was strong enough to work, the Curate lent him money wherewith to redeem his tools, and which our friend is paying back by instalments at this day.

I

THE THREE SONS.

REV. JOHN MOULTRIE.

HAVE a son, a little son, a boy just five years old, With eyes of thoughtful earnestness, and mind of gentle mould.

They tell me that unusual grace in all his ways appears,

That my child is grave and wise of heart beyond his childish years.

I cannot say how this may be, I know his face is fair, And yet his chiefest comeliness is his sweet and serious

air:

I know his heart is kind and fond, I know he loveth

me,

But loveth yet his mother more with grateful fervency :

But that which others most admire, is the thought which fills his mind,

The food for grave enquiring speech he everywhere doth find.

Strange questions doth he ask of me, when we together walk;

He scarcely thinks as children think, or talks as children talk.

Nor cares he much for childish sports, dotes not on bat or ball,

But looks on manhood's ways and works, and aptly mimicks all.

His little heart is busy still, and oftentimes perplext With thoughts about this world of ours, and thoughts about the next.

He kneels at his dear mother's knee, she teacheth him

to pray,

And strange, and sweet, and solemn then are the words which he will say.

Oh, should my gentle child be spared to manhood's years like me,

A holier and a wiser man I trust that he will be: And when I look into his eyes, and stroke his thoughtful brow,

I dare not think what I should feel, were I to lose him now.

I have a son, a second son, a simple child of

three;

I'll not declare how bright and fair his little features

be,

How silver sweet those tones of his when he prattles on my knee :

I do not think his light blue eye is, like his brother's,

keen,

Nor his brow so full of childish thought as his hath ever been;

But his little heart's a fountain pure of kind and tender feeling,

And his every look's a gleam of light, rich depths of love revealing.

When he walks with me, the country folk, who pass us in the street,

Will shout for joy, and bless my boy, he looks so mild and sweet.

A playfellow is he to all, and yet, with cheerful tone, Will sing his little song of love, when left to sport

alone.

His presence is like sunshine, sent to gladden home and hearth,

To comfort us in all our griefs, and sweeten all our

mirth.

Should he grow up to riper years, God grant his heart may prove

As sweet a home for heavenly grace as now for

earthly love :

And if, beside his grave, the tears our aching eyes must dim,

God comfort us for all the love which we shall lose in him.

I have a son, a third sweet son; his age I cannot tell,

For they reckon not by years and months where he is gone to dwell.

To us, for fourteen anxious months, his infant smiles were given,

And then he bade farewell to Earth, and went to live in Heaven.

I cannot tell what form his is, what looks he weareth

now,

Nor guess how bright a glory crowns his shining seraph brow.

The thoughts that fill his sinless soul, the bliss which he doth feel,

Are number'd with the secret things which God will not reveal.

But I know (for God hath told me this) that he is now at rest,

Where other blessèd infants be, on their Saviour's loving breast.

I know his spirit feels no more this weary load of

flesh,

But his sleep is bless'd with endless dreams of joy for ever fresh.

I know the angels fold him close beneath their glittering wings,

And soothe him with a song that breathes of Heaven's divinest things,

I know that we shall meet our babe, (his mother dear

and I,)

Where God for aye shall wipe away all tears from every eye.

Whate'er befalls his brethren twain, his bliss can never cease;

Their lot may here be grief and fear, but his is certain peace.

It

may be that the tempter's wiles their souls from bliss may sever,

But, if our own poor faith fail not, he must be ours for

ever.

When we think of what our darling is, and what we still must be :

When we muse on that world's perfect bliss, and this world's misery;

When we groan beneath this load of sin, and feel this grief and pain,

Oh! we'd rather lose our other two, than have him here again.

THE BIRTH OF PRINCE EIGEN WILLIG.

NEVER

REV. F. E. PAGET.

EVER were such rejoicings heard of before as those which took place at the Court of King Katzekopf, when it was announced that Queen Ninnilinda had got a little boy. It was what everybody had been wishing for, hoping for, expecting, year after year, but no little boy came; and so, at length, folks began to despair, and to settle it in their own minds that, whenever King Katzekopf died, the crown would go to his second cousin nine times removed, one of the Katzekopfs of Katzenellenbogen-Katzevervankotsdarsprakenluftschlosser, whom

nobody knew or cared about.

So when Queen Ninnilinda had an heir, the nation almost went beside itself with joy. The church bells

rang till they cracked; the guns of the citadel were firing till they grew so hot that they went off of themselves; oxen were roasted whole in the great square (my dear reader, never attempt to roast an ox whole, either on your own birth-day, or on that of anybody else; the thing is an impossibility, half the meat is sure to be raw, and the other half burnt, and so good beef is spoiled); the two chief conduits of the city no longer poured forth water, but one spouted out cowslipwine, and the other raspberry-vinegar; the lake in front of the palace was filled with small beer (this, however, was a failure, as it killed the fish, and folks said that the beer tasted muddy); an air balloon hovered over the principal streets, and showered down caraway comfits and burnt almonds; Punch was exhibited all day for nothing; the prisons were all thrown open, and everybody paid the debts of everybody else.

Such being the state of things out of doors, you will readily believe that within the palace the joy was of the most exuberant kind. Everything was in confusion; people ran up-stairs and down-stairs, jostling against one another, and always forgetting whither they were going, and for what they had been sent. Some were laughing, and some were crying, but the greater part were all talking at once, each making his own remarks, and nobody listening to his neighbour. The lords of the bed-chamber were laying wagers upon the likelihood of a new creation of peers; the maids of honour were discussing the probable colour of the infant prince's eyes; the pages were speculating upon an increase of salary; nay, the very scullions were counting on a brevet for the kitchen.

But if all his court were thus in such a frenzy of pleasurable emotion, what must have been the condition of King Katzekopf himself? It must be confessed that, in the main, his majesty was one of those casy, indolent, careless sort of folks, who are content to let things take their own course, and who can very

P