MY

COUSIN JACK.

Y cousin Jack was always considered a clever fellow; indeed, father used to say that "he was too clever by half." When at school he could learn his lessons in less time than any other lad, and yet he was generally at the bottom of the class, and oftener in disgrace than any of his schoolfellows. He would play up till the minute the bell rang, trusting to his quickness to enable him to make up for lost time, or hoping by some clever trick to escape punishment; but he was constantly getting into trouble in consequence. And so it came to pass that I, though much duller and slower than he, was made pupil-teacher, and Jack, who hoped to get the place, had to be apprenticed to a trade.

His master made the same complaint about him that his teacher had done before. He said that when Jack gave his mind to his work he did as much in a couple of hours as the other apprentices could do in a whole day. But Jack was talking and lounging about with his hands in his pockets, whilst they were minding their business, and, in consequence of this bad habit, he was always behind hand and constantly in trouble. When he was out of his time, the master said that he should be very glad to give him regular work at good wages if he would only be more careful and industrious; but Jack would not promise this, so he was turned off, and found himself without a place. He didn't care for this at first, for he had a little bit of money left him by his father, and he thought this made him independent of everybody. So he set up in business for himself, saying he would be his own master and do as he liked.

Jack was a great favourite among the lazy, good-for-nothing fellows who hang about the "Red Lion." He could tell a tale, crack a joke, and sing a song, better than anybody else; he was always merry, always free with his money, and never too busy to strike work for an hour or two at the call of his companions. If he had a job on haud for which a customer was waiting, he seldom refused to throw it aside, saying that he

could finish it when he came back. So he

soon came to be the great authority in the tap-room and at the street-corner. But meanwhile his business was neglected. The work which was done quickly was done badly. Customers got tired of calling at his shop and finding that "he had just stepped out." His glib tongue lost its charm, and people ceased to believe his promises or to regard his excuses. His money melted away, and soon his shop was shut up and his stock sold off.

He had now to look out for a place of work, but no one would give him regular employment, and he was glad to pick up an odd job here and there. His chosen companions could not help him. His early

friends had most of them cast him off. My father continued to befriend him, and my sister-with whom he used to keep company, but who had been obliged to refuse himoften begged him to turn over a new leaf. But all was in vain. He went on from bad to worse, till at last he became one of the lowest, laziest fellows in the place.

Soon after I got my present school, I went home at Easter for a few days' holiday, and Jack came to see me. I was in the little back room behind the shop; father was as usual sitting at his bench hard at work; my sister was busy shoe-binding behind him. I was shocked to see how shabby and dirty Jack had become. He began as usual to complain of his bad luck, and to say that he

was the most unfortunate fellow that ever

lived. Father listened to him for a good while in silence, and at last said—

"Jack, I was reading a book this morning, written many years before you were born, which told your fortune exactly."

"Why, uncle," replied he, "I thought you didn't believe in conjuring and fortunetelling."

"Perhaps not, Jack; and yet I've a book which I never knew to fail. It explains why you, who are such a clever fellow, have come to ruin. Yonder it is. Reach it here."

What words, grandfather?" asked the boy-visitor, who was a favourite with the elderly gentleman, and who took the liberty of asking questions now and then. We should add, that this conversation took place in a merchant's private office. The merchant was a rich man, and what is better, a kindhearted, benevolent, and godly man.

"What words, Charles? Why these the first M is for Manners, the second is for Make, and the third is for Men."

"Oh: Manners Make Men. I wonder what those words have to do with your seal, grandfather," said the boy.

"I will tell you, Charles, and then perhaps you will not so much wonder. There is a story about those words which has to do with my own history."

"A story about yourself! Please tell it." "It is a story of fifty years ago or more.

At that time, one summer's evening, a person on horseback rode into a certain village, a great many miles away from London." "What was the name of the village, grandfather?"

