spirits. He did not lessen the amount he took, but rather increased it; and while his devotional exercises were more earnest, his spirituous draughts were more copious and frequent. It was only after these that he felt manned and nerved again, as he thought, for the great conflicts of life. Had he been introduced into the society of holy-minded men who had abjured the bottle, probably this would have been the turningpoint of his personal history. But he was, though unconsciously to himself, harbouring in his room the assassinator of his friend, and was in reality cherishing and strengthening the fatal passion that brought him to his lamented end. But, as though his eyes had been holden, he saw it not, so went on sustaining the drinking customs which had slain not only Barton, but their hundreds of thousands afterwards.

Before the end of the session, on coming to his lodgings one day, he was surprised at the noise and confusion he encountered in the passage of the house. Robson, for him, was speaking in a very loud and angry tone, and was receiving fully as much, both in sound and fury, from some one evidently of the other sex. As Oswald approached he found this was old Widow Hector, the mother of Robson's servant Maggie. It seemed that she had been paying some calls where the whisky had been freely circulated, and on her way home had called to see her daughter. Her tongue was so overcharged that it rang through the whole house, and Robson felt scandalised at the inferences he supposed his neighbours would draw. and his wife had employed means of kindness without avail, they had used up their most honied words, but the widow pronounced them a shabby couple, and snapped her fingers in their face. Her violence became such that Robson had to exercise his lawful authority, and was ejecting her little by little, when Oswald arrived. As she drew near to the end of the passage, and was going to emerge into the street, she exclaimed, “You old hypocritical wretch, ye ken full weel ye drink double the quantity of whisky every week in your life to what I do, and its nae to yoor credit to

He

66

be thus judging and censuring a poor old lonely widow because the wee drappie I hae taken may have just gone to my head and rather confused me." To this Robson could make no reply, for it was very likely the widow was correct in the quantities, but her offensive epithets were very unseemly, and sadly mortified his love of approbation. Oswald expressed his sorrow at seeing a woman, an old woman, and a widow, and in addition to all these a real Burgher member, in such an awful condition. "Why," said Robson, are ye ignorant that, last week of all. several scores of women were conveyed to the police office in an utterly helpless state of intoxication, and that is only a fair average of the number throughout the year." He also added, "My friend Dalroy affirms that neither Paris the (Infidel) city, nor in Rome the Papal city, nor in Constantinople the city of the Turks, is there a tithe of the drunkenness, and especially among women, as there is in Glasgow and Edinburgh, notwithstanding ours is the land of Bibles and Christian institutions, and more highly favoured than any country in the world. Surely there must be something in the air, or else in the folks themselves, that we should sink so low, when compared with lands where they have neither gospel truth, and few, if any, of the Scriptures in circulation." Yes, Mr. Robson, what you say is quite true; but if your streets were full of Bibles, and all your institutions of learning and religion were multiplied several times over, the people drunk intoxicating liquors, and interweave these inebriating customs with all the events of life, commercial, social, and religious, rely on it drunkenness will both continue and abound. He had not seen the careful calculations of the earliest Temperance Reformers in Scotland that his own nation at that time consumed to the extent of four-and-a-half-gallons of whisky per adult each year, besides a rapidly increasing quantity of the strongest ales-Burton itself not exceptedunder the sun. And it was this drink that had slain Barton, upset poor widow Hector, and created all the scandal in his house. But Robson was so well seasoned with what he took in moderation that he had never dreamed that there could be evil in it except when taken to great excess.

Poor Maggie felt quite ashamed for her mother, and cried all the evening, but Robson and his wife distinctly averred that no daughter could be answerable for her mother, or any other relation, and kindly gave her a good glass of whisky to cheer her, and set her a-going in the pathway of her every-day duties again. And so the poison of the mother was to be the cordial of the aggrieved daughter. Well, so it was in that day, and is still to a great extent among those who do not believe in the principles of the temperance reformation.

How many like Maggie have had the glass presented as a solace in grief, and who have had a deep habit of liking for it created, that nothing afterwards could possibly take away. It is as bad as an exciter of joy, as a solace in sorrow, and of all comforters it is the vilest and most dangerous.

