LESSON LXI. THE NILE.

Chil-dren, you have all heard and read of E-gypt. It is a won-der-ful coun-try. There is no rain there, and yet the land is wa-tered, and ver-y fer-tile. Of old it was a land of plen-ty, and the great grain-house from which the old Ro-man em-pire used to fetch its bread. And that whole land is wa-tered and made fruit-ful by one sin-gle riv-er. Take that a-way, and it would at once be on-ly a drea-ry sand-heap. Ev-er-y spring that riv-er ri-ses and o-verflows its banks, and the peo-ple have their lit-tle ca-nals dug, and their lit-tle dams built to catch the wa-ter; and then they go out and sow their rice on the wa-ters. The rice sinks down, and the wa-ters after a while dry up, and the rice grows, and they have a great har-vest. Thus they "cast their bread up-on the wa-ters, and find it after man-y days." For a great while it was a mat-ter of won-der what made the riv-er rise so, and o-ver-flow its banks. At last a man, named Bruce, fol-lowed the riv-er till he got far up a-mong the moun-tains, near-ly a thou-sand miles from the mouth of the riv-er, and there he found that these great moun-tains were cov-ered with snow. It is the melt-ing of this snow in the spring that makes the riv-er rise so high. Up, far a-mong the hills he went, till he came to a lit-tle pond, or spring. It was the ver-y foun-tain and head-wa-ter of the Nile! How he sat down and re-joiced o-ver his toil, and how he looked at that lit-tle foun-tain! It was the be-gin-ning of great things! Now are we not to be-lieve that for thou-sands of years be-fore Bruce ev-er saw it, the eye of God was watch-ing it, as it poured out its wa-ters, and sent them down to fer-til-ize the whole of E-gypt ? Are we not to be-lieve that the Lord re-joiced o-ver this won

der-ful work of His, when, for the first time, the gushing stream found its new chan-nel, and marked out the line of its march from the moun-tain to the great sea? -Todd.

men.

LESSON LXII.-SWALLOWS.

The con-fi-dence which these birds place in the hu-man race is not a lit-tle ex-tra-or-di-na-ry. They not on-ly put them-selves, but their off-spring, in the power of I have seen their nests in sit-u-a-tions where they were with-in the reach of one's hand, and where they might have been de-stroyed in an in-stant. I have observed them un-der a door-way, the eaves of a low cottage, a-gainst the wall of a tool-shed, on the knock-er of a door, and the raf-ter of a much fre-quent-ed hay-loft.

A pair of swal-lows built their nest a-gainst one of the first-floor win-dows of an un-in-hab-it-ed house in Merri-on Square, Dub-lin. A spar-row, how-ev-er, took posses-sion of it, and the swal-lows were re-peat-ed-ly seen cling-ing to the nest, and en-dea-vour-ing to gain an entrance to the a-bode which they had e-rect-ed with so much la-bour. All their efforts, how-ev-er, were defeat-ed by the spar-row, who nev-er once quit-ted the nest.

The per-se-ve-rance of the swal-lows was at length ex-haust-ed; they took flight, but short-ly after-wards re-turned, ac-com-pa-nied by a num-ber of their compan-ions, each of them hav-ing a piece of dirt in its bill. By this means they suc-ceed-ed in stop-ping up the hole, and the in-tru-der was im-mured in to-tal dark-ness. Soon af-ter-wards the nest was ta-ken down, and ex-hibit-ed to sev-e-ral per-sons with the dead spar-row in it. In this case there appears to have been not on-ly a rea-son-ing fac-ul-ty, but the birds must have pos

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sessed the power of com-mu-ni-ca-ting their re-sentment and their wish-es to their friends, with-out whose aid they could not thus have a-venged the in-ju-ry they had sus-tained.-Jesse.

LESSON LXIII.-THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS.

There is a Reap-er whose name is Death;

And with his sic-kle keen,

He reaps the beard-ed grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

"Shall I have nought that is fair?" saith he;
"Have nought but the beard-ed grain?
Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,
I will give them all back a-gain."

He gazed at the flowers with tear-ful eyes,
He kissed their droop-ing leaves;

It was for the Lord of Par-a-dise

He bound them in his sheaves.

