able Red Indian tradition. It is the singular "Story of Moowis," the man of rags and of mud. The Red Indian legends seem often to be conceived in the spirit of allegory, and in this of Moowis the dangers of coquetry are exposed with remarkable felicity, simplicity, and originality. There was a young girl so exquisitely beautiful that she moved a young warrior of great bravery to love her, but when he courted her he found all his devotions were in vain; the young warrior was not wiser than many brave men have been in similar circumstances, he was smitten to the ground with overwhelming grief, and he sat for days in his tent gazing on the ground, and none of his companions could rouse him from his lethargy; at last, as a reprisal for the humiliation he conceived he had been subjected to, he determined to humble the young girl, who really was a sad coquette, and treated many fine warriors with the same indignity with which she had treated him; so, by the power conferred upon him by his Monedo, or spirit, he determined to make a man. He gathered together all the rags and feathers which had been thrown into the mire as useless; then with snow and the bones of animals he made a man, arranging and decorating the cast-away rags and feathers in the form of moccassins, robes, &c.; he ornamented this still further with beads and feathers, so as to give him a grand appearance; then he animated it, put a bow and arrows into the hand. And such was the origin of Moowis; they set out together to the encampment of the tribe of the young girl, and when they appeared all were charmed with Moowis; the profusion of his ornaments and his noble bearing attracted universal attention, the handsome stranger was the favourite of young and old, but none was so charmed with him as the beautiful young girl. Once more the real warrior tried to win her; but it was all in vain; Moowis alone attracted her attentions; Moowis gained and held her heart. He was not indeed able to approach too near to the camp fire for fear of melting. He contrived, however, to make his passion known-such passion as a man of snow might feel, and in fact he triumphed. The marriage was soon decided upon, but the morning after they were married Moowis arranged his warrior's plumes, and said he must leave the camp on important business. His wife was amazed by such an announcement, but she said, "I will go with you; there is no distance I would not go over, no danger I would not encounter with you.” So Moowis departed accompanied by his wife. The road was hard, rugged, and full of difficulties and obstacles. The young girl had great difficulty in keeping up with her husband, he was going on rapidly before her, and when the sun mounted high in the heavens he vanished entirely from her sight; melting gradually, he fell to pieces, and as his wife came up to the spot where he seemed to vanish she found only the remnants of mocassins and other garments, plumes, and beads, and bones, but Moowis she saw no more. She wandered about until nightfall to and fro among the woods. It seemed so incredible that he could have left her thus; it was, however, true; the man of feathers and rags, snow and bones, had vanished from her sight, and she could only bewail her widowhood. Such is the Indian legend. It almost seems impossible that so exact an allegory of much in our English society should be transferred from the wild old American woods. Moowis is the prototype of many a man, and many a woman too; it is to be feared that many a marriage has been suggested and consummated beneath the attractive influences of the labours of the silkworm and the cast-off clothing of the sheep, garnished by the glittering effect of certain metals and stones, bits of leather and beaver skin; then, in the first days after marriage, all these fine ornaments tumble to pieces, and the husband or the wife mourn over the companionship of an unsubstantial phantom, a nothing-it has melted even from their own imagination. There is indeed a song in which the enraptured swain sings "My heart and lute are all the store What a fine stock of furniture to set up housekeeping! What a noble weapon with which to encounter and foil the ills of life? What is a parable? Etymologically the word signifies simply to place side by side, and it is, in fact, truth by the side of fact; it is spiritual truth side by side with natural truth; it is truth at once fruitful and floral. Many efforts have been made to separate the parable arbitrarily from the proverb, from fable and from allegory, but something of the parable belongs to all these forms. A proverb is a little parable; it is pithy and practical, but it is capable of being elaborated to a very considerable extent beyond the pithy saying it is in itself. I could give several instances of this, as when we say "A hungry stomach is master of arts." What a picture of the ills of life is that old proverb, "I'm between the hammer and the anvil!" and what another picture is that of ineffective attempts to do mischief, "Ah, it's like a viper gnawing a file!" "Don't stir the fire with a sword," was spoken to dissuade from using irritating language to an angry person, and that other of "A leaden sword in an ivory scabbard," attributed to Diogenes when he heard foul language from the lips of a very elegantly dressed young man. So our Lord's proverb, " Physician, heal thyself," and so "Casting pearls before swine," and the "Jewel of gold in a swine's snout." All these are little parables, although they are of the millions of proverbs. A parable is a spoken picture. Proverbs strike me as so many bricks in the great walls and fortifications of world wisdom. Clear, incisive, they are the wisdom of the many, the wit of the one;" they are remarkably alike; they may be put into a polyglott, but they form one Bible of human experience. There is wonderful humour-sometimes cheery and sometimes grim-in these tight, compact sayings. "If fools did not go to market, bad wares would not be sold." "If a cap is ever so fine and a fool wears, it's only a fool's cap." "Feed a pig, and you'll most likely get a hog." "God comes with leaden feet, but strikes with iron hands." go "Mules Such are some of the perceive common sense "You would do well in “If an ass goes a travelling, he won't come home a horse." make a great fuss about their ancestors having been horses." When we see the books, but not the learning, to make use of them, we cannot but think of that, " He hath got the fiddle but not the stick ;” and, “If you follow a wild goose ever so far you won't find it drop an ostrich feather.” "Crows are never the whiter for washing themselves;" and, "Fools grow without watering." "Bells call others to church, but not themselves." "He that will not look before him must look behind him." "Riches, like manure, do no good till they are spread." "As the man is worth his land is worth." bricks of the large building in which you makes its abode-the City of