The Lost Poet.

53

EDGAR A. POE's poem of "The Raven" seems to contain a depth of meaning beyond that attributed to it by himself, or by his critics in this country. The latter are dissatisfied with the poet's explanation of the piece; but it appears to me that he did not tell its meaning-that he was ashamed to put the whole on paper. It strikes me that the "bird of evil omen," which he adjured as a fiend from "the dark Plutonian shore,"--which sat upon and overshadowed the emblem of wisdom-out of the shadow of which he felt that his soul could not escapewhich answered all his questions about hope in the future with "Nevermore," that it was the Fiend of the Cup, to which he felt himself a hopeless captive. The following stanzas are written on this supposition. Whether it is correct or not, they are, it is apprehended, but too applicable :

THERE he sits, the strangely-gifted, with despairing face uplifted

Lifted to that baneful presence, perched above his chamber door:

There he sits, the slave of drinking, staring still, with gaze unwinking,

On the haunting demon, thinking-knowing-that his hopes are o'er

That the fiend hath closed for ever in his face redemption's doorShut him out for evermore.

Time hath been when Hope was singing in his soul, when she was flinging

Sunshine round him, daily bringing Eden treasures to his door.

Now, for him, oh never, never is there aught than can deliver

From the spirit-blasting bondage-aught to make him as of yore;

Now he feels that Hope shall never greet him on the radiant shore:

The Springtime is Coming.

THE Springtime is coming, rude tempest and storm
Are gone, and the bleak earth is changing its form;
Wild music is gushing from thicket and glen,
From the throne of the robin, the haunts of the wren;
From the dark floating cloud with its background of blue,
Where the skylark is warbling concealed from our view.
The Springtime is coming, but silent and low
In the home of the stranger, the land of the foe,
Sleep the friends that I loved in the springtime of life,
Ere my young heart was seared by the world and its strife;
And the music of birds and the patt'ring of rain
Can never awake them to rapture again.
But a Springtime is coming, a springtime of joy,
Delicious, unbroken, and free from alloy;
When the true hearts now lying in darkness and gloom,
Aroused by the trumpet, shall start from the tomb,
And join their glad voices in singing for ever

The praise of the land where the storm cometh never.
MAHON, March 15th.

H C.

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THE FIRST LIE.

One day Montgomery went to a shop, not far from Mr. Markley's, to carry back a book that he had borrowed from a young friend of his, who was also learning the business of a merchant. His friend drew a glass of wine from one of the casks, and persuaded Montgomery to drink it with him.

The next day this lad stepped in at Mr. Markley's, to see Montgomery. He happened to be alone in the shop. Mr. Markley had gone to dinner. He did not like to be less generous than his new neighbour, and though he thought it was hardly right to give away his master's wine, particularly as he would not have dared to do it if his master had been present in the shop, yet he did not mind what his conscience told him, but drew a glass of wine for his young friend.

He was in such a hurry, for fear Mr Markley should come in, that he did not stop the cask properly, after he had drawn the wine.

When his master came in, and saw the liquor dripping, he called the clerk. "Montgomery, have you been at the wine cask?" said he. What a moment for that boy! Oh, if he had frankly told the truth, no matter what the consequences might be, how much better it would have been for him! but no; he hesitated a moment, and at last answered, "No, sir, I have not." This was, perhaps, the first lie he had ever told. Mr. Markley looked at him very sharply, and then turned, and stopped the cask tight himself.

