insipid, a little weak wine is added; and when that becomes incompetent to the task of giving the system a proper excitement, a stronger is resorted to, until, in time, the repast of oysters is seasoned with fourth proof brandy. By this time the scholar has passed through the academy of the science and fitted for matriculation into the college. The fashionable hotel is frequented. Fourth-proof brandy soon becomes tame to the stomach; the card table steps in to the rescue, the scholar loses his money and, consequently, is incapable of practising at the bar of the refined hotel; he goes to one of another grade, and in a few collegiate sessions his body is fitted for the grave, and his mind for the communion of devils. Some young men not having a taste for such indulgences, being trained with a proper fear of the consequences of such a course,spend, for all useful purposes, an inactive life. After the labor of the day is over they resort to the stores and shops, and spend their evenings in listening to and taking part in the discussion of the senseless gossip of the village. They find, too, many professing Christians in the same useless occupation, and think, by their example, no harm in it, consequently their minds are filled with useless and pernicious furniture, leaving no space for pofitable information, unfitting themselves for the ordinary business of life.

Instead of pursuing such a course, and most certainly coming to such ends, I would advise you to use all your extra earnings to procure useful implements with which to spend your leisure evenings in acquiring useful information. Buy a book and master its contents. I have an acquaintance who spent his youthful days in folly; but before his habits were fully formed his mind took a different turn; he became a scientific mechanic and in every way a very useful man. Some years ago I loaned him a book, and he has since told me that if he had had that book when he commenced studying the nature of mechanics, he could have saved many sleepless nights of investigation, in settling in his mind, de novo, principles that were demonstrated in that book. Buy abook, for instance, on astronomy -that most magnificent of all human studies. The command to know God is to become acquainted with the nature of His being and the character of His works-His development ad extra. That science gives in a peculiar manner an overwhelming idea of His power and stupendousness of His works. Take a simple instance: It is calculated by the power of that science that our globe, in its annual orbit, passes, in every second of time, through a space of from eighteen to twenty miles, and the planets nearer the sun are yet more swift; and that a whole year is required to perform one circuit round the sun. What an idea of space! itself incomprehensible; but when the fact is learned by the same science, that the orbit of the earth is but a small part of the solar system when compared with that of Uranus, and that to an eye that could comprehend at a glance the universe of creation (if it be not infinite,) the anni

hilation of the whole solar system would hardly be perceptible. Does it not produce an idea that is overwhelming in majesty?

You, especially, who have been neglected by your parents and pastor, to be reared up in the catechteical class, buy a book on theology that study of all studies—that sine qua non of all true science and consequent happiness. It is true there are mysteries in religious science that not only you and I cannot comprehend, but that the most learned of our divines don't pretend to fathom; but this is no reason that we should lay it aside as a useless undertaking. There is a sufficiency of truths in the science comprehensible to us, with the grace freely proffered, to place us in a right relation to our Maker, which will put us in possession of a fulcrum with which, by the same grace, we can move the universe of God's knowledge, and though an eternity may be spent in operating, it will be the fulfilment of an intended destiny, and consequently for our best interest. You will say this is an endless labor, cui bono? You are mistaken. Is it a labor for a healthy man to breathe? Much less is the accomplishment of an intended destiny, in the common sense of the term. It is a transcendent pleasure. Try it, boys, and you will discover whether I have the visions of a prophet.

The greatest fallacy that you have to contend with is an idea which is common to all young men—that is, that they can temper themselves; in other words, they can indulge in the innocent vices of the day and when they become dangerous they can stop. This all experience shows is not so. Teetotalism is the only safe ground. Habits of virtue or vice are framed, generally, from twenty to thirty. There is no place to turn from the path of vice and enter that of virtue certainly safe but the beginning of that period-every step from that period leads you farther in the former and farther from the latter.

MY MOTHER.

My mother, my kind mother,
I hear thy gentle voice;
It always makes my little heart
Beat gladly and rejoice.

When I am ill it comes to me,
And kindly soothes my pain;

And when I sleep, then in my dreams
It sweetly comes again.

It always makes me happy,
Whene'er I hear its tone;

I know it is the voice of love
From a heart that is my own.

My mother, my dear mother,
O, may I never be
Unkind or disobedient,
In any way to thee.

L.

THE FATE OF GENIUS.

How precious few people in the world know even the author of that stirring hearth-song: "Sweet Home," though its melody has fallen upon the ear and rested on the tongue of the million. A correspondent, writing from Washington, alluding to the life of Payne, and its vicissitudes, says: "As I sit in my garret here in Washington, watching the course of great men, and destiny of party, I meet with strange contradictions in this eventful life. The most remarkable was that of J. Howard Payne, author of 'Sweet Home.' I knew him personally. He occupied the rooms under me for some time, and his conversation was so captivating that I often spent whole days in his apartment. He was an applicant for office at the time -Consul to Tunis-from which he had been removed. What a sad thing it was to see the poet, subjected to all the humiliation of office seeking. Of an evening we would walk along the streets. Once in a while we would see some family circle so happy, and forming so beautiful a group that we would stop awhile and then pass silently on.

