A BABE'S PRAYER.

A LITTLE child, not quite two years old, the son of a pious Irish clergyman, was taken to the house of a relative, and, being too young to be separated from his nurse, went with her to dine in the servants' hall, where, having waited in vain for a blessing to be asked before commencing, put his baby hands together, and lisped a simple prayer. The aged butler was affected to tears, and uttered words to this effect: "Never again shall a babc like that teach me my duty."

CONTEMPLATIONS ON A CHILD.

A CHILD is a man in a small letter, yet the best copy of Adam before he tasted of Eve or the apple; and he is happy whose small practice in the world can only write his character. He is nature's fresh picture newlydrawn in oil, which time, and much handling, dims and defaces. His soul is yet a white paper, unscribbled with observations of the world, wherewith, at length, it becomes a blurred note-book. He is purely happy because he knows no evil, nor hath made means by sin to be acquainted with misery. He arrives not at the mischief of being wise, nor endures evils to come, by forseeing them. He kisses and loves all, and when the smart of the rod is past, smiles on his beater. Nature and his parents alike dandle him, and entice him on with a bait of sugar to a draft of wormwood. He plays yet, like a young prentice the first day, and is not come to his task of melancholy. We laugh at his foolish sports, but his game is our earnest; and his drums, rattles, and hobby-horses, but the emblems and mocking of man's business. His father hath writ him as his own little story, wherein he reads those days of his life that he cannot remember, and sighs to see what innocence he hath outlived. The older he grows he is a stair lower from God; and, like his first father, much worse in his breeches. He is the Christian's example, and the old man's relapse; the one imitates his pureness, and the other falls into his simplicity. Could he put off his body with his little coat, he had got eternity without a burden, and exchanged but one heaven for another.-Bishop Earle.

THE FACULTY OF ATTENTION.

Then

WE are accustomed to make very heavy demands upon a child's faculty of attention, especially on Sunday. We expect him to listen to teaching from nine o'clock until past ten; then after a brief interval to compose himself into a reverential attitude, and into stillness and solemnity during a long service, the greater part of which is necessarily above his comprehension; and adapted to cases and experiences very different from his own. we call upon him to come again, from two till past four, and continue wakeful, respectful, and attentive, during the whole of our teaching. And all the day's engagements, we must remember, relate to a subject which, although of the deepest importance, is not naturally felt to be so in early youth. Until it pleases God to impart to a child, either through the instrumeutality of wise teaching or otherwise, an appetite for sacred truths, he has no natural curiosity about them. He is naturally very inquisitive about the things

that immediately surround him; he is curious to learn about the sun, and the moon, and the stars; about distant countries; about the manners of foreigners; about birds, and beasts, and fishes; nay, even about machines, and many other human inventions: but about the nature or God, and about man's relation to him, and the great truths of revealed religion, you know that there is rarely any strong curiosity in a child's mind. You do not find the appetite for such knowledge as this already existing there. You have to create it; and until you have created it, he cannot give you the fixed and earnest attention you want, without an effort which is positively painful to him.

At the outset we should be aware of these two simple facts; first, that fixed attention is a hard thing for anybody to give; and second, that fixed attention to religious subjects is especially a hard thing for children to give. When we have fairly taken these facts into account, we shall be better However hard it may be to gain attention, we must get it, if we are to do any good at all in a Sunday school. It is of no use there to tell children things which go no deeper than the surface of their minds, and which will be swept away to make room for the first trifling matter which claims admission there. If children are really to be the better for what we teach, if the truths which we love so well are really to go deep into their consciences, and become the guiding principles of their lives, it is no half-hearted, languid attention, which will serve our purpose. We are not dealing with facts which will bear to be received and then forgotten; but with truths, which, if they have any significance at all, have an eternal significance; and if they are to have any practical value to a child at all, must not only be received by his understanding, but lodged securely in his memory, and made to tell upon the formation of his character for this world and the next. First, let me tell you how you will not get attention. You will not get it by claiming it, by demanding it as a right, or by entreating it as a favor; by urging upon your pupils the importance of the service, the sacredness of the day, the kindness of their teachers, or the great and solemn character of the truths you have to impart. All these are very legitimate arguments to use to older Christians. You and I, we may hope, feel their force. The sense of these things keeps us thoughtful and silent many a time, perhaps, when we are hearing a dull or unintelligible address. We feel we ought to be attentive, and so we make an effort to be so.

