on a calm, bright day, was brought amongst them, and still dismissed them with these words, 'Little children, love one another,' they began to think that he purposely confined himself to this simple, and, as they deemed it, unimportant sentence, until brethren and disciples became impatient under the repetition, and at last were emboldened to ask, 'Master, why dost thou ever repeat the same thing?""

?"

"And what did St. John say?

"St. John answered, 'For this reason, because it is the Lord's commandment, and because this, this alone, when rightly understood, is sufficient to supply every thing else.' Oh, my children!" said Mrs. Barker, looking around her, and gladly marking the effect of her story, for all shewed by their look and manner that they understood and felt it, and some seemed to wish to express this feeling by little acts of kindness or assistance to the companions they had so lately disputed with-"Oh, my children, are not these holy words? I would have them written in letters of gold on the walls of our houses, our school-rooms, and our churches; and not only written there, but you should be taught to read them in the bright green fields, the flowery banks, and the glancing sunbeams, where you may read the love of God our Father; nor even should this bound their influence, for in every heart I would have engraven the Testament of St. John, Little children, love one another!'"

6

THE RUBY-THROATED HUMMING-BIRD.

THE following pretty description of the humming-bird was given by an American naturalist, who made birds his principal study.

Where is the person who, on seeing this lovely little creature moving on humming wings through the air, hanging as if by magic in it, flitting from one flower to another with motions as graceful as they are light and airy, pur

suing its course over the vast American continent, and yielding new delights wherever it is seen,-where is the person who, on observing this glittering fragment of the rainbow, would not pause, admire, and instantly turn his mind with reverence toward the Almighty Creator, the wonders of whose hand we every step discover!

No sooner has the returning sun brought back the spring, and caused millions of plants to expand their leaves and blossoms to his beams, than the little humming-bird is seen advancing on fairy wings, visiting every opening flower, and, like a careful florist, removing from each the injurious insects that would ere long cause them to wither and decay.

The prairies, the fields, the orchards, and gardens, nay, the deepest shades of the forest, are all visited in their turn, and every where the little bird meets with pleasure and with food. Its gorgeous throat, in beauty and brilliancy, baffles all description. Now it glows with a fiery hue, and again it is changed to the deepest velvety black. The upper parts of its delicate body are of resplendent changing green, and it throws itself through the air with a swiftness and vivacity hardly conceivable. It moves from one flower to another like a gleam of light,-upwards, downwards, to the right, and to the left.

I wish it were in my power at this moment to impart the pleasure I have felt whilst watching the movements of a single pair of these favourite little creatures when engaged in shewing their affection for each other. How the male swells his plumage and throat, and, dancing on the wing, whirls round the delicate female; how quickly he dives towards a flower and returns with a loaded bill, which he offers to her; how full of ecstacy he seems to be when his attentions are kindly received; how his little wings fan her as they fan the flowers, and he transfers to her bill the insects and honey which he has procured with a view to please her; how, when these attentions are received with apparent satisfaction, the courage and care of the male are redoubled; how he dares to give chase to the tyrant fly-catcher, hurries the blue-bird and the martin to their boxes, and how on sounding pinions he joyously returns to the side of his lovely mate. All these proofs of the sincerity, fidelity, and courage with which the male assures his mate of the care he will take of her while sitting on her nest, may be seen, and have been seen, but cannot be described.

Could you cast a momentary glance on the nest of the humming-bird, and see, as I have seen, the newly-hatched pair of young, little larger than humble-bees, naked, blind, and so feeble as scarcely to be able to raise their little bills to receive food from the parents, and could you see those parents full of anxiety and fear, passing and repassing within a few inches of your face, alighting on a twig not more than a yard from your body, waiting the result of your unwelcome visit in a state of the utmost despair, you could not fail to be reminded of the pangs which parental affection feels on the unexpected death of a dear child. Then how pleasing is it, on your leaving the spot, to see the returning hopes of the parents, when, after examining the nest, they find their nestlings untouched. You might then judge how pleasant it is to a mother of another kind to hear the physician, who has attended her sick child, assure her the crisis is over, and that her babe is saved. These are scenes fitted to enable us to partake of sorrow and joy, and to determine every one who sees them to make it his study to contribute to the happiness of others, and to refrain from wantonly or maliciously giving them pain.

