being shown; and these two brothers stood there together, determined not to let each other know the mutual tenderness that, in spite of them, was gushing up in their hearts, and teaching them the unconfessed folly and wickedness of their causeless quarrel.

6. A headstone had been prepared, and a person came forward to plant it. The elder brother directed him how to place it a plain stone, with a sand-glass, skull, and crossbones, chiseled not rudely, and a few words inscribed. The younger brother regarded the operation with a troubled eye, and said, loudly enough to be heard by several of the by-standers, "William, this was not kind in you; you should have told me of this. I loved my father as well as you could love him. You were the elder, and, it may be, the favorite son; but I had a right in nature to have joined you in ordering this headstone, had I not?"

7. During these words the stone was sinking into the earth, and many persons who were on their way from the grave returned. For a while the elder brother said nothing, for he had a consciousness in his heart that he ought to have consulted his father's son in designing this last becoming mark of affection and respect to his memory; so that the stone was planted in silence, and now stood erect, decently and simply, among the other unostentatious memorials of the humble dead.

8. The inscription merely gave the name and age of the deceased, and told that the stone had been erected "by his affectionate sons." The sight of these words seemed to soften the displeasure of the angry man, and he said, somewhat more mildly, "Yes, we were his affectionate sons; and, since my name is on the stone, I am satisfied, brother. We have not drawn together kindly of late years, and perhaps never may; but I acknowledge and respect your worth; and here, before our own friends, and before the friends of our father, with my foot above his head, I express my willingness to be on other and better terms with you; and if we can not command love in our hearts, let us, at least, brother, bar out all unkindness."

9. The minister who had attended the funeral, and had something intrusted to him to say publicly before he left the church-yard, now came forward and asked the elder brother why he spake not regarding this matter. He saw that there was something of a cold and sullen pride rising up in his heart, for not easily may any man hope to dismiss from the

chamber of his heart even the vilest guest, if once cherished there. With a solemn and almost severe air he looked upon the relenting man, and then, changing his countenance into serenity, said gently,

"Behold, how good a thing it is,

And how becoming well,
Together such as brethren are,
In unity to dwell!"

10. The time, the place, and this beautiful expression of a natural sentiment, quite overcame a heart in which many kind, if not warm affections dwelt; and the man thus appealed to bowed down his head and wept. "Give me your hand, brother;" and it was given, while a murmur of satisfaction arose from all present, and all hearts felt kindlier and more humanely toward each other.

11. As the brothers stood fervently but composedly grasping each other's hand, in the little hollow that lay between the grave of their mother, long since dead, and of their father, whose shroud was haply not yet still from the fall of dust to dust, the minister stood beside them with a pleasant countenance, and said, "I must fulfill the promise I made to your father on his death-bed. I must read to you a few words which his hand wrote at an hour when his tongue denied its office. I must not say that you did your duty to your old father; for did he not often beseech you, apart from one another, to be reconciled, for your own sakes as Christians, for his sake, and for the sake of the mother who bare you? When the palsy struck him for the last time, you were both absent; nor was it your fault that you were not beside the old man when he died.

12. "As long as sense continued with him here, did he think of you two, and of you two alone. Tears were in his eyes; I saw them there, and on his cheek too, when no breath came from his lips. But of this no more. He died with this paper in his hand; and he made me know that I was to read it to you over his grave. I now obey him. My sons, if you will let my bones lie quiet in the grave, near the dust of your mother, depart not from my burial till, in the name of God and Christ, you promise to love one another as you used to do. Dear boys, receive my blessing.'"

13. Some turned their heads away to hide the tears that needed not to be hidden; and when the brothers had released each other from a long and sobbing embrace, many went up to them, and, in a single word or two, expressed their joy at this perfect reconcilement. The brothers themselves walked

away from the church-yard arm in arm, with the minister, to the manse. On the following Sabbath they were seen sitting with their families in the same pew, and it was observed that they read together off the same Bible when the minister gave out the text, and that they sang together, taking hold of the same psalm-book. The same psalm was sung (given out at their own request), of which one verse had been repeated at their father's grave; a larger sum than usual was on that Sabbath found in the plate for the poor, for Love and Charity are sisters. And ever after, both during the peace and the troubles of this life, the hearts of the brothers were as one, and in nothing were they divided.

JOHN WILSON (CHRISTOPHER NORTH).