"The name? names; it was a place where rude and ignorant people lived, as the horseman soon found out for himself. He was a rather strange-looking man, and had a very awkward way of riding. Indeed, it was plain that he was not used to the saddle; and it may be the horse was not used to such a rider, for a contest was continually going on between the two, the horse being desirous of getting rid of his rider, and the rider labouring very hard to keep his seat."

Oh, we won't mind about

"Like Johnny Gilpin and his horse," said Charles.

"Not at all unlike it, Charles: so that the lines in that poem might very well have been applied to the stranger and his horse; for

'His horse, who never in that sort
Had handled been before,
What thing upon his back had got
Did wonder more and more.'

"Now the village people being, as I have said, rude, so far from pitying the poor horseman, or offering to help him in his trouble, began to jeer and laugh very loudly: and the more restive the horse became, and the greater danger there was of the rider being thrown, the louder became their laughs and jeers. There was a little group of rustics, for instance, at the blacksmith's forge, who quite roared with merriment as the horse pranced by, and one of whom shook a chain, to frighten the poor animal and make him kick up his heels, as he said. There was a carter going by with his cartwhip in his hand; and he stood and laughed with the loudest, and smacked his whip half-a-dozen times to make the horse dance, as he said. There was a knot of schoolboys playing in the road; and they left off playing to laugh and shout and clap their hands at the fun, as they called it; and they called the rider very rude names as well, as he went by them, knowing that however angry they might make him feel, they were safe from receiving punishment from his hands.

straggling, and the stranger's progress was "Well, the village street was long and sometimes fast and sometimes slow, for the horse played almost all kind of freaks in backing, and plunging, and rearing, and kicking, and in going all manner of ways except the right. But in all the time it took to go the whole length of the street in this absurd way, no one offered to give the slightest help to the poor horseman, who was very red in the face with vexation, and with the exertion. of keeping himself on his uneasy seat, the saddle.

"Very near the end of the street was a public-house, called the 'Red Lion,' and on reaching this spot, the horse would go no further. It was in vain that the rider tried first flogging and then coaxing, and then flogging again. The animal plunged and kicked more furiously than ever, while a whole crowd of villagers was by this time collected, and making themselves very merry at the expense of the traveller, who, on his part, became very angry with them as well as with his horse, and shouted out to them that they were a set of unmannerly people, which only made them laugh the more.

"Just at this time a poor boy came out of a neighbouring cottage, and saw what was going on. He had been a little used to horses, and he at once guessed what made the stranger's horse kick and rear. In a moment he was by his side, and holding the bridle while the rider dismounted, which he was very glad to do in safety.

"Thank you, my boy,' said the stranger. 'Now, would you mind leading this ugly brute along while I stretch my legs a little?'

"No, sir, I don't mind doing it at all,' said the boy. So they went on together, the boy leading the horse, which soon became quiet enough, and the horseman walking by his side, until they got out of sight of the village altogether. At first they went on silently, for the man was chafed and angry with the village people, and with his horse, and perhaps with himself for having been laughed at; and the boy was too timid to speak without being first spoken to.

"At last, when they had walked on silently nearly half a mile, the gentleman (for so he seemed to be) began to cool in his temper, and then he almost overwhelmed the boy with questions, though in rather a short, snappish way, about the village first of all, then about the boy himself, and then about all sorts of things in general, which the boy answered as well as he was able. And thus another half-mile was passed over.

"And now I'll mount again,' said the horseman, and see if I and the beast can get along better than we did.'

"If you please, sir,' said the boy, 'if you would let me alter the curb a little, and if you wouldn't hold in the curb rein so tight, tight, the horse would go quietly, I think.'

"Do what you like with the curb,' said the gentleman; and as to the curb-rein, I won't touch it at all, if that will do any good, only you must tell me which is the curb-rein, for that is more than I know at present.'

"And now,' continued the gentleman, when these instructions were obeyed, and he was safely mounted, 'I have two things to say. The first is, if you think I am going to give you sixpence for your trouble, you are mistaken; I am not going to give you a penny.'

