FROZEN TO DEATH.
A TALE OF CHRISTMAS.

By Rev. C. W. Jones, 6 TROZEN to death! Poor little boy!

On Christmas Day, too! And only seven years and a half old !" Such were the words that caught my ear as I walked up the village street.

“ What's that you say, Mrs. B. ?” said I.

“Why, sir,” answered the old dame, to whom I spoke, “ haven't you heard of poor little Jack Porter, and how he was set to keep the rooks off Mr. A.'s stacks this snowy weather, and got frozen to death ? And I daresay the poor child hadn't a morsel of victuals in his bag, for many's the time I've given him a crust as he came past our door, and he has told me it was the first bit he had had in his mouth that

morning. And there's that mother of his, always-—” “There, there, Mrs. B." I broke in : “poor woman! she's in trouble enough, no doubt, and knows as well as you could tell her, whether any neglect of hers has had anything to do with her little boy's death—if the report is true ; but I'll go down to their house, and see what can be done: perhaps I may be some help or comfort to them. Good morning.” So I left the old dame, and went on my way to the home of the poor child. Poor little, Jack 1 and was he really frozen to death? I had known him from a baby, like most of the younger inhabitants of the parish, for I was the clergyman. He had been to school in his time, but at seven years of age he was supposed to have completed his education, and had been taken to work in the fields—“keeping birds,” as we call it in the eastern counties, or “bullocking," or “grassing,” or whatever ...i. the work of the season, and making his appearance now and then at my Sunday-school, when his work did not require his presence on that day. And a nice little boy, a naughty little boy he was, full of fun, and full of mischief, but quick and willing at his books and lessons. And now he was frozen to death, poor little boy!—on Christmas Day, too!—and only seven years and a half old ! Think of that, you o mother, sitting by your fireside, with your merry little boy of that age, running in, all flushed with rosy health, in his pork-pie hat and seal-skin coat, out of breath to tell you that the big pond is beautifully frozen, and that father has taken him on it; and the snow is so deep in the garden, that he can't see brother's waterpot that had the ice in it. Yes, this frost and snow that your little boy so rejoices in have been the cause of poor little Jack Porter's being frozen to death, and on Christmas Day, too ! Poor little boy! I knew him well,

and I have no doubt but that almost his last thoughts were, how famously he had driven “them nasty crows" away. For he had a strange notion of duty, had that boy; and I feel sure that he would never have yielded to that fatal drowsiness, if he had not succeeded in driving away the rooks to some less carefully protected stacks. Master was at church too; and as master and the rooks were all quite safe for a time, he thought that he might creep into the hedge, and try to thaw himself a little.

Master was at church, and how poor little Jack wished that he was there too ! He was not particularly fond of going to church, wasn't Jack; and, when he was there, the shells of walnuts and the cores of apples were very often to be found under his seat. But to-day—this cold Christmas Day—he would have been glad to have been at school and church too. How nice they must be looking, all in their fresh holly, how beautifully warm the school stove must be; and . how pleasant that particular hot-air grating in the church to which he loved to apply his worn shoes in the wintertime; and how sweet the Christmas hymns were! Hark! he almost thought he heard them now. No: it was something else. But how odd it was: it felt somehow like church all out in the snow, under the hedge there—like church at sermon time—he felt so uncommonly drowsy ; but he oughtn't to go to sleep, though he could not exactly tell why. There certainly was no old man with a long stick to hit his white little head, and wake him. No ; but there were the rooks back again, sure enough. “Caw, caw, cah-h-h!" “Caugh, cagh I’” “Jackle, jackle, jackle !" Yes, and the jackdaws too: so he must be up and driving them away, or master would “make a noise,” or perhaps give him a “hiding" for not minding his business. Yes, and poor little Jack, only seven and a half too, struggled out of his ditch, and drove the enemy away, and watched them settle down by somebody

else's stacks, half a mile off. Now he might rest again, and back he crept to the hedge, and pulled out of his bag the remainder of his piece of bread, smeared with lard, which was to serve for dinner, as it had done for breakfast. For, in spite of old Mrs. B.'s supposition, he had not been sent out into the fields that cold Christmas Day entirely dinnerless. So he sat, and gnawed the half-frozen slice of bread. Poor fare, indeed, but he thought of the Christmas treat the school-children were to have the next day. And was not he a schoolboy 1 To be sure he was: he went to Sunday-school whenever he could, and always came in for anything good that might be going on. And that Christmas treat was to be a particularly good “going on.” It was to be a Christmas Tree—a thing that Jack had never seen, but there had been one given to the school four years before ; and what a lot of sweets and things brother Bill and sister Mary Ann had brought back; and that beautiful pair of warm cuffs of hers, and that splendid red comforter that had been given to Bill! Perhaps there might be one of the same sort for him to-morrow. Oh, how nice it would be Why it would almost cover his little body, and he would sleep in it, that he would. And oh, how he wished he had it now ! And he would take a nap, come what might; for he did feel so strangely sleepy. Hark! were those the rooks back again 7 No it was only a sheep coughing in the next field. How queer it was that he should take a sheep for a rook Rooks are black, and sheep are white; rooks have feathers, and sheep have wool. Oh, yes,<

“For sheep are harmless, and you know That wool upon their backs doth grow.”

Certainly; and they make cloth of it, and comforters too. How I wish I had that comforter 1 and I would take just a nap, and then— And then Jack yielded, and sank into a soft sleep. He

slept, and he dreamt that he was in the school-room, all glistening with holly and other evergreens, with a huge Christmas Tree (a whole dream of itself) burning brightly. He had got the red comforter, and the organ was playing, and they were all singing,

“Hark! the herald angels sing;”

and he heard a voice calling him by name, and looked up, and saw a strange face. And yet, somehow, it seemed familiar; for it was wondrously like that placid countenance which had so often looked down upon him out of the church-window: like that in the picture in the school-room, where He sat with one child upon His knee, and a troop of little ones crowding around Him, in spite of stern, black-bearded men, who would have kept them away.—

“Glory to the new-born King.”

Little Jack tried to go on singing — so, at least, my fancy framed his dream—but, whatever it was, the pen of man can write no more. The scene was changed; all his dreams were cut short, and he had been brought face to face with realities; for the report which I had heard was only too true ; and, when I arrived at his poor home, there lay the body of the child who had been frozen to death. Poor little boy! On Christmas Day, too ! And only seven years and a half old !

Oh! happy children, in happy homes do not wear your warm clothes, and gather round the blazing fire and enjoy your pleasant meals, as if all these things were your right; for, perhaps, you are not so good a child as poor little Jack. Yet God has made you much better off than he was. Therefore, do not forget to thank God, who has been so good to you; and, if you can, warm, or clothe, or cheer some poor child amongst your neighbours whose home is not as happy a one as, I trust, your own is.

THIS is a scene 1 in the life of one of the kings of Israel. It will be a good way of spending a quarter of an hour some Sunday evening to turn over the records of that far-off time as given in your Bible, and to search if you can find out the name of the king and of the prophet, and the meaning of the “ symbolical action” which is shown in the picture.

THE YOUNG KING AND THE DYING PROPHET.

OUR ENGLISH

BIBLE. The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew; and the New partly in Hebrew, and partly in Greek. Both were translated into English about 250 years ago. The work of translation was performed by fortyseven of the most learned men in the country.