LESSON III.

I. THE SEASONS OF LIFE.

THE days of infancy are all a dream,
How fair, but oh! how short they seem-
"Tis Life's sweet opening SPRING.

The days of youth advance;
The bounding limb, the ardent glance,
The kindling soul they bring—

It is Life's burning SUMMER time.

Manhood-matured with wisdom's fruit,
Reward of learning's deep pursuit-
Succeeds, as AUTUMN follows Summer's prime.

And that, and that, alas! goes by;
And what ensues? The languid eye,

The failing frame, the soul o'ercast;

"Tis WINTER'S sickening, withering blast,

Life's blessed season-for it is the last.-SOUTHEY.

II. SMALL THINGS.

A sense of an earnest will

To help the lowly living,

And a terrible heart-thrill,

If you have no power of giving;

An arm of aid to the weak,

A friendly hand to the friendless;
Kind words, so short to speak,

But whose echo is endless:

The world is wide-these things are small;

They may be nothing-but they may be all.

III. HOW WE SHOULD LIVE.
So should we live, that every hour
May die as dies the natural flower,
A self-revolving thing of power.
That every thought and every deed
May hold within itself the seed
Of future good and future need:
Esteeming sorrow, whose employ
Is to develop, not destroy,
Far better than a barren joy.

IV. TO MY SON.

My son, be this thy simple plan:
Serve God, and love thy brother man;
Forget not, in temptation's hour,
That sin lends sorrow double power;
Count life a stage upon thy way,

And follow Conscience, come what may;
Alike with earth and heaven sincere,
With hand, and brow, and bosom clear,
"Fear God, and know no other fear."

LESSON IV. THE STREAM OF LIFE.

1. LIFE bears us on like the stream of a mighty river. Our boat at first glides down the narrow channel, through the playful murmuring of the little brook and the winding of its grassy border. The trees shed their blossoms over our young heads, the flowers on the brink seem to offer themselves to our young hands; we are happy in hope, and we grasp eagerly at the beauties around us; but the stream hurries on, and still our hands are empty.

2. Our course in youth and manhood is along a wider and deeper flood, amid objects more striking and magnificent. We are animated by the moving picture of enjoyment and industry passing before us; we are excited by some shortlived disappointment. The stream bears us on, and our joys and our griefs are alike left behind us.

3. We may be shipwrecked, but we can not be delayed; whether rough or smooth, the river hastens toward its home, till the roar of the ocean is in our ears, and the tossing of its waves is beneath our feet, and the land lessens from our eyes, and the floods are lifted up around us, and we take our leave of earth and its inhabitants, until of our farther voyage there is no witness save the Infinite and Eternal.-HEBER.

PART IX,

FIRST DIVISION OF CHEMISTRY.

[This subject is continued in the Sixth Reader.]

LESSON I.-INTRODUCTORY VIEW.

1. THERE are three great divisions of the science of nature, and these are embraced in the departments of Natural History, Natural Philosophy, and Chemistry. Under the first are included zoology, botany, and geology, whose province it is to describe and classify all material things, both animate and inanimate. Natural Philosophy, taking natural objects as thus classified, treats of their general and permanent properties, of the laws which govern them, and the reciprocal action which, without change of form or character, and generally at appreciable distances, they are capable of exerting upon each other.

2. Chemistry advances farther in her investigations, and with scrutinizing minuteness leads us far into the hidden mysteries of nature. It treats of the intimate action of substances upon each other, such as chemical mixtures or combinations, which always result in changes of form and character. It presents to us, as a first lesson, the astonishing fact that, notwithstanding the countless variety of forms and properties of matter which nature presents to us as things essentially different, only about sixty elementary substances are known to exist, and that it is merely by their different combinations that they are made to present to our senses these infinite diversities.

3. Proceeding a little farther, our wonder increases on learning that nearly all the objects with which we are acquainted are, to use a common phrase, "made up" almost exclusively of at least not more than four of these elementary substances, and that these are the three gases, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, together with carbon. Indeed, pure charcoal and the diamond, though so much unlike each other, are nothing but carbon. Water is formed of oxygen and hydrogen; the air we breathe, and the corrosive nitric acid, are alike composed of oxygen and nitrogen; vegetable substances, infinite in diversity of form and properties, are formed almost wholly of oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon; and ani