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'Again, you might love your parents so well, that, supposing your attentions to her would please them, you would treat her kindly from this motive, which would be filial affection. Or, finally, you might love God so well, that you would do it because He has commanded us to seek the happiness of others. Now, which of all these motives would be the right one?"

"I suppose you mean the last, father; but I should have thought that benevolence and filial affection would be right, too."

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They are right, but they are not enough; love to God should be united with them, and then they become proper motives. But you can see that the character of the action is entirely changed, in each case, by the character of the motive. If you had been the aunt, and had perceived the little girl's attentions to you were prompted by either of the first motives—— ?"

"O, father, I should have disliked her the more, the more she tried to please me."

"You acknowledge, then, that the heart alone gives a value to outward acts of kindness, and yet you wish God to be contented with formal and hypocritical services, while your heart is all enmity to Him! O Maria, when will you learn that you are treating your Maker, as you would not dare to treat an earthly friend,—no, nor a common acquaintance; for Him only do you require to be pleased with hypocrisy !"-Payson.

LESSON XXVI.-OCCUPATION OF LEISURE HOURS.

In modern times, the celebrated Sir William Jones afforded the world an example for the occupation of leisure hours. All his philosophical and literary studies were carried on among the duties of a toilsome pro

fession, which he was, nevertheless, so far from neglecting, that his attention to all its demands upon his time and faculties constitutes one of the most remarkable of his claims to our admiration. But he was from his boyhood a miracle of industry, and showed, even in his earliest years, how intensely his soul glowed with a love of knowledge. He used to relate that, when he was only three or four years of age, if he applied to his mother, a woman of uncommon intelligence and acquirements, for information upon any subject, her common answer was, "Read, and you will know." He thus acquired a passion for books, which only grew in strength with increasing years. Even at school his voluntary exertions exceeded in amount his prescribed tasks; and Dr. Thackeray, one cf his masters, was wont to say of him, that he was a boy of so active a mind, that if he were left naked and friendless on Salisbury Plain, he would, nevertheless, find the road to fame and riches. At this time he used frequently to devote whole nights to study, when he would generally take tea or coffee to prevent sleeping. He had already, merely to divert his leisure, commenced his study of the law; and it is related, that he would of en amuse and surprise his mother's legal acquaintances by putting cases to them from an abridgment of Coke's Institutes, which he had read and mastered. In after-life his maxim was, never to neglect any opporzunity of improvement which presented itself. In conformity with this rule, while making the most wonderful exertions in the study of the Greek, Latin, and Oriental languages, at Oxford, he took advantage of the vacations to learn riding and fencing, and for reading the best authors in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and French,thus, to transcribe an observation of his own, "with

the fortune of a peasant, giving himself the education of a prince."-" Library of Entertaining Knowledge."

LESSON XXVII.-NESTS OF BRITISH BIRDS.

There is scarcely any circumstance connected with the history of a bird more interesting than the construction of its nest. The diversity in the forms and materials, the position, the degree of comfort, the exposure or concealment, presented by the nests of birds which apparently disagree very slightly in their habits and requirements, is one of those facts at which we wonder, but which we cannot explain. The Golden-crested Wren, a minute creature, interweaves small branches of moss with the web of the spider, and forms a closely compacted texture, nearly an inch in thickness, lining it with such a profusion of feathers, that, sinking deep into this downy accumulation, it seems almost lost itself when sitting; and the young when hatched appear stifled with the warmth of their bedding and the heat of their apartment; while the Whitethroat, the Blackcap, and others, which hatch their young nearly at the same period, require nothing of the kind. A few loose bents and goose-grass, rudely entwined, with perhaps the luxury of some scattered hairs, are perfectly sufficient for all the wants of these; yet they are birds that live only in genial temperatures, feel nothing of the icy gales that are natural to our pretty indigenous artists, but flit from sun to sun; and we might suppose would require much warmth in our climate during the season of hatching but it is not so.

What a contrast is there between the nest of the Ringdove and that of the Magpie! The former chooses the fork of a horizontal branch, often of an oak or a

pine, with no shelter or protection above, and little or no foliage around. On this she places, rudely enough, a loose platform of dry twigs, without the slightest hollow, but laid flat across one another without any attempt at interweaving; and so small a quantity is brought together, that the eggs may frequently be discerned by the eye beneath, through the slight and loose accumulation. On the other hand, the Magpie, provident against depredation, if not against discovery, carefully selects the centre of some thick and thorny bush, or a tree so well fenced round with branches as to make

approach difficult. The nest is a large dome-formed, indeed, of thorny twigs, but so interlaced and accumulated as to prevent any access to the eggs, except through the small hole in the side, through which the parent bird enters. Sometimes, when the situation seems not sufficiently strong by nature, the bush is barricaded and encircled with briars and thorns in the most formidable manner, so rough, so strong, and so firmly entwined with the living branches, that even man himself, without an axe or bill, would find it a matter of pain and difficulty to get at the nest. But inside this strong fortress, which is rough, for protection, a snug chamber is constructed, of well-wrought clay, smoothly plastered, and again lined with a warm drapery of fine fibres and dry blades of grass.-P. H. Gosse.

LESSON XXVIII.-THE HOURS.

The hours are viewless angels
That still go gliding by,

And bear each moment's record up
To Him who rules on high.

And we, who walk among them,

As one by one departs,

See not that they are hovering
For ever round our hearts.

Like summer bees that hover
Around the idle flowers,

They gather every act and thought-
These viewless angel hours.

The poison or the nectar

The heart's deep flower-cup yields; A sample still they gather swift, And leave us in the fields.

But still they steal the record,
And bear it far away;

Their mission flight, by day or night,

No angel power can stay.

But as we spend each moment

That God to us has given,

The deed is known before His throne

The tale is told in heaven.

These bee-like hours we see not,
Nor hear their noiseless wings;

We only know, too oft, when flown,
That they have left their stings.

So teach me, heavenly Father,
To spend each flying hour,
That as they go they may not show
My heart a poisoned flower.

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