Proverb. Lazyland, where they give the people half a crown a day for going to sleep." "Samson was a strong man, but he could not pay money before "He was a lazy dog that leaned up against the wall while he barked." You see a man with his head full of crotchets and notions; the old proverb says, "His brains don't want any yeast to make them work." "Hope is a good breakfast but a very bad supper;" and, "He that waits on another man's plate is likely to have a bad dinner." Who does not remember, "How for want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, for want of a horse the rider was lost, and all for want of a shoe nail.” And ways and means and ends are well described in some proverbs. "You may be a wise man and yet not know how to make a watch." can never make a good cart shaft out of a pig's tail." moral virtues come in for the lore of the old proverbs, "Cheer up; God is where He was." he had it." "You And the The wisest things of old were spoken in proverbs-those excellent, short, concentrated sayings, in one of which was sometimes fused down the wisdom of a lifetime; and still nothing in the way of speech spurs us like a proverb; the words are forcible and muscular, and, as was said by the greatest proverb utterer," they are like apples of gold in nets of silver." A member of the House of Com As 'Pay the Laws are for the good of reckoning over-night and If ready money be the mons, in the reign of Elizabeth, made a speech in favour of a proposed Law for Limiting Credit in the following words :-" I think this law is a good law,- Even reckoning makes long friends.' far goes the penny as the penny's master.' the wakeful and not the sleeping.' you shall not be troubled in the morning.' public measure, let every one cut his coat according to his cloth.' When his old coat is on the wane let him stay till his money bring a new suit in the increase."" Seldom do our modern Houses of Legislation echo so much wisdom as was contained in these curious pieces of sententious counsel. All nations abound in proverbs, but more during their infancy than in their manhood; in such days words are very few, but they will mostly be very forcible, and the experience of the patriarch will shape itself away through the most cogent and powerful words. Adam very likely had not in all his life so many words as are contained in a few pages of this magazine. Our world's first fathers had to make their words from the forms and sounds of the world around them, the murmur of the waters and of the winds, the bleating of the sheep, the songs of birds, and the whisper of the leaves; these things would be all pregnant with meaning, and would suggest resemblances in human sounds which would byand-bye be words; thus words would properly in those days be experiences, and when used would answer to corresponding emotions. We have said that proverbs abound most in the infancy of nations; thought is stimulated by necessity. Experience, when it speaks, condenses language. Would Eve know, as she stood by the fountain, that if she fell into those waters she would be inevitably drowned? Would Adam know, as he kindled the first fire outside the heights of Eden, or in Mesopotamia, that if he put his hand into it he would be inevitably burned? But things like these when fully known would shape themselves into proverbs; thus they may be truly said to have grown on the tree of life; they are the fruit of thought, bought of experience; they are the nails, the riveting-points of a true life, or, like life's mathematics, they announce a sort of moral and physical law. Proverbs are usually true. Perversion and prejudice have sometimes distilled a falsehood out of them; but there are few absolutely erroneous proverbs, they usually contain a life, if not a whole life, at any rate some part of it; they are not often-if sometimes-sophistical apologies for evil; and the reason is that they express clearly the common sense and the uniform perceptions of men; they declare, "This is the result, this is the fact, as we have found it." They have usually resulted from suffering, mental or bodily; and, if they are remembered, it is like forming truth into an amulet, and wearing it as a chain of beads around the memory. The danger of proverbs perhaps consists mainly in their being merely remembered-in their having only a mechanical place in the mind. Far different are they when they are received into the perception and understanding; when they are used as the shields to ward away the blows of error; when they are the ready battle-words thundered against the hosts of difficulty and danger, from the experience and wisdom of the world's first monarchs and patriarchs. 66 Both parable and proverb teach the lessons of common sense. They are not recondite or remote. There is a common sense in mankind; it may sometimes seem to be obscured, like conscience among people of different latitudes, but this is never real. A universal sense speaks out in that proverb, "He that slighteth small things shall fall by little and little." "Many small drops make a shower." "The sea itself may be emptied by drops." "By little and little the bird builds its nest.” Many a mickle makes a muckle." "Little and little fills the purse;" therefore says the proverb, "Take care of the pennies, and the pounds will take care of themselves." And the old proverb says, in language almost obsolete, "A pin a day makes a groat a year." "Rome was not built in a day." "Grain by grain the hen fills her crop." And the Spanish proverb, "A grain does not fill the sieve, but it helps its neighbour." The whole universe, as far as we can observe it, bears testimony to the power of little things, whether the seeds of plants or the eggs of birds. The crust of the earth is all an amazing cemetery, not only of billions of the remains of men and women, but of what absolutely incalculable billions, trillions, sextillions, words and numbers break down in the attempt to convey the thought of;-the innumerable shells and plants which once were the habitations of breathing or living creatures, and which now form the flooring of the globe; and in life nothing must be slighted-there are no little evils; they seem small, but they may increase to a stupendous magnitude, and slight expenses, insignificant in themselves singly regarded, grow to a formidable sum. "Gutta cavit lapidem; "The constant dropping excavates, or wears away the stone.” betimes, and you will know," says the Spanish proverb. The two or three hours snatched from sleep in the morning do not seem to present much gain, or be gained, but, continued through the week, the month, the year, for a series of years, it is a life added to a life. "Oft little add to little, and the amount Will swell; heap'd atoms thus produce a mount." "Rise Little sins, what are called peccadilloes, are as dangerous as any others; nay, probably all were little once. There are some sins which are like the little city just outside Sodom,-"Is it not a |