Nothing, in the long run (except fear, which I know you would feel to be a very unsatisfactory motive) can keep a child's attention fixed, but a sense of real interest in the thing you are saying. It is necessary that he should feel that the subject claims attention for itself, not that you are claiming attention for the subject. Depend upon it, that attention got by threats, by authority, or even by promises, or indeed by any external means whatever, is not a genuine or effective thing. The real attention, such as alone can serve the purpose of a Sunday school teacher, must always be founded on the fact that you have got something to say which is worth a child's hearing, and that you can say it in such a manner, that he shall feel it to be worth his hearing.-J. G. Fitch, on "The Art of Securing Attention."

The General Reader.

INTERCOURSE WITH CHILDREN. | turally have been expected, on literary The most essential point in our subjects, in a very short time sat

intercourse with children is to be perfectly true ourselves. Every other interest ought to be sacrificed to that of truth. When we in any way deceive a child, we not only show him a pernicious example-we also lose our own influence over him for ever.

SEASONABLE REPROOF.

A distinguished clergyman of wit and piety dining with a party, an individual present, notorious for speculation on religion, pointing to a fowl (pronounced by the speaker fool) on the table, said, “Mr. F., many persons say that all animals will rise from the dead, do you think that that fowl will rise again?" "I know not," replied the minister; "but if fools rise not again, you will sleep for ever."

HUMANITY.

Two British officers led their troops against a settlement of the enemy in America. One of them, entering a house, the mistress of which was lying in child-bed, he ordered mother and child to be killed. At that moment, another following him, cried out,-"What, kill a woman and child? No. That child is not an enemy of the king, or friend of the congress Long before he can do evil the dispute will be settled." He then set a

guard at the door, and saved mother

and child.

CARD PLAYING AND

CONVERSATION.

Mr. Locke having been introduced by Lord Shaftesbury to the Duke o Buckingham and Lord Halifax, these three noblemen, instead of conversing with the philosopher, as might na

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down to cards. Mr. Locke, after looking on for some time, pulled out his pocket-book, and began to write with great attention. One of the company, observing this, took the liberty of asking him what he was writing? My Lord," said Locke, "I am endeavouring, as far as possible, to profit by my present situation; for having waited with impatience for the honour of being in company with the greatest geniuses of the age, I thought I could do nothing better than write down your

:

conversation and, indeed, I have set down the substance of what you have

said this hour or two." This welltimed ridicule had its desired effect;

and those noblemen, fully sensible of its force, immediately quitted their play, and entered into a conversation more rational and better suited to the dignity of their characters.

REGARD FOR DUTY.

The 19th of May, 1780, was remarkably dark in Connecticut. Candles were lighted in many houses: the birds were silent, and disappeared : and domestic fowls retired to roost. idea that the judgment day was at The people were impressed by the hand. This opinion was entertained

by the legislature, at that time sitting at Hartford. The house of representatives adjourned: the council proposed to follow the example. Colonel Davenport objected." The day of judgment," he said, "is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for an adjournment : if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish, therefore, that candles may be brought."

IMBECILITY OF INFIDELITY.

Infidels and Atheists usually lose courage and confidence in their opinions in seasons of distress, and sink at the view of death into sullen despondency or despair. Now if according to their impiety there be no God, why do they deny him in their prosperity? There can be no other reason assigned than this; that in a state of health their minds are clouded with

the blind follies of the world; but that like distracted persons their reason returns at the point of death.