Imatges de pàgina
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my own ignorance; henceforth let me keep from vice myself, and pity it in others.'

He had scarce ended, when the genius, assuming an air of terrible complacency, called all his thunders around him, and vanished in a whirlwind. Asem, astonished at the terror of the scene, looked for his imaginary world; when, casting his eyes around, he perceived himself in the very situation, and in the very place, where he first began to repine and despair; his right foot had been just advanced to take the fatal plunge, nor had it been yet withdrawn; so instantly did Providence strike the series of truths just imprinted on his soul. He now departed from the waterside in tranquillity, and, leaving his horrid mansion, travelled to Segestan, his native city; where he diligently applied himself to commerce, and put in practice that wisdom he had learned in his solitude. The frugality of a few years soon produced opulence; the number of his domestics increased: his friends came to him from every part of the city; nor did he receive them with disdain: and a youth of misery was concluded with an old age of elegance and ease.

SUN YOUR DWELLINGS. Shade trees of houses are beautiful, but they never should be so closely planted as to exclude the bright sunshine, and thus cause dampness in the dwellings. When trees spread out their broad arms, and prevent 'old Sol' from sending his cheerful rays into every room in a house, their branches should be thoroughly pruned, or every termediate tree cut down. Dr Hall, in his Journal of Health,' says respecting light-'No room without the glorious sunshine is fit for any living creatureman or beast. The glorious sunshine the free and bounteous gift of a beneficent Creator, is the source of all buoyant, healthful life. A correspondent of the 'Southern Cultivator' states, that a friend of his had a large number of barren mulberry-trees growing in his yard, and casting such a dense shade, that the rays of the sun never reached the ground. He called his attention to this, and he advised him to remove every alternate one. This was not done, they were allowed to stand. That season he lost his wife and three children by sickness. The correspondent referred to attributed the sickness to the dampness in and around his friend's house, caused by the deep shade of the trees. His

inference is probably a correct one, for a free admission of cheering light can never be excluded from any house by shade trees (or anything else) but at the peril of health. In this place, we also advise those who have shade trees around their houses to be very careful to sweep up blossoms and pollen which fall upon the ground, and remove them to a distance; for all decaying vegetable matter in the neighbourhood of dwellings engenders miasma.

ANECDOTES OF SIR THOMAS
MORE.

'It happened one day,' says Mr Aubrey, in his 'Manuscript Lives,' 'that a mad Tom of Bedlam came up to Sir Thomas More, as he was contemplating, according to his custom, on the leads of the gate-house of his palace at Chelsea, and had a mind to have thrown him from the battlements, crying out, Leap, Tom, leap. The chancellor was in his gown, and besides, ancient and unable to struggle with such a strong fellow. My lord had a little dog with him. Now (said he) let us first throw the dog down, and see what sport that will be: so the dog was thrown over. Is not this fine sport? said his lordship. Let us fetch him up and try it again. As the madman was going down, my lord fastened the door, and called for help.'

More's spirit and innocent mirth did not forsake him in his last moments. As he was going up the scaffold to be bein-headed, he found the stairs of it so weak and crazy, that it was nearly ready to fall: he turned about to the Lieutenant of the Tower and said, 'Pray, Master Lieutenant, see me safe up; and for my coming down, I can shift for myself.' When he had finished his prayers, he turned to the executioner and said, on observing him look sad and dejected, 'Pluck up thy spirits, man, and be not afraid to do thine office; my neck is very short, therefore take care you do not strike awry, for your credit's sake.' Then laying his head upon the block, he desired the executioner to stay till he had put his beard aside, 'for that,' said he, ' has never committed treason.' Mr Addison well observes, 'that what was only philosophy in Sir Thomas More, would be frenzy in one who does not resemble him in the cheerfulness of his temper, as in the sanctity of his life and manners.'

THE FABLE OF THE COBBLER AND THE

NABOB.

