-

hand to mouth, and fetching a scrap from the shop at the last moment on a Sunday morning,-there is a regular plan of living,-the money is turned to good account, and there is sufficient to provide such food as is needed, not only on the Sabbath day, but every day. But with such persons there is no trafficking on the Sabbath; and, in truth, where this buying and selling on Sunday is going on, there cannot be much regard for God, either in the seller or the buyer. The seller must be thinking of his worldly gains, and these must seem to him of more consequence than the service of God; the buyer could have no enjoyment of his purchase, if he felt that he had acquired it by breaking God's commands. And look at the sort of persons that crowd the morning shops on a Sunday, and hear their conversation;-you will see no preparation, in their dress or appearance, for a Sabbath, and hear no word to lead you to believe that God is in all their thoughts-and look at the seller's week-day coat, and the working apron, these speak loudly the character of the man. When I asked the butcher why he so boldly opened his shop, and invited custom,his answer was, "We are glad, Sir, to get money whenever we can;"-and this is the truth,-it is so with the ungodly man :-he might have said, "and how we can ;"-for if a man will break God's laws in that way, what reason have we to suppose that he will not do it in another?-the very same excuse might be urged by the highwayman.

Let all those who would heap the unjust gains of the Sabbath on those of the week, ask themselves this Scriptural question, "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

Sunday School Club.

205

SIR,

SUNDAY SCHOOL CLUB.

To the Editor of the Cottager's Monthly Visitor.

WE have a Sunday School in my small village, and besides the other advantages of it, a kind person voluntarily collects from the children or their parents, one penny a week, on the plan recommended in your Visitor. It is better to give the value of the money in stuff, to be made by the children themselves, or by their mother, than to give made-up articles: the money goes farther in this way; and every female ought to be able to make waistcoats, trowsers, &c. for her children. Strong stuff for trowsers is found very useful, as well as flannels, &c. We have about forty subscribers already-now forty pence being three-andfour-pence, and there being fifty-two weeks in a year, I calculate on having about 87. 13s. in a year's time, and having promised to add two-pence to every shilling saved by the children-we shall have (and call you this nothing?) more than 10%. to go to buy clothing for the children, not one penny of which, without this little plan, would have been saved.

O. D.

THE BEE HIVE.

A FABLE.

THE bees of a certain hive invented a machine for making honey twice as fast as they used to do, and another for bringing it home with half the labour. This they thought would give them ease and plenty all the year round. Upon the strength of it, they betook to playing half the week together; they wasted their abundance in surfeiting and drunkenness; and thus, when the winter came on, the workers found themselves worse off than before.

A council being held; some said, "there were too

many bees for the honey;" others, " too much honey for the bees;" but in this all were agreed, "that the new machines must be at the bottom of the present distress." Some therefore fell to work to destroy the machinery; whilst others, at the peril of their lives, prepared for flight to distant hives, where no such contrivances had been heard of. In the midst of the tumult, their beloved queen thus addressed the distracted multitude:

"Cease, bees, to increase by violence sufferings which are the consequence of your own improvidence and waste. The more food these machines produce for the whole hive, the more of you may feed on it, and the more of it there must be for every one of you to enjoy. If you squander it; if you lock it up from each other; if you provide not of it for the winter in proportion to your increased numbers and necessities, whom have you to find fault with for your misery but yourselves? Keep to your own hive, preserve your own machines. By these were gathered the stores which can alone now feed you. By these alone can your exertions, if renewed with diligence, and seconded by frugality, secure the abundance you desire."

THE MORAL.

Machinery is the friend, not the enemy of man. It works, that he may rest, not that he may be idle; that he may enjoy, not that he may waste. It enriches the wealthy for the benefit of the poor. It fills his belly, and it clothes his back. But it cannot give him plenty without forethought, nor happiness without prudence.

MR. EDITOR,

MAXIMS, &c.

I KNOW not if the following articles can be of any use for the Visitor. The calendar from the leafing of

trees, struck me as sensible, but I know little of the subject, and only send it for the chance of its being approved. It was new to me.

Your obedient servant,

IGNOTA.

Buy nothing that you do not absolutely want; and never go in debt for any thing you do want, be it ever so necessary-waste nothing. Let order preside in every part of your house.-Bertha's visit to her uncle in England, vol. ii. page 197.

To this I would add, have always some employment ready to take up at spare moments, when waiting, &c. To my female friends I would say, no one who has not made the experiment, would believe how much work may be done, only in what are called " odd minutes."

Never allow yourselves to consider religion as a painful restraint, but rather as a grateful duty. Whenever that duty has the least appearance of being irksome, search and you will find that some other favourite pursuit entices away your thoughts:-throw aside then that other pursuit, however blameless it may otherwise be, or however innocent may be its pleasures. Remember with whom St. Paul classes those who are "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God." Frequently examine the state of your moral and religious feelings, and when you perceive a deficiency in any point, beware of lowering the standard of duty to meet your practice, instead of endeavouring to raise your practice to the level of your duty. Watch diligently what are called your small faults. You will find the unhesitating sacrifice of any one of them productive of the purest satisfaction; and each victory will make the next struggle more easy. But in doing this, be careful to resist that most deceitful temptation, the looking back with something like pride on yourselves at the thought of having conquered some faults, instead of fixing your

eyes on the sins which you have not yet overcome. And, lastly, arm yourselves with a determined resolution not to rate the praise of men beyond its true value. No one should affect a needless singularity :but to aim at things which are in their nature inconsistent, to seek to please both God and the world. where their commands are really at variance, is the way neither to be respectable, nor good, nor happy.

The budding, leafing, and decay of the leaves of trees, may be used as a calendar and rule for sowing. Farmers fix the sowing season generally to a month, and sometimes to a particular week. The same power which brings forth the leaves of trees, will also make the grain vegetate. Perhaps therefore, we cannot have a better rule for sowing in spring than the leafing of trees. Observe in what order every tree puts forth its leaves. In different soils, situations, and years, they will vary in the time, but not as to their succession. A farmer should diligently mark the time of budding, leafing, and flowering of different plants, and should also put down the days on which his respective grains were sown, and by comparing these two tables for a series of years, he will be enabled to form an exact calendar for his spring corn. Attention to the discolouring and falling of the leaves of trees will assist him in sowing his winter corn. Towards the end of September, the best season for sowing wheat, he will find the leaves of the plane tree, tawny-oak, yellowish green-hazel, yellow-sycamore, dirty brown-maple, pale yellow-cherry, red-hornbeam, bright yellow. IGNOTA.

ON PRAYER.

"LET the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my Redeemer."