"On such occasions he would give a history of his wanderingshis trials, and all the cares incident to his sensitive nature and poverty. How often,' said he once, 'I have been in the heart of Paris, Berlin, and London, or some other city, and heard persons singing or the hand-organ playing 'Sweet Home,' without a shilling to buy the next meal, or a place to lay my head. The world has literally sung my song until every heart is familiar with its melody. Yet I have been a wanderer from my boyhood. My country has turned me ruthlessly from my office; and in my old age I have to submit to humiliation for bread.' Thus he would complain of his hapless lot. His only wish was to die in a foreign land, to be buried by strangers, and sleep in obscurity.

"I met him one day looking unusually sad. 'Have you got your consulate?' said I.

"Yes, and leave in a week for Tunis; I shall never return.' "The last expression was not a political faith. Far from it. Poor Payne! his wish was realized; he died at Tunis. Whether his remains have been brought to this country I know not. They should be, and if none others would do it, let the homeless throughout the world give a penny, for a monument to Payne. I knew him, and will give my penny, for an inscription like the following:

'HERK LIES

J. HOWARD PAYNE,

The author of "Sweet Home."

A Wanderer in Life; he whose songs were sung in every heart

NEVER HAD A HOME.

He died in a Foreign Land.'"

THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.

NO. XV.-THE STORK.

BY THE EDITOR.

THESE birds are very numerous in the Holy Land. "The fields," says one, "between Cana and Nazareth are covered with numerous flocks of them, each flock containing more than a thousand. In some parts the ground is entirely whitened by them; and, on the wing, they darken the air like a congeries of clouds. At the approach of evening they retire to roost on the trees. The inhabitants carefully abstain from hurting them, on account of their important services in clearing the country of various animals.' Dr. Shaw saw three flocks of them passing over Mount Carmel, each of which was a half a mile in width, and they were three hours in going by. They have also been seen in great numbers between Belbeis and Gaza, in Palestine.

It is an interesting bird in appearance. It is modest and humble in its deportment. In its general features, though not at all in its manners and habits, it very much resembles the crane. The stork is white with some dark-brown at its head, wings and thighs. It has a very long beak and long red eyes. The skin, the beak, and the bare parts of the thighs are also red. "The nails of its toes," says Dr. Harris, "are very peculiar; not being clawed like those of other birds, but flat like the nails of a man.'

Its name, in Hebrew, seems to have been suggested by its disposition-it is CHASIDA, and signifies merry, kindness, goodness, piety. Its name in English is derived from the Greek storge, which means "love, tender affection, especially that of parents for their offspring; parental or filial affection." All authors agree in awarding this honor to the stork. Ambrose says the Romans called it avis pia-the pious bird. Publicus calls it pietatus cultrix-the cherisher of piety.

This sense of its name corresponds exactly with the known disposition and habits of the stork. Its piety towards its aged parents is referred to by an old English writer (Holland,) who has it from Pliny. "Storkes keepe one nest still from yeare to yeare, and never chaunge; and of this kind nature they are, that the young will keepe and feed their parents when they be old, as they themselves were by them nourished in the beginning.

Beaumont has the following allusion to this fact:

"The stork's an emblem of true piety;
Because, when age has seized and made his dame
Unfit for flight, the grateful young one takes

His mother on his back, provides her food,
Repaying thus her tender care of him,
Ere he was fit to fly."

Burcherodde, a Dane, who, according to the testimony of Sir John Hill, the eminent naturalist, speaks "without the ornaments or the exaggeration of poetry or fable," and who, according to his own declaration, "relates what he has seen," testifies to this filial tenderness of the stork. After mentioning that they build in the southern part of Ireland, and that they go away in autumn and return again in spring to their several nests in families, he says: "The people of Toningen, and the neighboring coasts gather together to see them come; for they are superstitious, and form certain presages from the manner of their flight. At this time it is not uncommon to see several of the old birds, which are tired and feeble with long flight, supported at times on the backs of the young; and the peasant speaks of it as a certainty, that many of these are, when they return to their homes, laid carefully in the old nest and cherished by the young ones which they reared with so much care the spring before." This is certainly very remarkable; and well may this writer add, "men may be taught by looking at them.”

This tender care on the part of the young for their parents is only a suitable return for the previous care of the parents for them. We are assured by naturalists that the stork bestows special care upon the education of its young. While they are yet in the nest, the parents never both leave it at a time; one always remains with the young while the other goes for food. They retain their offspring much longer in the nest than other birds. "When they first take out the young they practice them to fly; and they lead them to the marshes and to the hedge sides, pointing them out the frogs, and serpents, and lizards, which are their proper food; and they seek out toads, which they never eat, and take great pains to make the young distinguish them," teaching them thus to select that food which is proper for them, and which they might easily mistake on account of the similarity between a toad and a frog. When night closes their excursion for food, they bring their little flock carefully back again to the nest.

It is said that when the young first begin to flutter out of the nest, the mother bears them on her wings, and so zealously protects them in danger that, in some instances, they have perished themselves rather than forsake their offspring.

How interesting and instructive is this mutual devotion between the old and young of these birds. How beautiful and suggestive is this grateful return of services on the part of the young. In regard to it we may adopt the sentiment of the Danish writer above quoted, with the alteration of the first word: "Children may be taught by looking at them." Though such a thing is not found among storks, yet it is among men that aged parents are neglected by those over whom they watched with many pains and tears in their infancy. A little impatience manifested in those who