A cobbler, who had fix'd his stall
Against a nabob's palace wall,
Work'd merrily as others play,
And sung and whistled all the day.
A prey to many an anxious care,
Less merry was the lord, by far;
And often in the night he thought
It hard, sleep was not to be bought;
And if tow'rds morn he got a doze,
The cobbler troubled his repose.
One day he bid the man attend;
And well,' says he, 'my honest friend!
How is it that so well you thrive?
You seem the happiest man alive;
Pray what may be the profit clear
That you can earn within the year?' -
'What in a twelvemonth I can earn,
My lord, was never my concern.
'Tis quite enough,' the cobbler said,
'If I can gain my daily bread.'—
"Take then this note ('twas twenty pound);
'But sing not with so shrill a sound,

Good man,' the generous nabob cries,
'When early to your work you rise;
For then I want to close my eyes.'
Delighted to his stall he went:
But now he first felt discontent;
All day he neither work'd nor ate,
For thinking of his happy fate.
At night, when he retired to bed,
He placed the note beneath his head.
But could not sleep a single wink,
What he should do with it, to think;
And every little noise he heard,
That folks were come to rob him, fear'd.
Living in constant dread of all
Who did but look towards his stall,
So lean and sallow he was grown,
The man was hardly to be known
At last he begg'd the lord to see:
"Take back your present, sir,' says he,
'Riches I find are not for me.
To-morrow I my song renew;
Not less my gratitude to you;
And care henceforward I will take,
My chants your slumber do not break.'

INDIAN HONESTY.

An Indian, being among his white neighbours, asked for a little tobacco to smoke; and one of them, having some loose in his pocket, gave him a handful. The day following the Indian came

back inquiring for the donor, saying he had

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found a quarter-of-a-dollar among the tobacco. Being told that, as it was given to him, he might as well keep it, he answered, pointing to his breast, 'I got a good man and a bad man here; and the good man say, "It is not mine-I must return it to the owner.' "" The bad man say, "Why, he gave it you, and it is your own now." The good man say, "That's not right; the tobacco is yours, not the money." The bad man say, "Never mind, you got it; go buy some dram." The good man say, "No, no, you must not do so." So I don't know what to do; and I think to go to sleep; but the good and the bad man keep talking all night, and trouble me; and, now I bring the money back, I feel good.'

WONDERS OF THE ANIMAL

CREATION.

Man, and the races of animals by which he is surrounded, present a very striking group, consider them in whatever light we please. The gradual improvement of organic form, and the consequent increase of sensibility, and eventually the development of reason, are the grandest features of animated creation. The conditions as to number even of the various classes are not the least remarkable phenomena of life. In the lowest orders of animals, creatures of imperfect organisation-consequently those to whom the conditions of pain must be nearly unknown-increase by countless myriads. Of the Infusoria and other beings, entire mountains have been formed, although microscopes of the highest powers are required to detect an individual. Higher in the scale, even among insects, the same remarkable conditions of increase are observed. Some silkworms lay from 1000 to 2000 eggs; the wasp deposits 3000; the ant from 4000 to 5000. The queen bee lays between 5000 and 6000 eggs, according to Burmeister; but Kirby and Spence state that in one season the number may amount to 40,000 or 50,000. But, above all, the white ant (Termes fatalis) produces 86,400 each day, which, continuing for a lunar month, gives the astonishing number of 2,419,000, a number far exceeding that produced by any known animal.

These may appear like the statements in which a fictionist might indulge, but they are the sober truths discovered by the most painstaking and cautious observers. And it is necessary that such conditions should prevail. These insects, and all the lower tribes of the animal kingdom, furnish food for the more elevated races. Thousands are born in an

hour, and millions upon millions perish in a day. For the support of organic life, like matter is required; and we find that the creatures who are destined to become the prey of others, are so constituted that they pass from life with a perfect unconsciousness of suffering. As the animal creation advances in size and strength, their increase becomes limited; and thus they are prevented from maintaining by numbers that dominion over the world which they would be enabled from their powers to do, were their bands more numerous than we now find them.