These birds have a very rapid flight. A person standing in a garden by the side of a flowering shrub will be surprised to hear the humming of their wings, and then see the birds themselves within a few feet of him, as he will again be astonished at the quickness with which the little creatures rise into the air, and are out of sight and hearing the next moment. They do not alight on the ground, but easily settle on twigs and branches, where they move sideways, in prettily measured steps, frequently opening and closing their wings, pluming, shaking, and arranging the whole of their apparel with neatness and activity. They are particularly fond of opening one wing at a time, and passing each of the quill-feathers through their bill in its whole length, when, if the sun is shining, the wing thus plumed is rendered extremely transparent and light.

I have seen many of these birds kept in confinement, when they were supplied with artificial flowers made for the purpose, in the cups of which water and honey or sugar were placed, but they seldom lived many months. Others, on the contrary, which were supplied twice a day with fresh flowers from the woods or garden, and placed in a room where small insects might enter, lived twelve months, and

then had their liberty granted them, as the person who kept them was going on a voyage.

The humming-bird does not shun mankind so much as birds generally do. It frequently approaches flowers in the windows, or even in the rooms where the windows are kept open during the extreme heat of the day, and returns, when not interrupted, as long as the flowers are unfaded.

We can do nothing right, unless God gives us the will and the power; we cannot please Him without the aid of His Holy Spirit. If any one does not deeply feel this as a first truth in religion, he is preparing for himself a dreadful fall. He will attempt, and he will fail signally, utterly; his own miserable experience will make him sure of it, if he will not believe it as Scripture declares it. But it is not unlikely that some persons may fall into an opposite mistake; they may attempt to excuse their lukewarmness and sinfulness on the plea that God does not inwardly move them, and they may argue that those holy men whom they so much admire, those saints who are to sit on Christ's right and left, are of different nature from themselves, sanctified from their mother's womb, visited, guarded, renewed, strengthened, enlightened in a peculiar way, so as to make it no wonder that they are saints, and no fault that they themselves are not. But this is not so; let us not thus miserably deceive ourselves. St. Paul says expressly of himself and the other apostles, that they, were "men of like passions" with the poor ignorant heathen to whom they preached. And does not his history shew this? Do you recollect what he was before his conversion? Did he not rage like a beast of prey against the disciples of Christ? And how was he converted? By the vision of our Lord? Yes, in one sense, but not by it alone. Hear his own words, "Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." This obedience was necessary for his conversion; he could not obey without grace, but he would have received grace in vain had he not obeyed. And afterwards, was he at once perfect? No; for he says expressly, "not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect;" and elsewhere he tells us that he had a "thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet him," and he was obliged to "bruise his body and bring it into subjection, lest,

after he had preached to others, he should be himself a cast-away." St. Paul conquered, as any one of us must conquer, by “striving," struggling, "to enter in at the strait gate;" he "wrought out his salvation with fear and trembling," as you must do.-Plain Sermons.

ELSPEY.

A TRUE STORY.

THE story I am going to tell happened in Scotland some years ago.

In a cottage near one of the Duke of Argyle's beautiful castles, amidst the Scotch mountains, there lived a cotter and his wife with their two chil dren-Elspey, a girl ten years old, and Johnnie about seven.

The father and mother were poor, but very industrious; and they brought up their children with the greatest care and pains. The girl could already help her mother in the house-work, and in the evening used to spin, as her mother said of her, almost as well as she herself. The little boy lay all day long in the hills patiently tending his father's charge of sheep and cattle, till he got to know every hillside and wild valley as well as most boys of twice his age.

He was a bold little fellow, and, with his dog Dornie Bach by his side, had no fear wherever he went, though the place looked ever so wild or distant from home. And when Elspey could be spared for a day from her mother, she too would think it fine play to get leave to run over the moor five or six miles off to enjoy herself with her brother who was tending his sheep and cattle at some far hillside; there she would help him to gather fern to make a bed for the cattle when they should return at night, which they would carry home with them; or he would make a necklace for her of the scarlet berries from the mountain-ash; and then both would amuse themselves by teaching Dornie Bach different