would find employment without our cotton mills, our lace factories, our calico weaving and print works; and yet the first machines for spinning the wool into thread were only invented in the year 1787, seventy-three years ago; and the only calico that could be bought in England before that time was sent from a small town in India, called Calicut, from which the manufacture took its name; and this Indian calico was so high in price that it could only be bought by the rich. We now export, or send out every year, thousands of bales of calico to India, far cheaper than they can make it there, and the prints of Lancashire may be found in every country of the globe. And now that I have told you of some of the principal uses of the different parts of the plants that God has caused to spring up in beauty, to deck this wonderful world in which He has placed us, I want you to think what lessons we ought to draw from these facts. He The first will be one of trust and love towards Him, whose care and love we see in their curious structure, and in their lovely colours and sweet perfumes, who has caused them to gladden us by their beauty, and bless us by their use. wraps the tiny leaf-bud on the bough with a warm covering to shelter it from the frosts of winter, and does not forget the smallest seed that slumbers in the dark earth, but with the warm sun and soft showers of spring causes it to burst its shell and rise up into the air and sunshine, in fresh life and beauty; and "if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, 0 ye of little faith." We are too apt to receive the everyday blessings of God, seed time and harvest, summer and winter, without remembering that we depend upon our Heavenly Father's care and love for our daily food and our daily comforts; and yet if He withdraws the sunshine that ripens our harvests, or the rain that makes the earth bring forth her increase, we murmur and repine. We see, too, by these lessons that no one country has every thing which its people require in itself, but that almost every one has some gift that is wanting in another. The hot climates have their rich fruits and spices, their cotton and sugar, tea and coffee, whilst the colder ones have their corn and flax, their busy manufactories, and their mines of coal and iron. Therefore, we all, of every clime and nation, as children of One Father, should be ready, with brotherly hearts and hands, to share our own blessings with those who have them not, and strive to do away with all those feelings of jealousy and ill-will between nation and nation which have so often caused misery and bloodshed. Let our motto ever be, "Peace on earth, good-will towards men." A SELF-HELPED NATURALIST.-Not long ago, Sir Roderick Murchison discovered, at Thurso, in the far north of Scotland, a profound geologist, in the person of a baker there, named Robert Dick. When Sir Roderick called upon him at the bakehouse, in which he baked, and earned his bread, Dick delineated to him, by means of flour upon a board, the geographical features and geological phenomena of his native county, pointing out the imperfections in the existing maps, which he had ascertained by travelling over the county in his leisure hours. On further inquiry, Sir Roderick ascertained that the humble individual before him was not only a capital baker and geologist, but a first-rate botanist. found," said the Director-General of the Geographical Society, "to my great humiliation, that this baker knew infinitely more of botanical science-ay, ten times more than I did; and that there were only some twenty or thirty specimens of flowers which he had not collected. Some he had obtained as presents; some he had purchased; but the greater portion had been accumulated by his industry, in his native county of Caithness; and the specimens were all arranged in the most beautiful order, with their scientific names affixed."Self-Help, by Samuel Smiles. "I "LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR.". '—"Rabbi,” said a Pagan to Hillel the elder, "wilt thou teach me the whole law, while I am standing on one leg?" Hillel replied, "Son, love thy neighbour as thyself. This is the text of the law; all the rest is commentary. Now, go thy ways and study."Mendelssohn's Jerusalem. Hope is like the sun; which, as we journey towards it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.-Self-Help. CHILDREN'S HYMN OF PRAISE. Lord with one accord, we sing Christ will give the grace we seek ; R. E. RACHEL FODEN: A TALE OF THE PLAGUE. out. CHAPTER II. Next morning Rachel took her long red wand and set She was directed to an upper storey in a narrow court. The dead-cart stood at the entrance; the court was too narrow to admit it, and they were heaping the uncoffined bodies promiscuously into it. She found a man just dying in the room when she entered. She could do nothing for him but offer the prayer for which he cried amidst his ravings. She told the watchman when all was over, and passed into the street again. Everyone shrank from her, and shopkeepers closed their doors when they observed her wand. At one house the watchman sat motionless on the door step; she approached him he was dead. Further on she saw several bodies stretched upon the causeway, and some poor creatures lay waiting, as they told her, for the cart. The blood ran cold about her heart; was this the world, she thought, that had seemed so bright and beautiful a few months before? For several weeks she went from house to house, always finding her letter at the appointed time.. One evening, as she walked rapidly through a street, a window was thrown open, and a voice cried-" Come to us, in the name of the blessed Virgin." Rachel had been brought up in the strong Puritan prejudices of her time, and she hesitated. "Better not," urged the watchman. "You may peril your own soul." A second cry, more piercing than the first, decided Rachel to go in. The man looked at her with a smile that she did not like, and gave her a familiar nod. The house was well furnished, and many things which lay about indicated considerable wealth; yet the commonest necessaries were wanting, and, as the woman pointed to a sick child, she said, "I could not leave him, and the watchman will fetch nothing." The father was already dead. Rachel called the watchman and sent him out. He smiled that knowing smile again, and went. The child died in ten days; another fell sick, and lingered a long time. Rachel could not leave the house, and she begged the watchman to go with her letter. He willingly agreed, though he laughed at finding love letters, which he said he was sure her's were, in a graveyard. The next week came round, and though the child was dead, she was still a prisoner, for the mother lay in violent delirium. It often required all Rachel's strength to hold her in bed. The man offered to go again, and she thanked him warmly, as she pressed her lover's letter to her lips. The woman died at last, and Rachel summoned the watchman in to help her. "So she's dead, is she?" he said carelessly. "Ah, she was a tough one, but having died without a will, we, her heirs, proceed to take possession. A large share you shall have, my pretty one, because you're pretty. The good lady was rich," he continued, ransacking the drawers, "by Heavens, here's a fine cross, it will look well on thee." Rachel stood bewildered. answered faintly, 66 we must not 66 They are not ours," she touch them." He stared at her for a moment, and then burst into a brutal laugh, which rang fearfully through the chamber of death. She shuddered, and he began to turn out the drawers again. Rachel summoned all her courage, and laying one hand on his arm, while the other pointed to the dead, she said earnestly, "You dare not steal here, in this room, where a spirit has just passed to God." "What "To the devil you mean," he answered angrily. matters it stealing from a Papist? they've no right to any property. Do you think," he continued, "I would have obliged you as I have, if I hadn't thought we understood each other? Good Heavens! to be talked to like this by a slip of a girl." Rachel moved towards the door, and before he guessed her purpose she had closed it, and turned the key. The man feared to be alone with the dead; he pulled the door with all his strength, swearing dreadfully, and threatening to murder her. There was no one within call, for the pestilence had emptied all the neighbouring houses. The lock was just yielding to his strength when the dead-cart turned into the street. He rushed down stairs with a fearful purpose of revenge. The next fortnight Rachel passed amongst the dead and dying. Sometimes she soothed an orphan's grief, or helped a bereaved and childless parent to bow submissively to the will of Heaven. Some few recovered under her care, and blessed their patient, gentle nurse. This was her chief comfort now, for she had had no letter for three weeks. She tried to remember how probable it was that Daniel might be too far off, or too much occupied to go to the churchyard; still a weariness and heartsickness often fell heavily upon her. One evening as she went through the streets she met the fortune-teller, who had spoken to her three months before. He must have recollected her, for he called out, "Ho! ho! who despised my charm, and lost the bonny bridegroom?" Rachel had no faith in fortune-telling generally, but the strangeness of the coincidence struck her wearied and over-excited mind, and from that moment she considered her lover dead. She still toiled patiently but hopelessly; or rather hoping |