like a bee, or a bird, or a lamb, or a little girl. Yes, indeed, there are very different ways of being alive. Was this what you meant to say?" 66 'Yes, Ma'am, nearly. Do you think the flowers feel, ma'am?" "No;" said the lady," ""but the bees do which suck the sweet juice and make it into honey. How many ways of being alive are there, do you think, Mary?" "To be alive, without feeling, that is the flowers' life; they make no sound and do not move away from the place they grow in, that is one way to be alive and to move about, and to chirp and sing-like the bees and the birds that is another way of being alive. But we cannot call bees and birds good or naughty, nobody teaches them -the dog and the cow know more than they, rather." "Yes," said the lady, dogs have a kind of goodness, for they will do as they are bid, and they seem to love those who are kind to them. The caterpillar and the dog are very different creatures; but a dog cannot be taught as a child can. We will say that there are three very different ways of being alive. The life of a plant, or a tree,—what is called vegetable life,-growth without feeling. Next, animal life, without mind, and therefore what cannot be taught, or can only learn what is very simple, as a dog learns to carry his master's stick. Next, the life of man-of a creature with a mind or soul, capable of being taught, happiest when good, punished by the grief of his own heart when he has done wrong! Oh, Mary, we might say there are many more ways of being alive; there are some, even of men and women, who feel but never seem to think; there are many who sadly forget to strive to learn to do better. A child's mind is, at first, something like the seed put into the ground, it knows not that it lives, or how it lives; by degrees it opens and feels love and joy—and not love and joy for itself alone, but pleasure in making others happy." The lady told Mary that there was a school near her house to which she often went, that she might teach the little girls, and she asked Mrs. Wilson if she would come to it: "Mary can do very little to let Mary help you at home, at present," said the lady, "if she goes to school now, she will learn many things, I hope, which will be useful to her all her life." Mrs. Wilson agreed that she would send Mary to the school,—it might be a little trouble to her, she said, but she would not miud the trouble since it was for her good. "Do you like teaching children, Ma'am?" asked Mary of the lady. "Yes, Mary, I do; as I like to water flowers. I like to try to do good to those who may in time bear good fruit, if they will try and learn. But it is often very troublesome to teach children, much more troublesome than watering flowers, it is more like trying to untwist the prickly brier. It is God who puts it into our hearts to try to do good to others. I have talked with you about the three ways of being alive. We do not blame the rose tree if it bears no flowers-we should not be angry with the donkey if he is slow and stubbornneither should we roughly chide the little child who has not learnt the right way, but we should gently lead it right." E. C. TRUE AND FALSE PLEASURE.-Would you judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of any pleasure, take this rule; whatever weakens your reason, impairs tenderness of conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things, -in short, whatever increaseth the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.-New Church Essays. THE BLIND BOY'S SOLILOQUY. By the Rev. James Knapton. How beautiful! How beautiful! They tell me it is beautiful, And beauteous it may be; Though all the fairest things of earth Possess no charms for me: The sun may glorious beams emit, And shed a lustre round; But in this dark and gloomy cell No ray of light is found! Alas! those glories of an hour 'Tis there I quickly shall unite And bear the palm of victory And though the alluring things of time A holier, happier, lovelier scene O, then, it will be beautiful,- On HIм, around whose glorious throne Whose arms of love will e'en embrace THE WORKS OF GOD. "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained: what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?"—Psalm viii., 3, 4. WHEN I go out on a still starlight night, and look up at the countless hosts of stars, some nearer, and some farther off than the rest, and at the boundless blue space between them,-it is then of all times that I am most overwhelmed with a sense of the infinity and incomprehensibleness of the Creator. First, I look on our earth. How large, and busy, and full it is! How many millions of human souls live and work on it! How wonderfully and immeasurably great must be the mind which knows each of these souls separately, and keeps the great whole working together in order! Yet our earth is only part of a great system of planets, all revolving round our sun, and probably each planet is a world like ours. This system again, is but a small, a very small part of our firmament. Each of those tiny stars that we see twinkling in the distance, is a sun, with worlds revolving round it. But we do not stop, even here. There is the milky way, far, far away; as it were, behind all the other stars. What is that? Why, 'tis another firmament similar to ours! And we know not how many of these firmaments are scattered through infinite space. And that God, who calls himself our Father in heaven, made and upholds them all! Oh thrilling thought! That great God hears our faintest word or sigh, knows our most secret thought or wish; and we are privileged to hold direct communion with him, communion more sweet and confiding than any we can hold with our dearest earthly friends; for he knoweth our thoughts before we can express them. Into his kind bosom we may pour all our sorrows, and confess all our faults; sorrows and faults too great or too trifling for any human ear. Such thoughts make us fall upon our knees in awe too great for words; and then in love and gratitude we exclaim, "Our Father, who art in heaven!" THE LORD'S PRAYER. "UNCLE EDWARD, what are you writing there, so carefully? I have been watching you for a quarter of an hour. I don't thing you have ever once looked up." "I am printing out something for little Ned Petre. you know him?" Do "I have heard the name, I think. I believe mamma sent soup to Mrs. Petre during the hard weather last winter. But what of the boy?" "He is going to a cousin of his mother's in the country, who has a farm, to help in the light work about the house, &c. Poor little lad! he is only ten years old, but his parents cannot afford to keep him at home any longer. Petre is a poor worker, and there are five children younger.' "And so, Uncle?" "And so, I am writing this out for him to fasten inside the back of his school Testament. It is the Lord's Prayer." "Oh, Uncle! do you think he understands it?" "I hope so. Last Sunday I took a great deal of pains to explain the Lord's Prayer to all the little ones in school. I think they seemed interested." 66 But don't you think, Uncle, that there are many plainer and easier prayers than that, for a child?" "Yes, there are a great many easier and plainer prayers as you say. Perhaps that is the very reason why the Lord's Prayer appears so inexpressibly beautiful, so perfect in its application to those who do understand it. Now tell me, Ettie, do you really appreciate this prayer as it deserves; do you even really understand it?" 66 Well perhaps not, Uncle Edward, entirely. For I never thought it so beautiful as some others. Will you tell me about it?" "How does it begin?" “Our Father who art in heaven; hallowed be Stop, that is enough. I see from the way you said it, that you do not fully take in the meaning of the first two words! Our Father."" "Oh yes, Uncle! I know what that means." |