The comparative strength, too, of the insect tribes has ever been a subject of wonder and of admiration to the naturalist. The strength of these minute creatures is enormous; their muscular power, in relation to their size, far exceeds that of any other animal. The grasshopper will spring two hundred times the length of its own body. The dragon-fly, by its strength of wing, will sustain itself in the air for a long summer day with unabated speed. The house-fly makes six hundred strokes with its wings, which will carry it five feet every second.

Such are the wonders of the natural world; from the zoophyte, growing like a flowering plant upon an axis filled with living pitha small remove from the conditions of vegetable life, upwards through the myriads of breathing things -to man, we see the dependence of all upon these physical powers which we have been considering.

To trace the effects of these great causes through all their mysterious phases, is the work of inductive science; and the truths discovered tend to fit us for the enjoyment of the eternal state of high intelligence to which every human soul aspires.

That which the ignorant man calls the supernatural, the philosopher classes among natural phenomena. The ideal of the credulous man becomes the real to one who will bend his mind to the task of inquiry. Therefore to attempt to advance our knowledge of the unknown, to add to the stores of truth, is an employment worthy the high destiny of the human race. Remembering that the revelations of natural science cannot in any way injure the revelation of eternal truth, but, on the contrary, aid to establish in the minds of the doubting a firm conviction of its divine origin and of man's high position, we need never fear that we are proceeding too far with any inquiry, so long as we are cautious to examine the conditions of our own minds, that they may not be made the dupe of the senses.

In the fairies of the hills and valleys, in the gnomes of the caverns, in the spirits of the elements, we have the attempts of the mind, when the world was young, to give form to the dim outshadowings of something which was then felt to be hidden behind external nature. In the Oread, the Dryad, and the Nereid, we have, in like manner, an embodiment of powers which the poet-philosopher saw in his visions presiding over the mountain, the

forest, and the ocean. Content with these, invested as they were with poetic beauty, man for ages held them most religiously sacred; but the progress of natural science has destroyed this class of creations. Great Pan is dead,' but the mountains are not voiceless; they speak in a more convincing tone; and, instead of the ear catching the dying echo of an obscure truth, it is gladdened with the full, clear note of nature in the sweetest voice proclaiming secrets which superstition dared not even seek for.-Hunt.

PENN'S ADVICE TO HIS FAMILY.

MY DEAR WIFE AND CHILDREN,My love, which neither sea, nor land, nor death itself can extinguish or lessen toward you, most endearingly visits you with eternal embraces, and will abide with you for ever; and may the God of my life watch over you, and bless you, and do you good in this world and for ever! - Some things are upon my spirit to leave with you in your respective capacities, as I am to one a husband, and to the rest a father, if I should never see you more in this world.

My dear wife! Remember thou wast the love of my youth, and much the joy of my life; the most beloved as well as most worthy of all my earthly comforts; and the reason of that love was more thy inward than thy outward excellencies, which yet were many. God knows, and thou knowest it, I can say it was a match of Providence's making; and God's image in us both was the first thing and the most amiable and engaging ornament in our eyes. Now I am to leave thee, and that without knowing whether I shall ever see thee more in this world, take my counsel into thy bosom, and let it dwell with thee in my stead while thou livest.

[After some counsel relative to godliness and economy, he proceeds:—]

And now, my dearest, let me recommend to thy care my dear children; abundantly beloved of me, as the Lord's blessings, and the sweet pledges of our mutual and endeared affection. Above all things endeavour to breed them up in the love of virtue, and that holy plain way of it which we have lived in, that the world in no part of it get into my family. I had rather that they were homely than finely bred as to outward behaviour; yet I love sweetness mixed with gravity, and

cheerfulness tempered with sobriety. Religion in the heart leads into this true civility, teaching men and women to be mild and courteous in their behaviour; an accomplishment worthy indeed of praise.

Next breed them up in love one of another; tell them it is the charge I left behind me; and that it is the way to have the love and blessing of God upon them. Sometimes separate them, but not long; and allow them to send and give each other small things to endear one another with.