"My Lord hath need of these flower-ets gay," The Reap-er said, and smiled.

"Dear to-kens of the earth are they,

Where He was once a child.

"They shall all bloom in fields of light,
Trans-plant-ed by my care;

And saints up-on their gar-ments white
These sa-cred blos-soms wear.”

And the moth-er gave in tears and pain
The flowers she most did love;

She knew she should find them all a-gain
In the fields of light a-bove.

Oh! not in cru-el-ty, not in wrath,

The Reap-er came that day;

'Twas an an-gel vis-it-ed the green earth,
And took the flowers a-way.-Longfellow.

LESSON

LXIV.-SOUTH-SEA ISLANDER AND SPEAKING

CHIP.

The fol-low-ing in-ci-dent, re-la-ted by Mr. Wil-liams, will give a stri-king i-dea of the feel-ings of an un-taught peo-ple, when ob-serv-ing for the first time the effects of writ-ten com-mu-ni-ca-tion. "As I had come to work one morn-ing with-out my square, I took up a chip, and with a piece of char-coal wrote up-on it a re-quest that Mrs. Wil-liams would send me that ar-ti-cle. I called a chief who was su-per-in-tend-ing his por-tion of the work, and said to him, 'Friend, take this; go to our house, and give it to Mrs. Wil-liams.' He was a sin-gu-lar look-ing man, and had been a great war-ri-or; but, in one of the nu-mer-ous bat-tles he had fought, had lost an eye, and giv-ing me an in-ex-press-i-ble look with the oth-er, he said, 'Take that! she will call me fool-ish and scold me, if I car-ry a chip to her.' 'No,' I re-plied,' she will not; take it and go im-me-di-ate-ly; I am in haste.' Per-ceiv-ing me to be in earnest, he took it, and asked, 'What must I say?' I re-plied, 'You have noth-ing to say; the chip will say all I wish.' With a look of as-ton-ish-ment and con-tempt he held up the piece of wood, and said, 'How can this speak? Has this a mouth?' I de-sired him to take it im-me-di-ate-ly, and not spend so much time in talk-ing a-bout it. On ar-ri-ving at the house, he gave the chip to Mrs. Wil-liams, who read it, threw it away, and went to the tool-chest, whith-er the chief, re-solv-ing to see the re-sult of this

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mys-te-ri-ous pro-ceed-ing, fol-lowed her close-ly. re-ceiv-ing the square from her, he said, 'Stay, daugh-ter how do you know that this is what Mr. Wil-liams wants?' 'Why,' she re-plied, 'did you not bring me a chip just now?' 'Yes,' said the as-ton-ished warri-or, but I did not hear it say an-y-thing.' 'If you did not, I did,' was the re-ply, for it made known to me what he want-ed, and all you have to do is to re-turn with it as quick-ly as pos-si-ble.' With this the chief leaped out of the house; and catch-ing up the mys-teri-ous piece of wood he ran through the set-tle-ment with the chip in one hand and the square in the oth-er, hold-ing them up as high as his arms would reach, and shout-ing as he went, 'See the wis-dom of these Eng-lish peo-ple; they can make chips talk, they can make chips talk!' On giv-ing me the square, he wished to know how it was pos-si-ble thus to con-verse with per-sons at a dis-tance. I gave him all the ex-pla-na-tion in my power; but it was a cir-cum-stance in-volv-ed in so much myster-y, that he ac-tu-al-ly tied a string to the chip, hung it round his neck, and wore it for some time. Du-ring sev-er-al fol-low-ing days we fre-quent-ly saw him surround-ed by a crowd, who were lis-ten-ing with in-tense in-ter-est, while he nar-ra-ted the won-ders which this chip had per-formed."-Williams's "Missionary Enterprises."

LESSON LXV.-THE GOODNESS OF GOD.

The same hand that wrote the texts in the Bi-ble, paint-ed the lil-y. God has paint-ed the skies, and made the stars to flash and spar-kle, and turned the clouds of the morn-ing and the eve-ning in-to pal-a-ces of gold, or rolled them up like great float-ing moun-tains of sil-ver. He does not glue the clouds to the sky, nor hang them