"Perhaps the boy was a little disappointed to hear this; but if he was he did not show it. He only touched his cap, and said that

the gentleman was very welcome to the help he had given.

"The other thing 1 have to say is, that you are the only civil person I have met with in all your village; and I should advise you to leave it as soon as you can, for fear of your corrupting the rest.' And at this the boy laughed a little, and touched his cap again. Then the gentleman rode off, and the boy returned home.

"There, Charles, what do you think of my story?" the old merchant asked, when he had got as far as this.

"I think, grandfather, that the gentleman, whoever he was, was a rather shabby fellow; and I should not have thanked him for his advice," said Charles. "But your story does "But your story does not say anything about yourself, or the letters on your seal," he added, with a puzzled

countenance.

'No; well, then, I must finish the story, I suppose. That boy was your grandfather, Charles; I, myself. The gentleman who was so shabby as not to give me even a penny for my services, and did not know how to ride a horse, or understand the nature and use of a curb-rein, was the rich merchant who afterwards educated me at his own expense, then took me into his counting-house, and afterwards gave his consent to my marrying his daughter."

"Oh, grandfather!" said Charles.

"And this seal he had engraved, and gave me on the wedding day, explaining what the letters were intended to signify, and telling me, with a warm shake of the hand, that Manners had been the Making of Me."

MARY WADE'S BROWN LOAF.

THERE is a
THERE is a pleasant smell of baking in

Mary Wade's room this afternoon. She is taking out of the oven a large brown loaf, which is done to a nicety; for Mrs. Wade is an excellent cook and a good manager. Her house is let in lodgings, but to poor people who do not pay her much. Still she and her husband are very industrious, and contrive, with one thing and another, to get a living. There is a mystery about this brown loaf that would have been explained if you had seen what Mary was doing this morning. She went into one of her lodger's rooms when no one was there, and just peeped into the cupboard. Then, seeing nothing but a crust and a tea-pot, she exclaimed, "Ah! I thought so!" and in five minutes. she was up to her elbows in flour, working away with right good will.

While the loaf is baking, a pale girl on crutches is making her way, slowly and painfully, through the crowded streets of the city. She has a bundle of work in her hand, and is going to be paid for it. She has had but little food to-day, and her heart would be sad if one promise did not console her, "I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread."

Her work is not paid for, and she is told to call again to-morrow. Slowly and painfully she toils back to her home. She has neither food nor firing. "It is very much like being forsaken," says Unbelief. "But," says Faith, repeating it for the twentieth time, "I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.'"

Nelly climbs up the narrow staircase to her room. There is one crust left, and she will make a meal of that. But a surprise is in store for her. As she went her weary way that morning, her heavenly Father was caring for her. He put it into the heart of good Mary Wade to look with compassion into the empty cupboard and the fireless grate, and to supply poor Nelly's wants for that day at least. There is a bit of fire blazing cheerfully, the tea-pot is on the table, and a new brown loaf, and Mary Wade is more than rewarded by Nelly's look of gratitude. "Have not you done all the good in the world to me, and got my husband to take the pledge, and me to read my Bible, when I had not opened it for years, and brought a blessing with you; and do you think I'd let you starve?"

Christian man or woman, when want is at the door, and things go hard with you, take courage. God is on your side. He can and will provide as is best for you. "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." Faith may be severely tried; but "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."

A QUESTION.

A LADY had written on a card, and placed it on the top of an hour-glass in her gardenhouse, the following verse from a rural poet: it was when the flowers were in full bloom:"To think of summers yet to come That I am not to see!

To think a weed is yet to bloom,
From dust that I shall be!"

The next morning she found the following lines in pencil, on the back of the same card :-

"To think when heaven and earth are fled,
And times and seasons o'er,

When all that CAN die shall be dead,
That I must die no more!

Oh, where will then my portion be?
Where shall I spend ETERNITY ?"
Well would it be if all would ponder the
question.