Once more I say, tell them it was my counsel they should be tender and affectionate one to another. For their learning be liberal. Spare no cost; for by such parsimony all is lost that is saved; but let it be useful knowledge, such as is consistent with truth and godliness, not cherishing a vain conversation or idle mind; but ingenuity mixed with industry is good for the body and the mind too. I recommend the useful parts of mathematics, as building houses or ships, measuring, surveying, dialling, navigation; but agriculture is especially in my eye: let my children be husbandmen and housewives; it is industrious, healthy, honest, and of good example: like Abraham and the holy ancients, who pleased God, and obtained a good report. This leads to consider the works of God and nature, of things that are good, and diverts the mind from being taken up with the vain arts and inventions of a luxurious world. Rather keep an ingenious person in the house to teach them, than send them to schools-too many evil impressions being commonly received there. Be sure to observe their genius, and do not cross it as to learning; let them not dwell too long on one thing; but let their change be agreeable, and all their diversions have some little bodily labour in them. When grown big, have most care for them; for then there are more snares both within and without. When marriageable, see that they have worthy persons in their eye, of good life, and good fame for piety and understanding. I need no wealth, but sufficiency; and be sure their love be dear, fervent, and mutual, that it may be happy for them. I choose not they should be married to earthly covetous kindred; and of cities and towns of concourse beware; the world is apt to stick close to those who have lived and got wealth there: a country life and estate I like best for my

children; I prefer a decent mansion, of a hundred pounds per annum, before ten thousand pounds in London, or such-like place, in a way of trade.

[He next addresses himself to his children.]

Be obedient to your dear mother, a woman whose virtue and good name is an honour to you; for she hath been exceeded by none in her time for her integrity, humanity, virtue, and good understanding; qualities not usual among women of her worldly condition and quality. Therefore honour and obey her, my dear children, as your mother, and your father's love and delight; nay, love her too, for she loved your father with a deep and upright love, choosing him before all her many suitors; and though she be of a delicate constitution and noble spirit, yet she descended to the utmost tenderness and care for you, performing the painfulest acts of service to you in your infancy, as a mother and a nurse too. I charge you, before the Lord, honour and obey, love and cherish, your dear mother.

Next: betake yourselves to some honest industrious course of life, and that not of sordid covetousness, but for example and to avoid idleness. And if you change your condition and marry, choose, with the knowledge and consent of your mother, if living, or of guardians, or those that have the charge of you. Mind neither beauty nor riches, but the fear of the Lord, and a sweet and amiable disposition, such as you can love above all this world, and that may make your habitations pleasant and desirable to you. And being married, be tender, affectionate, patient, and meek. Be sure to live within compass; borrow not, neither be beholden to any. Ruin not yourself by kindness to others; for that exceeds the due bounds of friendship; neither will a true friend expect it. Small matters I heed not.

[After a great number of other affectionate counsels, he turns particularly to his elder boys.]

And as for you, who are likely to be concerned in the government of Pennsylvania, I do charge you before the Lord God and his holy angels, that you be lowly, diligent, and tender, fearing God, loving the people, and hating covetousness. Let justice have its impartial course, and the law free passage. Though to your loss, protect no man against it; for you are not above the law, but the law above you. Live therefore the lives

yourselves you would have the people live, and then you have right and boldness to punish the transgressor. Keep upon the square, for God sees you: therefore do your duty, and be sure you see with your own eyes, and hear with your own ears. Entertain no lurchers; cherish no informers for gain or revenge; use no tricks; fly to no devices to support or cover injustice; but let your hearts be upright before the Lord, trusting in him above the contrivances of men, and none shall be able to hurt or supplant.