THE LIE FOUND OUT, AND ANOTHER SIN TO HIDE IT. The next morning, the same young man came to Mr. Markley, and asked him if he could sell him a cask of such wine as Montgomery had given him the day before. Mr. Markley looked at Montgomery, who stood by, but did not say a word. The look was reproof enough for a lad of such a spirit as his. He was so much ashamed and mortified that he went to his new friend, and begged hin to tell Mr. Markley that he drew the wine for himself, and that Montgomery had nothing to do with it. His friend laughed, and said he would if Montgomery would give him an oyster supper. It was all agreed upon, and the young man went to Mr. Markley, and said, "Sir, you remember your wine cask was leaking the other day, and you thought Montgomery told a lie about it. But it was I drew the wine for myself." So he cleared Montgomery in Mr. Markley's eyes. But did he forget that the eye of One greater, and more to be feared than Mr. Markley, had seen it all; and that he never could be easy until his sin was blotted out from the book of God's remembrance? Oh, sad! sad! to think how sin had already blinded his eyes.

THE FIRST THEFT.

But how was Montgomery to pay for the oyster-supper? He had not thought of that. He did not like to ask his father for money for such a purpose. He had taken two or three long steps away from the path of truth and

honesty already, and now he was prepared to take another. He went to his master's money-drawer, and stole as much as he wanted, to pay for the supper he had promised!

While the young men were in the oyster-cellar, eating their supper, it was proposed to play a game of cards; only a little; just for amusement. Poor Montgomery was so blind and foolish that he fell into this snare. The unhappy youth thought that this would give him a chance to win as much as he had taken from his master, and so he could put it back before it was missed. He played and lost, and played and lost again. And now, the money he had borrowed to play with must be paid, besides what he had taken from the drawer.

He then gave himself up to sin. He went again to his master's drawer to take what he wanted. It was missed; but nobody suspected him. He saw that if he should be found out it would ruin him: and he resolved to try once more to recover it by gaming.

He rose one night, opened the shop, and took two hundred dollars from the drawer, and then went to a gaming-house, full of hope that he should win all he wanted, and then he would never get into such difficulty again. He played one game after another till he lost the whole.

A DREADFUL CRIME.

He

The morning came, and Montgomery was almost distracted. Mr. Markley did not happen to go to the drawer, but told Montgomery to take the money in it, and carry it to a certain bank. He knew if he should tell Mr. Markley that the money was gone, it would lead to inquiry, and he should probably be found out. knew too, that his master had a large sum of money in another bank. So he committed the dreadful crime of FORGERY! He made what is called a check, or a written order for two hundred dollars; signed Mr. Markley's name to it; and presented it at the bank! The Officers of the bank saw that some person had written Mr. Markley's name there without his knowledge. Montgomery was detected, and confessed the whole affair. He said, if he had got the money on the forged check, he meant to have put it in the drawer, and so to conceal his course of crime as long as he could. How he felt, and how his kind father and mother felt when they heard of the disgrace and ruin which had come upon their dear son, I need not tell you. He was tried for his crime, and found guilty, and was sent to prison for ten years!

Poor fellow! I saw him once afterwards. The tears were in his eyes. He then took hold of my hand very earnestly, and said, "I am going to the prison for a single glass of wine."

And it was truly so. The first step in the path to disgrace and ruin was taken when he drew the glass of wine from his master's cask; and so fast did the habit of sin grow upon him, that the boy who at fifteen years old was the joy and blessing of his parents, and the favourite of all who knew him, before he was eighteen was on his way to prison, for falsehood, theft, and forgery! Be careful, then, young reader, how you take the first wrong step.

Chapters in Natural History.

LITTLE ANIMALS ARE ADMIRABLE MECHANICS.-The otter and heron are fishermen, though they use neither line nor net. The otter we seldom see, for he works his traps mostly under water; but the heron may be seen standing with his long, thin legs in the shallow part of the stream, suddenly plunging his long bill below the surface and bringing up a fish. Ants are day labourers, and very industrious in their calling; they always seem in earnest at their work. Catch them asleep in the daytime if you can! The swallow is a fly-catcher, and the number that he daily catches would astonish you. often see him in his vocation, skimming along the surface of the brook or pond. The beaver is a wood-cutter and a builder, and a very good workman at these trades. He fells the small trees with his teeth; and, after he has built his house, he plasters it skilfully with his tailtrowel. The wasp is a paper-maker, in his building. His paper is water-proof, and made of materials that no other paper-maker would use. Look at the curious

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