IT

REAPING IN THE FAR WEST.

T is sometimes interesting to make acquaintance with the different modes of agriculture which are followed in different parts of the world. Our picture represents a group of reapers such as we never see in this country. They are settlers in a southern district of the Far West of North America; and they are Europeans, or the descendants of Europeans, men accustomed to lead a wild and adventurous life, but yet used to civilization, and careful to provide for the due supply of their wants. It is likely that they have squatted upon their land-as settlers are allowed to do in many parts of the western continent that are thinly peopled-and that nobody will ask them to pay rent, which to be sure is an advantage. But on the other hand they occupy the land without any protection for what they raise upon it, whether it be crops or cattle: their flocks are liable to be worried by wolves and other wild animals, and their crops lie open to the incursions of the Indian tribes, who now and then come in bands to the neighbourhood, and make no scruple of helping themselves to what they want. If they do not attack the settler's hut it is perhaps because they respect the well-known bravery of the white men, and are afraid of their firearms.

Settlers in the position of these men do not always succeed in raising a crop ready for harvesting. It sometimes happens, owing to the trespass of savages, or the inroads of animals which trample down their fences, that the grain is destroyed before it is ripe, or is so much injured that it has to be cut green to feed the cattle; and in such cases the families of settlers have been known to go without bread for a whole year together, living solely on coffee, fruits, and animal food. The party represented in the picture have succeeded better; they have their wheat-crop ripe, and are using all diligence to get it housed. As cheap labour is not to be hired, they have to do the work themselves; but they mow the wheat with a scythe instead of cutting it with the sickle, and along the back of the scythe-blade they have fixed a kind of light railing, which catches the corn as it is cut, and enables the

reaper to lay it on the ground quite even, and ready to be bound in sheaves. This plan saves a good deal of labour, and indeed is sometimes adopted by farmers in England, although it was invented by an American settler.

An English labourer would stare if he saw a man cutting wheat in a pair of high jack-boots. But the long military-looking boots are the best things that a reaper can wear in that hot climate, where venomous reptiles lurk in the soil, whose fangs would pierce through anything much less tough than a bull's hide.

The "church-going bell" never sounds in the ear of the squatter; there is no house of worship open for him on the Sunday; in sickness he has no comforter; in the hour of death there is no voice speaking consolation to his failing heart. Let us be thankful that in our island home we have all these privileges in abundance, and let us pray humbly for grace to make a wise use of them.

TOM SMITH.

A STORY FOR BOYS.

HARVESTING IN AMERICA.

horseback; he makes excursions to other districts, and visits other squatters, perhaps forty or fifty miles off; hunting-parties are got together, who give chase to the buffalo, the wild cat, and sometimes do battle with the grisly bear. Then they occasionally pay friendly visits to the Indians with whom they are in league, and to whom they carry presents every year, and thus secure their goodwill and their protection against other and hostile tribes.

This kind of life in the wilderness has many charms; so that when men have grown used to it, nothing will prevail upon them to abandon it; and if they are compelled by circumstances to visit populous towns or cities, they soon grow miserable, and pine for the solitudes they have left. There is one sad and fatal drawback, however, to the advantages of such a life, and that is, that it is too often a life without God, without Christ, without a hope of life immortal.

THIS

Thomas Smith lost both his parents when an

infant, and was

left to the charge of his grandfather, who was a widower. Thus poor Tom never knew a mother's love nor a father's care; and, as his grandfather got his living by hawking pots, and was often from home whole days together, the boy was left to be taught in the streets. Now it is well known what is taught in the streets of a large town: swearing, Sabbath-breaking, lying, stealing, gambling, -all these; but not one word of God, of heaven, of Jesus the Saviour, or even of hell, except in oaths and curses. Of these streetlessons, little Tom, who was never sent to any other school, was an apt learner. As it is said in the Bible, "He drank in iniquity like water." When I first met with this child of sin he had learnt to spend the Sabbath in wandering about with a set of idle lads, nearly his own age, birds'-nesting, playing at pitch-and-toss, or lying half asleep under some wall or building.

