Now, don't you think that from that day
He'd pray to this kind Friend,
And, when he should in trouble be,
To Him for help would send?

My simple tale is ended now,
No more have I to say,

But hope you may instruction gain
Before you go away.

And if you should be in distress,
May you to Jesus go,

Because He coming children loves,
And will relieve their woe.

You need not write, but speak to Him,
For He is always nigh,

And, though you cannot see Him, still
He'll hear you when you cry.

Then, be your trouble great or small,
To Jesus always pray.

And He will surely send you help
In His own time and way.

But oh, remember, if you die
Untaught the Lord to know,
Your guilty soul for sin will sink
To endless deeps of woe.

The soul that's stain'd with guilt and sin
Can never be made clean,
Except by Jesu's fount of blood,

And living faith therein.

And every sinner, young or old,

However vile he be,

That's brought to feel his guilty load,
And led to Christ to flee !

The Saviour never will cast out,
But give him peace and rest;

That soul's amongst the chosen flock,
And ever shall be blest.

THEY DIDN'T THINK.

ONCE a trap was baited with a piece of cheese;
It tickled so a little mouse it almost made him

sneeze;

An old rat said, "There's danger: be careful where

you go

"Nonsense!" said the other, "I don't think you know!"

So he walked in boldly-nobody in sight-
First he took a nibble, then he took a bite.
Close the trap together snapped as quick as wink,
Catching mousy fast there, 'cause he didn't think.
Once a little turkey, fond of her own way,
Wouldn't ask the old ones where to go or stray;
She said, "I'm not a baby; here I am half-grown ;
Surely I am big enough to run about alone!"
Off she went, but somebody hiding saw her pass;
Soon like snow her feathers covered all the grass.
So she made a supper for a sly young mink,
'Cause she was so headstrong that she wouldn't
think.

Once there was a robin lived outside the door,
Who wanted to go inside and hop upon the floor.
“Oh no,” said the mother, “you must stay with me;
Little birds are safest sitting in a tree."

"

"I don't care," said robin, and gave his tail a fling; "I don't think the old folks know quite everything.' Down he flew, and Kitty seized him before he'd

time to blink;

“Oh,” he cried “I'm sorry, but I didn't think."

Now, my little children, you who read this song, Don't you see what trouble comes of thinking wrong?

And can't you take a warning from their dreadful fate,

Who began their thinking when it was too late? Don't think there's always safety where no danger shows;

Don't suppose you know more than anybody knows. But when you're warned of ruin, pause upon the brink :

And don't go under headlong, 'cause you didn't think.

THE GRAVE-DIGGER WHO DUG A GRAVE FOR HIMSELF.

IN a village in the north of Ireland, I was startled, early one morning by a mournful cry, which every moment seemed to come nearer. At once rising up, I went to the window, which looked out on the street of the village. In a moment or two afterwards, a company of people appeared on the opposite side, and among them four men carrying a door, on which lay something as of human form, covered over and screened from view; close in the rear a distracted female ever and anon lifted up her voice, and wailed. The burden proved to be the remains of a young man whom I had seen the preceding day in the vigour of health and strength, and the frantic woman was his mother, and she was a widow !

At three o'clock on the day before, I was summoned to read the Burial Service at the interment of a corpse from another parish. Poor WH- had been employed to dig the grave, and by some mistake he dug it in the wrong place.

Another was therefore opened, and, in the mean time, the corpse was brought into the church, where, after reading the usual service, I addressed those assembled on the uncertainty of life. I afterwards learned that W Hwent, in the evening, on some business to a neighbouring town, three miles distant, and returned to a friend's house in the village at nine o'clock, and that about eleven o'clock he left, under the influence of drink, to go home to his mother's house, half a mile distant in the country. After proceeding a short distance along the high road, a pathway struck across the fields, past a lime-kiln, which was in full work. It is conjectured that he sat down to light his pipe at the fire, and that, not being sober, he fell asleep, or became stupified with the fumes of the burning lime, on the verge of which he was found, at break of day, a charred and blackened corpse, which, half-an-hour afterwards, I had seen carried past my residence.

I can never forget the piteous sight of forlorn grief his widowed mother presented, when she came to my door, as one stricken down and demented by the sudden calamity; nor can I describe the feelings with which I beheld the remains of her hapless son, two days afterwards, committed to the grave, yet unclosed, he himself had digged for another! Here was a young man, strong and active, who had been to the Crimea in the service of the Land Transport Corps, and had escaped the perils of land and sea, killed by drink near his native village, after unconsciously digging, but two days before, his own grave !

Oh, the evils that have come from drunkenness ! What misery, what wretchedness, what deaths, does it occasion! How many a promising flower has it blighted; how many homes has it desolated! The

husband it turns into a brute, making him cruel to the wife of his bosom and a terror to his children, and many a mother's heart it fills with life-long sorrow.

A "TIMBER HAT."

SOMEWHERE about the year 1780 (so runs the tale), a travelling millwright-in those days the king of mechanics-footsore, and with the broadest Northern Doric accent, stopped at Soho, the engine factory of Boulton and Watt, and asked for work.

His aspect was little better than one of "beggary and poor looks," and Mr. Boulton had bidden him go to some other workshop, when, as he was turning away sorrowfully, Mr. Boulton suddenly called him back and inquired: :

"What kind of a hat have you on your head, my man?"

"It's just timber, sir."

"Timber, my man? Let's look at it! Where did you get it?"

"I just made it, sir, my ain'sel." "How did you make it ?"

I just turned it in the lathie."

"But it is oval, man; and the lathe turns things round?"

"Aweal! I just guar'd the lathie gang anither gait to please me. I'd a long journey afore me, and I thocht I'd have a hat to keep out the water; and I had na muckle siller to spare, and I just made ane."

By his inborn mechanism, the man had invented the oval lathe and made his hat, and the hat made his fortune. He became a distinguished machinist.