A COLLIER and a Fuller, being old acquaintance, happened to meet together; and the latter, being but ill provided with a habitation, was invited by the former to come and live in the same house with him. "I thank you, my dear friend," replies the Fuller, "for your kind offer, but it cannot be; for if I were to dwell with you, whatever I should take pains to scour and make clean in the morning, the dust of you and your coals would blacken and defile, as bad as ever, before night."

REFLECTION.

It is of no small importance in life, to be cautious what company we keep, and with whom we enter into friendship for though we are ever so well disposed ourselves, and happen to be ever so free from vice and debauchery, yet if those, with whom we frequently

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converse, are engaged in a lewd wicked course, it will be almost impossible for us to escape being drawn in with them. If we are truly wise, and would shun those siren rocks of pleasure, upon which so many have split before us, we should forbid ourselves all manner of commerce and correspondence with those, who are steering a course, which, reason tells us, is not only not for our advantage, but must end in our destruction.

With vice allied, however pure,

No virtue can be long secure :

Shun then the traitress and her wiles,

Whate'er she touches she defiles.

A LITTLE Boy, who went to school, stole one of his school-fellow's books, and brought it home to his mother, who was so far from correcting and discouraging him upon account of the theft, that she commended and gave him an apple for his pains. In process of time, as the child grew up to be a man, he accustomed himself to greater robberies; and at last, being apprehended and committed to gaol, he was tried and condemned for felony. On the day of his execution, as the officers were conducting him to the place of execution, he was attended by a vast crowd of people, and among the rest by his mother, who came sighing and sobbing along, and deploring extremely her son's unhappy fate; which the criminal observing, he called to the sheriff, and begged the favour that he would give him leave to speak a word or two to his poor afflicted mother. The

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sheriff gave him permission; and the felon, while every one thought he was whispering something of importance to his mother, bit off her ear, to the great offence and surprise of the whole assembly. What," say they, "was not this villain contented with the impious facts which he has already committed, but he must increase the number of them, by doing this violence to his mother?" "Good people," replied he, "I would not have you be under a mistake; that wicked woman deserves this, and even worse at my hands; for if she had chastised, instead of rewarding and caressing me, when in my infancy I stole the book, I had not come to this untimely end."

REFLECTION.

Youthful minds, like the pliant wax, are susceptible of the most lasting impressions, and the good or evil bias they then receive is seldom or ever eradicated.

A CALF, full of play and wantonness, seeing an Ox at plough, could not forbear insulting him. "What a sorry drudge art thou," says he, "to bear that heavy yoke upon your neck, and go all day drawing a plough at your tail, to turn up the ground for your master! But you are a wretched slave, and know no better, or else you would not do it. See what a happy life I lead ; I go just where I please; sometimes I lie down under the cool shade; sometimes frisk about in the open sunshine; and, when I please, slake my thirst in the clear brook but you have not so much as a little dirty water to refresh you." The Ox, not at all moved with what he said, went quietly and calmly on with his work; and, in the evening, was unyoked and turned loose. Soon after which he saw the Calf taken out of the field, and delivered into the hands of a priest, who immediately

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