THE PENDULUM OF CLOCKS.-Galileo accidentally fixing his eyes on the waving to and fro of a lamp suspended from the roof of a lofty building, had the first idea of a pendulum suggested to his mind.

GRAVITATION.-Sir Isaac Newton sitting one day in his garden, observed an apple fall to the earth, and this it was that caused him to contemplate on the "Laws of Gravitation, and the reason why falling bodies should naturally tend towards the centre." Such a trifling circumstance, to an ordinary capacity, would have passed unnoticed, but with the mind of Sir Isaac, it was like the first issue of a fountain that runs on and gathers as it goes, and swells into a mighty stream.

And last, not least, yea rather, for this world, the mightiest of all,

THE POWER OF STEAM; discovered, as most of our young readers now know, by a boy-James Watt, whilst sitting by his mother's fireside and observing the action of the tea kettle lid as the steam from the boiling water lifted it up.

THE INDIAN AND HIS CHILD.

SOME years ago, there was an Indian in the State of Maine, who, for his very good conduct, had a farm given him by the state. He built his little house on his land, and there he lived. Around him were a number of white families. They did not treat him badly, but, because he was an Indian, they did not act and feel as if they were his friends. His motherless and only child was taken sick, and died, and not one of the white people went near him to comfort him, or to aid him to bury his little child. A few days after, he came to the white people, and said to them,— "When white man's child Sorry-he help to bury him.

die, Indian man be When Indian's child

die, no one speak to him-I make his grave alone,I can't no live here-and have no friend to love me!" The poor Indian gave up his farm, dug up the body of his child, and carried it with him two hundred miles through the forest, to join the Canadian Indians. What love for his child! What a deep feeling in his heart that he wanted a friend!

So we all want some one to whom we may look every day. But when we are sick, when in distress, when we are about to die, oh, then we want a friend who will stand near us, and who can help us? Jesus Christ is just that friend. He was once a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and knows how to help those who are in sorrow. He was once in the agonies of death, and knows how the dying feel. Is any one poor? So was he, and knows all about being poor. Are you a poor weak child? So was he, and knows just how the child feels, and just what a friend he needs. You have little trials and troubles which older people would not think about, but which sometimes make your heart feel heavy and sad. Well, Jesus Christ knows all about such feelings, and can help you, and will do it every day, if you ask him every day to do so.

THE NEGRO BOY'S MOTHER.

"WHAT kind of woman was your mother ?" said a slave master in a familiar mood, to a fine African boy whom he had purchased. The boy's heart writhed beneath the associations it awakened. "Come, tell me," said the white man, who regarded the black as a brute, only fit to be insulted, "what kind of a woman was she?- -was she tall? was she thin? was she old? was she beautiful ?" The boy lifted up his glistening eyes, and in broken accents said, "How could a mother but be beautiful in the eyes of her child?"

THE OLD SOLDIER.

CLOTHED in rags, and blind and lame,
Hunger-smitten, bent and old,
To my door a beggar came,
Shivering in the winter's cold.
Pity for the poor old man

Touched my heart; I gave him food;
And, questioning him, he thus began
His life's sad tale, in pensive mood,
"Fourscore years the earth I've trode;
Forty years I've begged my bread;
My manhood's prime I spent abroad,
Hired the blood of man to shed.
I remember, when a youth,

How I loved each blood-stained story,
All to me was sacred truth

That pertained to war and glory. Twenty summers o'er my head

Scarce had flown, when from a home

Of peace and love I madly fled,

Afar in foreign lands to roam. For a paltry sum of gold,

When my brain was fired with drink, Mind and body both I sold

For a soldier dare not think! I never felt a soldier's pride;

I felt I was a slave, and wept; While with war's ensanguined tide, O'er the groaning earth we swept. Horrid sights I oft have seen,

Dreadful sounds I oft have heard; In a hundred fields I've been.

Where my blood hath stained the sward.

I left a limb in Hindostan,

On Egypt's plains I lost my sight, And home returned, a homeless man, My eyes-my heart-bereft of light."

Jerrold.

MEMORY.

ONE day I thought about
What a boy would be without
Memory:

Why he would be a fool,
And never learn at school
A B C ;

But those who have their share,
For better things will care
Every day;

They'll learn to read and write,
And in such things delight,
Not all in play.

Good sense, and well refin'd,
With memory combin'd,
Would be

An ornament indeed

To men of every breed,
Bond and free.

But a day we each shall see
That will stir up memory
In us all:

Yes! all that we have done
Since we lived beneath the sun
On this ball;

And should my precious soul,
Live in sin without controul,
Cast away,

I shall know what I have done
By slighting God's dear Son
In my day.

Not so the heir of heaven,
His sins were all forgiven
Long before.

To look back it will be sweet,
To look forward joy complete
Evermore!

For memory is a thing
That unto all will cling
Low and high.

In happiness or woe,

For the vital part we know,

Cannot die.

Codnor Park.

J. K.

IN MEMORY OF THOMAS WALTON BOWKER, Who died in the seventh year of his age.

"We all do fade as a leaf."

THE greenest leaves that deck the trees,
Must fall beneath the autumn breeze :
The fairest flowers with fragrance sweet,
Must fade and moulder at our feet.

So man, in all his brightest prime,
Must feel the withering touch of time:
And oft, his budding beauties bloom
Like a fair garland, for the tomb.

Lord, may our hearts to thee submit,
And lay our comforts at thy feet:
Once and again thy stroke we feel,
Oh that the hand that wounds may heal!

Dear boy-fond hope with flattering voice
Pointed to thee and spake of joys:
But thou art gone! - those joys must be
Entomb'd beneath the dust with thee.

Ah no! for hope shall speak once more Of better joys laid up in store: Where Israel's tender Shepherd's breast Receives the lambs and gives them rest. Accrington. J. HARBOTTLE.