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EARLY TO SCHOOL.

WHEN the clock has struck nine,
And the school-door is closing,

Shall I with late ones be seen in disgrace?
No, let me my teacher's
Approval be earning,

And mark the sweet smile which illumines her face.

She comes from her home

To instruct and improve me,

Then how can I dare fill her bosom with pain?
So let me be first

With the best of my fellows,

And strive that position to always retain.

T.

CAN I AFFORD IT?

CAN I afford to waste my hours
With idle boys at play,

And listen to their sad discourse,
And learn the words they say?

No! rather let me strive to fly
The path they love to walk,

Since God beholds with piercing eye,
And registers my talk.

T.

THE MISERY OF IDLENESS.

A MAN who is able to employ himself innocently is never miserable. It is the idle who are wretched. If I wanted to inflict the greatest punishment on a fellow-creature, I would shut him alone in a dark room without employment.

EDITOR'S JUNE GREETING TO HIS DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS.

ACCEPT, dear young friends, on this bright morning of the bright and beautiful month of June, the warm and well-wishing salutations of your old friend, who places another bundle of his gathered ears in your hands; and trusts, as you handle and examine it, ear by ear, you will find what will interest and profit you. I took up so much space last month in telling you about the foundation-laying of our Widows' Homes, which are now making progress towards completion, that I must not give my pen the liberty this month to thrust itself so forward as to push out of the bundle the full ears I have gathered for your use. I wish, if we should be spared to next month, I might be able to tell you the Widows' Homes are not only completed, but paid for. Should there be, as I fear there will, a good sum wanted to open them with, every brick and other material paid for, from the ground to the chimney top, I have no doubt my dear readers will feel it a privilege to make up the deficiency, remembering the adage, "Many hands make light work." It is indeed a privilege to have been the means of rearing these homes to be used by the Lord's aged widowed ones from generation to generation.

I have just been looking at my stock of unpublished verses, and have laid my hands upon a few lines that I wish may be the heart-felt language of many of my dear readers. Oh that the Lord would so bless the GLEANER and SOWER as to make them the instruments of leading yet thousands of souls to feel their need of, and to fly to, the fountain of Jesu's precious blood! Read the lines, dear reader; see if they are truly your language; if so, you must be one that hath heard and learned of

the Father, and has come to Jesus. And, dear young friend, if you have that religion in time that takes you to Jesus, what ground have you to rejoice! for you were loved beforetime, are loved all through time, and will be loved of God to all eternity.

Who but the sinner taught of God,
Can truly prize the precious blood?
God, in His just and holy law,
Demands a life without a flaw:
But I, alas! am stained with sin,
No stream on earth can make me clean;
Despair I must of peace with God,
But for the ever-precious blood.

Exposed to shafts of righteous ire,
Deserving nought but endless fire.
My ark, my shield, my scarlet screen,
My Paschal drops by Justice seen.
My plea that holiness approves,
That God, my Father, ever loves;
My only trust for field or flood
Must be the ever-precious blood!

I'm filthy, it can make me white;
I'm sick, and it can heal me quite :
I've wandered, it can bring me nigh;
I've sinned, and it can satisfy.
I've sold my precious soul for nought,
But blood's the price at which I'm bought;
Bought for the service of my God,

How much I owe to precious blood!

Oh, precious blood, thou drink indeed,

Thou price by which the bound was freed;
Thou balsam for the wounds of sin,

Thou fount to make the filthy clean;
Thou speaker of our sins forgiven,

Thou plea for earth, thou song for heaven;
Sustain us to and through death's flood,
Thou ever, ever-precious blood!

THE MOLE CRICKET.

BY SAMUEL FINDLEY.

WHEN Henry and Charlie were removing a pile of wood, which had long remained in one place, as they approached the ground they found crowds of insects leaping about in all directions; and, although it was the first time they had met with these insects, they discovered such a close family likeness in them to the noisy house cricket, whose chirp they had often heard in the evening about the fireside, that they at once decided that the little, black, nimble jumpers, that tried to evade all efforts to capture them, belonged to some division of the same family. And finding them making their home in such an unpropitious place for comfort, they ranked them among the uncultivated or uncivilized crickets, that did not appreciate the value of a comfortable warm home, as did the domestic chirpers that loved so well to hear themselves talk during the evenings of the closing summer.

Now, as these boys had their interest in insect life wonderfully awakened by their frequent talks with their uncle, they captured a few of the insects, and as soon as they had completed their task, they hastened to the study with their captives to have a talk about crickets, for they knew that their uncle was always willing to tell them interesting stories about the insect world. On entering the study, they found James and their sister Mary already there, intensely interested in looking on while their uncle was adding some very pretty moths and beetles to his collection. Here, uncle," said Henry, "look at the fine, active crickets we caught in the wood-pile."

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"How do you know them to be crickets?" said Uncle Samuel.

We hope he had some plan of doing this without cruelly torturing the poor insects.-ED.

"Charlie says he knows they are crickets, because they look so much like the crickets that used to sing about our fire-place, and eat holes in our wet socks when we would hang them up at night to dry," answered Henry.

"I am glad you are beginning to apply the rules of classification which I have been teaching you," said their uncle. "You are right, Charlie, in your judgment. These insects are crickets, and as there are several species of crickets, I will set aside my work at my cabinet, and tell you something about them. They belong to the order Orthoptera, that is, to the straight-winged insects. If you examine the wings of these crickets, you will find the front wings to be half horny, and that they are used for the covering or protection of the hinder wings, like the elytra, or wing covers of the beetles. If you open out their wings, the second pair, which is now hidden, will spread out so that they will be much larger than the horny pair, and you will find that they are membranous, clear and veined, and fold up like a fan. They take their name of straightwing from their fan-like folding. You will notice, too, how long the hind pair of legs are, and how large the thighs are. This arrangement enables them to leap a great distance, and it is common to all crickets, but not so prominent in the mole cricket.

"This cricket is called the wood cricket. Scientific men call the cricket Gryllus, which is the Latin word for cricket; and therefore the wood cricket would be called Gryllus silvestris, the latter word meaning wood. You will meet with this kind of cricket in abundance in the woods, where its leaping often sounds like the falling of rain on the leaves."

"I have seen crickets in the meadow, and one day I found a hole made by one of them," said Henry, "and I took a straw and put it down in

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