[He concludes as follows:-]

vanced in years, very learned, extremely agreeable in his manners, of good address, and of a gracious aspect, and one who in his day had

lived much at the courts of great princes. Riding along with the count, he entertained him with pleasant discourse, until the time came for him to return to Verona; when, as the count was taking leave, he thus addressed him, with a pleasant countenance and mild accents: 'My lord, the bishop, my master, returns your lordship infinite thanks for the honour you have done him by entering and sojourning at his poor house; and as a return for so great courtesy, he

has given it in charge to me to make you a present on his part, and most kindly prays you to receive it with a cheerful mind. You are the most graceful and polished gentleman whom the bishop has ever seen. For this reason he has attentively observed your manners, and examining them particularly, has found nothing which was not in the highest degree agreeable and commendable, except an ugly motion of the mouth and lips when eating, accompanied with a noise very disagreeable to hear; it is this which the bishop has sent me to make known to you,

Finally, my children, love one another with a true and endeared love, and your dear relations on both sides, and take care to preserve tender affection in your children to each other, often marrying within themselves, so as to be without the bounds forbidden in God's law, that so they may not, like the forgetting unnatural world, grow out of kindred and as cold as strangers; but, as becomes a truly natural and Christian stock, you and yours after you, may live in the pure and fervent love of God towards one another, as becometh brethren in the spiritual and natural reproof; but like a brave man, taking heart, he

relation.

So farewell to my thrice dearly beloved wife and children!

Yours, as God pleaseth, in that which no waters can quench, no time forget, nor distance wear away, but remains for ever, WILLIAM PENN.

Worminghurst,

Fourth of Sixth Month, 1682.

REFINEMENT OF BEHAVIOUR. There dwelt in Verona a bishop who possessed natural abilities, and was well read in the Scriptures; his name was Giovanni Matteo Giberti. Among other praiseworthy habits, he was courteous and liberal to the noble gentlemen who visited him, entertaining them with a magnificence, not extravagant, but such as became a churchman. It happened that a nobleman styled Count Richard passed that way, and spent many days with the bishop and his family, who were for the most part well bred and educated men. The agreeable manners of the gentle cavalier gained for him the esteem and commendation of his hosts. But he had one little bad habit, of which the bishop became aware, and taking counsel with his attendants, he proposed that the count should be informed of it, lest it should be of some prejudice to him. For this purpose he summoned a discreet attendant, and directed him to mount his horse the next morning, and to accompany the count, who had already taken leave, for some distance on his way, and at a proper opportunity to make to him the proposed communication. The attendant, whose name was Galateo, was a man ad

and he prays you to endeavour at once to rid

yourself of the habit, and desires that you will receive in the place of a more costly present this his loving reproof and advice, being assured that no one else in the world would make you such a present.' The count, who had never been aware of this bad habit, blushed a little at this

said, "Tell the bishop, that if all the gifts which men make to one another were like his, men would be much richer than they are. For his great courtesy and liberality to me, I return him infinite thanks, and assure him that I will hereafter diligently guard against my bad habit. God go with you!'-G. Della Casa.

AN OLD STORY FIT FOR THE TIMES.

Dr Justus Jonas told Dr Martin Luther of a noble and powerful Misnian, who above all things occupied himself in amassing gold and silver, and was so buried in darkness, that he gave no heed to the five books of Moses, and had even said to Duke John Frederic, who was discoursing with him upon the gospel, 'Sir, the gospel pays no interest.'-'Have you no grains?' interposed Luther; and then told this fable:'A lion making a great feast, invited all the beasts, and with them some swine. When all manner of dainties were set before the guests, the swine asked, "Have you no grains?" Even so,' continued the doctor-' even so, in these days, it is with our epicureans: we preachers set before them, in our churches, the most dainty and costly dishes, as everlasting salvation, the remission of sins, and God's grace; but they, like swine, turn up their snouts, and ask for guilders: offer a cow a nutmeg, and she will reject it for old hay. This reminds me of the answer of certain parishioners to their minister, Ambrose R. He had been earnestly exhorting them to come and listen to the Word of God: "Well," said they, "if you will tap a good barrel of beer for us, we'll come with all our hearts and hear you." The gospel at Wittenberg is like unto the rain which, falling upon a river, produces little effect; but descending upon a dry, thirsty soil, renders it fertile.'

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