A lady who lived near one of their haunts noticed the idlers, and offered to supply them with books to read. The offer was eagerly accepted, and for several Sundays Tom and his associates regularly came for tracts, and were seen to sit down and spend one or two hours in reading them. But it was found that when read, the tracts were sold for pence, with which they gambled; and this opportunity of knowing the truth was lost to the unhappy lads, not without a solemn and affectionate warning and entreaty, which was received with shouts of laughter.

So Tom Smith went on to his next step in sin. He became a thief. He did not steal much at first: apples from his neighbours' gardens, turnips from fields, wood from the carpenter's yard. But he did not stop here. He had one favourite comrade, a lame boy, the child of drunken parents, and brought up in the same school as his companion. Unable to escape from the police so readily as Tom, for some time this cripple bore alone the whippings and imprisonments deserved by both. This made Tom bolder in sin; and before he was fourteen, so hardened had he grown that he had been fourteen times in prison.

After his last term in jail was up, a kind friend, who felt pity for the poor lost lad, made another effort to reclaim him. Tom professed great penitence, and promised warmly to forsake all bad ways and companions. He was put to school, and for some weeks all went on well outside. But, boys, one thing was wanting. Tom Smith had not confessed his sins to God; had not asked for pardon through Christ, nor sought the help of the Holy Spirit to forsake evil and live rightly. He was building a house on sand; trusting to his own strength, which was perfect weakness. His heart was like the empty house swept and garnished; and the devil, who had had Tom in his service all his life, finding it empty, came and took possession of him again. Believe me, boys, there is much truth in those lines,

"Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do."

Hitherto Tom Smith's offences had been dealt with by the magistrates before whom he had been brought, and his sentences had been imprisonment with hard labour for different lengths of time. Now, however, the devil having regained his hold on the boy, Tom went into deeper crime, and the next conviction ended in his committal to take his trial at the county assizes.

And now I come to a part of my story which I shudder to write.

Locked up in a cell alone, with a long imprisonment, a public trial, sure conviction, and probable penal servitude, or transportation for years before him, even the hard heart of Tom Smith, bold and daring as he was, might well tremble. He had cast off the fear of God, and the strong hand of the law of man stopped him in his headlong course of sin. Once more breathing time was given. Unhappy boy! In that solemn hour, there remained to him one source of hope. Had he but turned to God confessing his guilt, had he cried for mercy and pardon through the blood of Jesus, even then, though by human laws his body might have suffered punishment, his soul would have been surely saved.

From this gate of mercy, open freely to the worst of sinners, Tom Smith turned away, and as the shadows of evening fell around

his cell, darkness came down on his soul, and the evil one whispered in his ear, "Is there not a shorter way to get rid of what you dread? a way to cheat the jailor, judge, and jury? Try it." Alas! from this suggestion Tom Smith did not turn away. What passed in the wretched boy's mind that night will never be known on earth. He yielded to the suggestions of Satan, and of his own rash, evil heart, and when the turnkey opened the cell the next morning, Tom Smith had hanged himself.

Only fifteen, and destroyed body and soul for ever. What an awful scene!

And now, boys, we have not written Tom Smith's history to tell you a horrible tale, but to lead you from his fate to stop at the beginning of sin; nay, before the first step is taken. There is not one of you who has not a heart of sin within him, which, under temptation, may lead him into deeper sin than Tom Smith. Beware of Sabbath-breaking; touch not God's holy day. Beware of what people call little sins: no sin is little. Have some useful employment. If you are not doing well, you are doing ill. No one is ever doing nothing. Thankful shall we be if, in the hour of temptation, the remembrance of Tom Smith keeps any boy from the evil within and around him, and leads him to resist the devil and fight the good fight of faith unto eternal life, which is in Christ Jesus.