HE sun peeped through the window,

And this is what he said: "Good-morning, little girl. Dear me ! Why, ain't you out of bed?

I really think that you must be
A little sleepy-head.

"Why, I got up two hours ago!

The earth looked all so fair,

I wondered why some folks slept on,
As if they didn't care;

For blinds were drawn and shutters closed
In houses everywhere.

"But all the birds began to stir

When they caught sight of me ; With song and twitter they woke up

FRIEND of ours was telling us the other day an amusing story about one of his boys. The little fellow had been rather severely punished by the schoolmaster for some boyish prank he had been playing. The punishment was administered in the shape of a sharp rap on the knuckles with the master's ferule. Not long after this act of discipline had been exercised a grammar lesson was being given by the master to the class to which the boy belonged. The lesson was on adjectives, and in order to make it clear to the minds of the boys what an adjective was, the master held up his ruler, and asked what qualities that ruler had. One boy threw up his hand and shouted, "Please, sir, it's round." Another boy replied to the same question, "Please, sir, it's smooth." On the same question being again asked, our little fellow who had just received the "wigging" held up his hand, which still bore witness to the impression that fatal ruler had made, and shouted at the top of his voice, “Please,

sir, it hurts!” No doubt the poor little fellow spoke feelingly on this particular quality of the ruler, and if his grammar was at fault his experience was very correctly stated. On hearing the story, we were set thinking how true this boy's answer was in relation to some other things than the teacher's ferule. Perhaps none more than the poor drunkard's child have great reason to say of the drinking customs of the land, "Please, sir, it hurts!" As we read the dark catalogue of crime and social misery which follow in the wake of our drinking habits, we hear the wail of the poor children coming up with a terrible emphasis-"Please, sir, it hurts!" They are made to feel keenly and bitterly the consequences of a father's or mother's intemperance. In how many ways it hurts them it would be impossible to tell, for their name is legion.

The health of the children

is seriously hurt. When physical comforts are needed to help the growth and development of their bodies, they are pinched with

hunger and exposed to damps and chills for want of suitable clothing; and can it be otherwise when, according to the Bishop of Exeter, there are seven times as many public-houses as there are butchers' shops, and eight times as many public-houses as bakers' shops? The money which helps to keep open these public-houses cannot go at the same time to the butcher and baker; and, looking at the bare cupboard and his ragged dress, with haggard countenance, and with a look of stinging pain, he points with his skeleton finger to this fearful Moloch Intemperance, and exclaims bitterly, "Please, sir, it hurts!" Their intellectual faculties are hurt. The money which ought to be spent in culture and mental training goes to the drink-shop, and thus the child is allowed to grow up in ignorance, although in that child there may have slumbered powers that otherwise would have sung with Milton or soared with Newton; but by shameful and criminal neglect they have been left to wither and decay; or, what is worse still, they have been perverted to the service of sin and Satan. For who has not seen amongst the rough untutored children of the gutter (we dislike the phrase "gutter children," but what has flung them into the gutter?-Drink!) keen, sharp-eyed lads, whose witty sayings and quick repartee has more than once drawn the tear to our eye that such splendid possibilities as were enshrined in those lads should be so sadly directed to a career of crime and vice of the foulest kind. Here are powers which rightly trained and developed would have shone in marts of commerce, in halls of legislature, in the walks of literature, or in the pulpits of our sanctuaries; but, left to grow to rank weeds, only help to make the poor fellow a more cunning thief or a more successful criminal, whose story of guilt will send a deeper thrill of horror through our hearts when his course is run, and make one more sensational picture to

gratify the prurient tastes of the readers of "The Police News." If by any lucky chance the child should get a few years' schooling at the outset of his career, he is taken away when the foundation has been laid for a good education, and sent to toil in factory or workshop, thus losing almost everything that has been gained by the few years spent at school, and before a taste has been acquired for intellectual pursuits. Henceforth there is for the boy nothing but the crushing effects of toil and labour, which, in many cases, are beyond his powers of physical endurance. And why? Because the money which ought to have kept him at school has found its way to the publican's till. And who is benefitted ? Not the father who spends it, for he has only allowed the chain of an evil habit to be rivetted more tightly around him; but, ah, the child! may he not look up with weary, weeping eye, and say, "Please, sir, it hurts!" Then again, it hurts their souls. A drunkard's child is placed at an awful disadvantage in relation to soul-culture. The home of childhood to which some of us can look back as the scene where some of the holiest lessons of our lives were learnt is, alas, for him no "Bethel." No family altar, no songs of praise to the great Creator, no lessons of holy truth out of that precious Book which forms the most cherished treasure of the religious homethe Family Bible. If this be so, and we submit that it is by no means an exaggerated picture, what wonder if the baser passions of the child grow and strengthen with terrible rapidity, and soon the child learns to follow in the fatal footsteps of the parent, and at the close of a dissipated career, with a ruined constitution, a blighted character, the horrors of eternal darkness gathering up around the soul, he sinks into a drunkard's grave, crying, "It hurts! It hurts! Oh, sir, it hurts!"

G. HARGREAVES.

K

ATY COWBURN is the belle of the village. Her face is attractive, her manners are engaging, and her voice is musical. Wherever she visits she is the subject of remark, and she is almost everywhere wanted. This arises from the fact that Katy is as good as she is beautiful. If there is any sick one to be cheered, or any troubled one to be comforted, you may be sure of finding her in those places. It is said of a good man of olden times that the blessing of those who were ready to perish rested upon him, and this is the case with Katy. Aged widows look up with lightened faces at the sound of her voice, and hardworked women in the midst of their family cares pray that her path may be kept smooth and pleasant, forasmuch as she has succeeded so well in helping others over life's rough places.

Katy is as much of a heroine and as greatly beloved in her own household as she is out of doors. She has learnt in a measure the true spirit of noble living from the adorable Redeemer. You know He said that He did not come to have servants to wait upon Him simply, but that He might be a servant

He

and wait upon others. And this means that while He received from His friends such service as they could render, He also did for them that which He was able. was more anxious to give than to receive, to help than to be helped. And oh! such help as He was able to render !

"He went about, He was so kind,

To cure poor people who were blind;
And many who were sick and lame,
He pitied them and did the same."

Well, it is in this way that Katy does. There is her old nurse, who used to sing lullabys to her when she was a little thing in arms. Never a week passes but she has a visit from her former charge. And there is old John, the coachman, who has been in the family's service for over thirty years, who would feel it a positive pleasure to go out with the carriage in the wettest night to fetch Miss Kate. There is not a servant in the house that will not run to meet her wishes with fleet foot, and the dog will tear at his chain like a mad thing to lick her hand. Katy says she cannot tell how it is that everybody tries so to spoil her with kindness. But she is the only one who