snakes swallow monkeys and deer, and other animals; and that they sometimes also swallow men. He said that he had a picture, which he would show George, of a large serpent, called a boa-constrictor, which had caught a stag, by twisting itself round it, and which it was intending to swallow.

George. But I wonder that the stag did not run away, and not let itself be caught by the serpent.

Uncle. Perhaps it would have run away if it had seen the serpent; but these boas are very cunning. They get into trees, and remain there quite still, until some animal passes underneath. Then they dart down upon it; and before it can begin to try to escape, the boa is curled round and round it, crushing its bones, and squeezing the breath out of its body. Then, when this is done, the boa loosens itself from the poor animal, and covers it all over with slime from its mouth, so as to make it easier to swallow; and then swallows it as you saw this snake swallow the mouse.

G. I should not at all like to live in that country; I should be afraid of being swallowed by a boa. Father, I wish you had killed that snake; why did you not kill it?

Mr. H. Because it was harmless. I told you that it was only taking its natural food when it swallowed the mouse. Snakes, such as that is, never injure any person. Indeed,

they do good instead of harm.

You know

we keep cats to catch mice in our houses, because mice are mischievous; and mice are very mischievous in the fields as well as in houses. They eat a great deal of corn. So, I should think we should be rather glad that there are snakes in the fields to eat mice. I do not think it would have been right to have killed that snake. We should never kill any living thing for the mere sake of killing it. I remember once, when I was a boy, I killed a snake like the one you have just seen. It was lying across the path on which I was walking. I had a stout stick in my hand, and almost without thinking, I lifted up the stick and struck the snake. The poor thing writhed about in pain, until I had crushed its head with another stroke of the stick. At first, I was very proud of what I had done; I thought it was a very brave action to kill a snake. But when I thought more about it, and called to mind what I had heard and read about these snakes being harmless, I was sorry that I had taken life away, which I could not restore again. Indeed, I was very sorry, and would have given much not to have killed the poor snake which I saw lying dead before me; and I then resolved that I would never kill another snake without occasion. If I had killed it for being hurtful in any way, or because it was good for food, it would have been a different thing: then

I might have killed it-but not else. Will. you remember what I now say, my dear boy? Never take away the life of anything without a good motive for doing so. A little boy

who can kill the smallest insect without occasion, is in danger of growing up to be a cruel, bad man.

George hoped that he should not forget what his father had said; and they then went on with their walk.

It was rather a long walk through the park. George now and then stopped to look at the deer, or at the fine house in the middle

of the park. The sun was shining very hot, so that George complained of being tired. "Well," said his father, "let us walk a little further, to yonder large tree, and there we will sit and rest ourselves, if uncle pleases."

So they walked to the tree, and sat down at the roots of it, under the shade. It was a fine large oak tree.

"There," said Mr. Hardy, "I brought you to this tree because I remember, more than thirty years ago, when I was a little boy, not older than you are, sitting at this very place one fine summer's afternoon. There were more trees around than we see now; for many of them have been cut down; but this tree still remains, and seems as vigorous as it was then. And yet, since that time, how many leaves have fallen from it! and how many stormy winds have shaken its branches! But thirty years is a very small portion of the age of such a tree as this. Perhaps it is more than three hundred years since the first little shoot came out of the ground, from the acorn which was buried in the soil; and more than three hundred years will yet pass away before the tree can be called old. Ah! there was a little boy with me on that afternoon that I am thinking of. He was younger than I, and I think, at that time, more healthy than I; but he is not alive now. There was also an older person with us on that afternoon, taking care of us, playing with us, and telling us little stories to amuse us; she, too, is dead. Perhaps if my little boy should walk in this park in thirty years' time, and come to this tree, he will remember this very day, and will then think what I am now

H

thinking, and say what I am now saying. Well, it does not much matter whether three years, or thirty years, finish our life in this world, so that we are but prepared, by faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and love to him, for life in the world beyond the grave."

Uncle. What you have just said puts me in mind of some verses written by William Cowper; perhaps George would like to hear

them?

George said that he should like to hear them, if his uncle pleased. These are the

verses:

"Like crowded forest-trees we stand,

And some are marked to fall;
The axe will smite at God's command,
And soon shall smite us all.

Green as the bay-tree, ever green,
With its new foliage on,

The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen;
I passed-and they were gone.

Read, ye that run, the awful truth,
With which I charge my page;
A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.

No present health can health insure
For yet an hour to come;

No med'cine, though it oft can cure,
Can always balk the tomb."

"That wood which we see yonder," said George's father, "puts me in mind of something that happened when I was a bigger boy. Should you like to hear it, George?" "If you please. father."