SPARE MOMENTS. A lean, awkward boy came one morning to the door of the principal of a celebrated school and asked to see him. The servant eyed his mean clothes, and thinking he looked more like a beggar than any thing else, told him to go around to the kitchen. The boy did as he was bidden, and soon appeared at the back door. "You want a breakfast, more like," said the servant-girl, "and I can give you that without troubling him." "Thank you," said the boy, "I should have no objections to a bit of bread; but I should like to see Mr. see me.' if he can "Some old clothes, may be you want," remarked the servant, again eyeing the boy's patched trowsers. "I guess he has none to spare; he gives away a sight;" and without minding the boy's request, she was away about her work. "Can I see Mr. ing his bread and butter. ?" again asked the boy, after finish "Well, he's in the library; if he must be disturbed, he must; but he does like to be alone sometimes," said the girl, in a peevish tone. She seemed to think it very foolish to admit such an ill-looking fellow into her master's presence; however, she wiped her hands, and hade him follow. Opening the library door, she said: "Here is somebody, sir, who is dreadful anxious to see you, and so I let him in." I don't know how the boy introduced himself, or how he opened business, but I know that, after talking a while, the principal put aside the volume which he was studying, and took up some Greek books and began to examine the new-comer. The examination lasted some time. Every question which the principal asked, the boy answered as readily as could be. "Upon my word," exclaimed the principal, "you certainly do well," looking at the boy from head to foot over his spectacles. "Why, my boy, where did you pick up so much?" "In my spare moments," answered the boy. Here he was, poor, hard-working, with but few opportunities for schooling, yet, almost fitted for college, by simply improving his spare moments. Truly, are not spare moments the "gold dust of time"? How precious they should be! What account can you show of them? Look and see. This boy can tell how very much can be made by improving them; and there are many, many other boys, I am afraid, in jail, in the house of correction, in the forecastle of the whale-ship, who, if you should ask them where they began their sinful course, might answer— "In my spare moments." "In my spare moments I gambled for marbles." "In my spare moments I began to smoke and drink. It was in my spare moments that I began to steal chestnuts from the old woman's stand. It was in my spare moments that I gathered wicked associates." Oh! be very careful how you spend your spare moments. Temptation always haunts you in small seasons like these, when you are not busy; he gets into your hearts, if he possibly can, by just such gaps. There he hides himself, planning all sorts of nischief. Take care of your spare moments.-Mrs. C. Knight. RELIGION. Religion relates to the body and mind, as well as to the soul. It includes the duties we owe to our fellows, and all animated nature, and ourselves, as well as to our GOD;--the physical, mental, and moral, or spiritual, duties. The law of God reaches to everything that is proper and good; and the doing wrong to ourselves, or neighbors, is sinning against God. In Jesus we have a perfect exemplar, in body, mind and soul; a redeemer in every needed particular; and a rightful, righteous Sovereign. Without Him we can do nothing, with Him we can do all things requisite for holiness, happiness and heaven. SILK. The good arising from the performance of a virtuous action, never dies. WHAT LIES UNDERNEATH THE SNOW? Children, who of you can tell me, All the pleasant paths you go? You remember, in the Spring time, That a little flower opened In the garden, pure and white; Just as beautiful and bright. And you wondered that so early, The warm sunshine and the breeze God, my child, has wrapped the blossom And beside it He has garnered Ah, you say, a little playmate, God's strong arm is still around her, Would you wake to light and glory Ꮇ . "THE OLD SCHOOL-HOUSE." It was a sultry day in August, and I was enjoying a ramble over the green hills, and through the cool shades of T- —. I had been admiring, for some time, the beauty of the summer landscape, the majesty of the distant mountains, and the calm, peaceful bosom of a little sheet of water that lay surrounded by forest-clad hills, and seemed like a mirror for some "woodnymph; " but, at length, the distant muttering of thunder, and a dark and threatening mass of clouds that came rolling along the heavens, warned me to seek some shelter. I looked around me, and found that the nearest house was some half a mile away, so I determined to get the best shelter I could at hand, and hastened to an old log house that stood back a few rods from the road. It did not look as though any human being had lived in it for half a century, and I made an unceremonious entrance. The first thing that struck my eye was a girlish form standing in the middle of the floor, with a childish face turned towards me, and a pair of mild blue eyes, which seemed to say, "I guess I know why you did not knock." began to make an apology for my seeming rudeness, but when I got as far as to say," I did not expect to find a school in such a place," I broke down in confusion, fearing I had said what might wound her feelings. She smiled and said,-" You shall be welcome to what little protection these logs and boards give us, and you will soon see how much that is." I In a few moments, down came the rain, in great drops, pattering on the bark roof, and, stealing down through, fell like "big tear drops," as though the very roof wept over its total inability to shelter that youthful teacher and her little charge. Soon the wind began to blow, and the storm increased almost to a hurricane, while the rain beat in between the logs, ran in streams through the roof, and washed down the dirt and clay with which the cracks in the walls were stopped. I shall never forget the sight that was there presented to my view. In the middle of the floor sat the teacher, a girl of six It was the only teen, and around her fourteen little children. dry spot in the whole house! On one side, the moss, clay and straw, which had been stuffed into the chinks between the logs, were entirely washed away, and the wide gaps let in the rain in torrents. The seats were rude benches, and the floor was rotten and infirm. "Taking it all in all," it looked like grim poverty making faces at his own deformity. She I learned from the teacher that it was her first school. had about seventeen scholars, generally; had to "board round;" her farthest place was three miles distant, and half the way up hill. She had three French and two Irish families with which to board. In one of the latter places she was told to "go to the devil," because she would not dance with the half-intoxicated master of the house. And yet, she seemed to be cheerful and happy, even in such a school-house, and amid such people. I expressed my surprise at this, and she said, "I am aware that this is not a place to please the eye, or charm the senses, but I have around me some fourteen little children, who have been here with me, day after day, for two months, and I have learned to love them, and they me. I know the little chance they have had, and the poor prospects which doubtless await them, and I long,-oh! so earnestly, to teach them something, and raise their thoughts to something higher than they see around them. They meet me in the morning, with a bright smile, and bid me ' good-by' at night, with a loving kiss, and I go to my boardingplace feeling happy, for I know I am doing them good." When I had listened to this simple expression of a noble and generous soul, I was not pleased with the reflections on my school of the winter past. I remembered the many "dry jokes" I had got off, about the "old dilapidated school-house," and the cutting remarks I had made to the men in the district, about their sending children to a place so wretched, while their “pigs" had a warm and comfortable shelter. Here was a young and tender girl reared in refined society, possessing a great love for the beautiful, and shrinking with the instinct of purity from everything coarse, cheerfully toiling, day by day, in a miserable |