she was trying to imitate; William | day and Saturday to the study of was writing out some wrong-spelt some interesting and useful books. words from his dictation slate; and on my young friend's knee was little Esther, to whom he was trying to impart some knowledge of her letters. "Oh!" exclaimed his mother, To accomplish anything in reading, you must read aloud, and get some person to correct your faults. To do anything well in spelling, you must not learn columns of words, but get a younger brother or sister to 'we shall never be able to be thank-read to you, while you write down ful enough, sir, for the change that has happened to Thomas. He is quite another being. We have happy evenings with him now; and the children, who used to dread his presence, have grown so fond of him, that they long for the evening to return on which he gives his lessons, and gather round him with delight whenever he comes home." Young reader, how are you passing your evening hours? What Thomas did may be done by you. Sit down at once. Make out a calculation of the hours you have to spare at night. Portion them out, so much to reading, to writing, to arithmetic, and so on, and go to work. You will be astonished what progress you will make before even this winter closes, and what new channels of enjoyment you will thus open to yourself. If you will do this, then we offer you our aid, and from time to time will give such hints as may enable you to husband well your time. At present we can only say, take for this month a little reading, spelling, writing, and arithmetic, and give to each a place. Let Monday and Thursday be given to reading and writing; Tuesday and Friday to spelling and "counting;" Wednes what they read upon a slate. Then compare the two, and mark all the words wrongly spelled. Find them in a dictionary, and set them down correctly in a little blank book of paper. In writing, the schoolmaster near you will doubtless lend you a copy, and you can make a book by stitching some sheets together. For arithmetic, begin at the very beginning, and practice yourself well in the first four rules. Another month will bring you another paper on the subject. 66 THE EARLIER THE EASIER. THERE are some who tremble and some who sneer at youthful conversions. Knowing the early impressibility of the young heart, they fear that early religious emotions may prove only as the morning cloud and the early dew." But a proper rational view of this subject can scarcely fail to convince the most sceptical, that the earlier children are converted after they reach the period of personal accountability, the easier is the work wrought. It is a fatal mistake to reason that when the pleasures of life have been exhausted, when growing age shall have dimmed the senses, when the appetites shall have been palled by satiety, it will be easier to devote the heart to God. All experience and all philosophy deny it. The religious instruction imparted to the young in this age, especially in the sabbath school, makes them early familiar with the fundamental truths of the gospel. The prophecy is becoming fulfilled, "There shall be no more an infant of days, for the child shall die an hundred years old." All the knowledge necessary to conversion may be attained early in youth. In youth the affections are most ardent. It is peculiarly the season of love. The young are capable of the strongest and most self-sacrificing affection. The strongest appeals of Christianity are made to the affections. The only word which sums up the whole of piety is love. Therefore youth is the best season for commencing a life of piety. In youth the hopes are most bright. Then the future is adorned with the most brilliant and attractive hues, and Christianity presents the most gorgeous scenes in glowing imagery to the imagination to induce a life of piety. Faith is most confiding in youth. The young are trusting, ready to believe. Religion demands implicit faith; youth most naturally and easily gives it, and is, therefore, the best season for commencing a life of piety. The mind is most docile in youth. As years advance, men become more and more tenacious of their own views and opinions. Entire submission to the teachings of inspiration is necessary to piety, and this is most easily given in early life. The habits are most yielding in youth. How important then, when they are forming, they should be directed aright! Youth is most submissive to authority. It is the season of obedience. The unquestioning obedience which God demands is most easily rendered in early life. The energies of youth are most active. Young hands for labour. Years deaden the energies. Religion requires the exertion of all our energies to resist evil and to do good. These are most active and most easily diverted in youth. The judgment in youth is best fitted to appreciate the claims of piety. The judgment of impenitent age is prejudiced, and blinded, and warped by sin. One who has long indulged and loved sin, cannot so easily as the more unpolluted mind form a correct judgment of the guilt of sin. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil."-Christian Reflector. FLOWERS OF THE HOLY LAND; OR, BIBLE BOTANY. HAS it never struck you, reader, how much of the Bible receives beauty and expressiveness from the references of its writers to the vegetable productions of the lands in which they lived? Have you never noticed a freshness and fragrance about its pages from the lovely allusions scattered over them to blooming flowers, spicy herbs, verdant grass, or fruitful trees? And have you not, again and again, recurred to them, finding with each recurrence some new loveliness you had not perceived before? We believe you have; and we feel assured that to you, as to us, this precious book would lose much of its loveliness were it less adorned with these expressive figures. To the most cursory observer these allusions must wear a charm and convey expressive thoughts; but to those intimately acquainted with the habits, characters, and uses of the plants referred to, they bear still greater meaning, and become still more attractive. We are anxious you should learn more about them, and invite you, therefore, to join us in what we believe will prove to you a very pleasant exercise. A hint was given forth last year, in this periodical, that members of bible classes might find a useful and interesting pastime in gathering from their gardens, fields, or woods, such herbs, flowers, shrubs, or trees, as are common here as well as in the Holy Land, and forming a sort of bible herbarium. The thought is excellent, and some young friends of mine have caught at it, and are doing what they can to work it out. They find it most pleasant exercise, and are astonished to discover that so many plants of bible note are found, in rich luxuriance, about their British homes. We have been applied to to help them in the work, and gladly do we do it, pledging ourselves to give them and you a monthly paper on the subject, directing to the plants to be collected in the month, or other matter they will want to know. This time our paper must be con fined to a few simple directions in reference to the collecting and preserving of the specimens you get. Here is, first, the apparatus you will need. 1st. You will need some two or three quires of good blotting paper, and which any respectable stationer will give you of the proper kind, if you only tell him what it is for. 2ndly. You will want a small press of some sort. A screw-press will be best; and this may be made either with a stand and centre screw, as a napkin press; or of good inch-andhalf plank, with a small thumbscrew in every corner, some six inches long. Wanting either of these, you can make a good substitute by two-inch boards, about twelve inches wide by eighteen inches long, and a flat heavy stone to lay upon the top. 3rdly. You will require a book of cartridge or large foolscap paper, which you can make yourself, in which to keep the plants when pressed and dried. And, Lastly. You will do well to have a tin box, something like a book, and made on purpose by respectable tinmen, for collecting specimens of plants. This, however, is not indispensable, as a small hand-basket with a cover will do quite well for most occasions. Thus furnished, you may begin your work. Mark down such shrubs or trees as may be in leaf, or plants in flower, in that month, and which are spoken of in scripture, and, with box or basket in hand, sally forth some fine day, and gather what you can. Of some you can only bring home the leaves, as of the Cedar of Lebanon, or the elegant Vine; but of others you will be able to gather flowers; as of the Lily of the Valley, the Lentil, and many more. On getting home you take two or three sheets of blotting paper, and spreading them upon the lower board of the press, lay flat upon them the specimen you wish to dry. Spread it out very carefully. Take care no twigs or leaves lie over one another, and no leaves or petals are folded down. Then lay on this two or three more sheets, and, if you have it, a thin board, or piece of stiff millboard; three more sheets of blotting paper, another specimen, or as many as the sheet will hold beside each other, and so on till all are piled up, and the whole fit to put into the press. Let them remain untouched for a day or two; then look at the specimens, and if any need attending to, set them right. Those that are dry take out, and the others leave for some days longer. When all are dried we place them in our cartridge paper book, by cutting slips to take their stems; write down their names, the places in the scripture where they are spoken of, and the particular thought they are intended to convey. Month after month will thus supply its stores of pleasant work, useful thoughts, and scripture truths. C. H. B. Chapters for Junior Teachers & Senior Scholars. CAN YOU KEEP IT UP? BY OLD ALAN GRAY. "CAN you keep it up?" said a boy to his companion, who was occupied with his skipping rope. The skipper threw the cord over his head and crossed his arms as he did so with much skill; but being too ardent at his sport, he skipped sadly too fast; the consequence was that his feet became entangled with the rope, and he was obliged to stop. "Can you keep it up?" said a little lass, who was looking at a playmate busy with her battledore and shuttlecock. The playmate was in far too great a hurry to strike the shuttlecock fairly and firmly; so that in a few minutes it fell to the ground. "Can you keep it up?" said I to myself as I walked forward, musing on what I had heard and seen; for it appeared to me, that I might with some advantage apply the question, Can you keep it up? to many of the undertakings in which I was then engaged. To my reproach do I plead guilty to the charge of having fallen off in the pursuit of many objects that I ought never to have abandoned, and thus broken my own rule Think well before you pursue it, But when you begin, go through it. Did you never, reader, in your earlier days, set off at the top of your speed when pitted in a race against a companion? and did you never find your breath fail you, so that you could no longer keep up your pace? We have most of us been in such a situation, though, perhaps, few or any of us have profited by storing up the remembrance of it, as a lesson through our future lives. He is not the winner of a race who sets off at the greatest speed, but he who arrives first at the goal; and in like manner in eternal things, not he who has the hottest zeal, but "he that endureth to the end shall be saved," Matt. x. 22. To begin undertakings with more ardour than can be kept up, is a common error among mankind. Instances of it may be found of all kinds. The tick-tack of a clock is just as long and just as loud at sunset as at sunrise. Were all our energies as well regulated, what might we not perform! Some time ago I walked through the spacious apartments of a magnificent building, but though surrounded with splendour, I could not but perceive that scarcely a room in the noble pile was completed; neither the sound of the axe nor of the hammer was heard, and not a single workman was employed on the premises. The trowel of the builder, the chisel of the sculptor, and the brush of the painter were still. What could be the reason? It was this. The owner of the building had proceeded on too vast a scale, and he could not keep it up. He had been obliged to abandon his design, and to go abroad and recruit by economy his exhausted fund. I read an account in the news paper of a hare running along a railroad, when a train of carriages was coming behind her at a great rate. For a time she kept ahead of the train, but the steam-engine relaxed not its pace, and poor puss, not being able to keep up her speed, was run over and crushed to pieces. Many beside poor puss have suffered from entering on undertakings beyond their powers. Some years ago an almanac was published with the title of Murphy's Almanac, undertaking to give an exact account of what the weather would be every day of the coming month. This book became all at once exceedingly popular. Thousands and tens of thousands of copies were sold, and booksellers could not procure them fast enough to supply their customers. All this was brought about by a happy hit on the part of the author, who was fortunate to be quite right in his prediction. The crowd praised Murphy, and ran to buy his publication. Murphy began excellently, but the worst of it was that he could not keep it up, for day after day, and week after week, the weather turned out to be the very reverse of what he had predicted. We now never hear of Murphy's Almanac. The lark begins her flight with soaring wing; To keep it up is quite another thing. "A new broom sweeps clean," says the proverb. How often does the youthful convert manifest a zeal far beyond that of older and more experienced Christians! He takes the lead, blames the tardiness of those around him, proposes fresh plans, |