rent of life as we look into that dread and cheerless chambet from which a low whisper seems to arise, “I fill a drunkard's grave." Not a ray of hope breaks through the thick darkness which gathers there-all is gloom, despair and anguish. The mind, on such an occasion, involuntarily reverts to the bright visions and rainbow promises which a fond mother saw dancing in his path, when for the first time she clasped its inmate to her bo som in ecstacy of joy, and her tender embrace awoke the first smile that played around its cherub lips, and lit up his blue eye with the fire of natural affection, as the tear of anxious love coursed the maternal cheek, and bedewed the tiny hand npraised to receive the first impress of a mother's love. And then as it advanced in years and increased in loveliness, how she watched its opening charms and marked each new developement of intelligence how her eye beamed with joy and her heart beat with rapture, when with tottering step it escaped from her embrace, and tried its own unaided powers--we now see her with winning expressions alluring it from one position to another, while she guards its every step, and stands ready with extended arms to break its fall.

Imagination pictures her at the bedside-her darling is parched with a fever or racked with pain-she parts the ringlets that fall in disorder about his face, and places her tear-moistened cheek beside his fevered brow, and lulls him to sleep. The smile of playful happiness is now changed for a countenance of anxious sorrow, and the tear of joy gives place to that of poignant grief. She watches with solicitude its every change. Does it show signs of pain? "Tis a barbed arrow in her bosom. Does it smile, as its eye rests upon her well-known features? Her countenance is lit up with hope and gladness as suddenly as the sun breaks through an April cloud. It is restored to health, and under her maternal guidance passes from infancy to youth, and from youth to manhood.

Now he launches his frail bark upon the broad and boisterous waters of uncertain life-cut loose, as it were, from parental restraint. Her solicitude increases with each returning day, as she sees dangers and temptations thicken around him. When the morning of the hallow

ed Sabbath returns, she is seen leaning upon his arm as they wend their way to the house of God. There seated, her first prayer is "Father protect my son."

Years pass. Time has ploughed many and deep his furrows on her cheek, and the frost of age is scattered thick upon her head. Weighed down by grief and years. we now see her by the light of yon pale taper, with bended knee, clasped hands, and up-turned eyes, beside the bed of her dying child-we hear her prayer" My Father, save, oh save my son!" But it is too late. Breaking through the restraints, the advices and admonitions of even a mother's love-in an evil hour he listened to the voice of the seducer, neglected his business, forsook the endearments of home and the society of a doting mother, and became the attendant at the ale-house and tavern, and the companion of those who tarry long at the wine cup. He dies. All that now remains of that once lovely boy, that engaging youth, that affectionate son, is a most unlovely mass-a bloated corpse. We with her stand around his grave, and pay the last tribute to his memory, and the awful reality flashes upon the mind.

Now see that mother as she stands supported by the arm of a stranger beside the open grave of an only son, "and he the child of a widow." Hear her sobs, her sighs, her throbbing heart! See her heaving bosom, her bended form and tottering limbs--and mark her convulsed frame, as the man of God pronounces the solemn words, "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." It falls with leaden weight upon her inmost soul as the sound of the earth upon his coffin reaches her ear. Nature can bear no more-she shrieks-she faints-she falls. The sequel is soon told. That stone marks the grave of a drunkard, and that the resting place of a broken-hearted mother! It is known by its fruits.

Christ stilling the Tempest.

IT was the lone hour of the night. The disciples had entered into a ship with their master, and were pleasant ly sailing upon the sea of Tiberias. Jesus was asleep in

the vessel. But suddenly the smooth water was changed into a wild waste of foaming surge. Clouds, black and heavy, came upon the sky, borne on the rising win l. Darkness threw a mantle of gloom over the moon and stars. Billows, heaving, beat against the lowering sky. The wild whistle of the blast, the "voice of many waters," and the cries of the pale mariners answered to the rattling thunder. The creaking of the mast, the snapping of the whole ship, sounded like death-knells to the terrified fishermen. The spirit of destruction rode upon the tempest, hurling abroad red bolted terrors. The ship now rose upon the high waves, tossed into the clouds, then plunged into the yawning caverns of the deep. The disciples, tremblingly alive to their danger, ran with haste to Jesus, and, rousing him from his sweet slumbers, said, "Lord save us, we perish?" Then he arose, and stood upon the prow of the sinking bark. Behold him, as the lightning blazes, 'midst the fury and darkness of the storm, wet with the dashing spray, and his raven locks streaming in the fierce wind! With a loud voice he rebuked the raging tempest, and said to the mountain floods which were breaking over him, "Peace, be still!" Then the proud thunder stole into the cave of silence, the lightning buried itself in the bosom of the dark clouds, and both fled on swift pinions. The foaming billows laid themselves down to rest, " and there was a great calm." Was he a mere man, whom the wind and the sea obeyed? No. "Thou, O Lord of Hosts, rulest the raging of the sea, when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them." God was there in the majesty of his power.

The Clock.

CLOCKS are of various kinds. Some are of wood, some are brass, some of wood and ivory; others of various substances. They usually beat or tick once in a second: but sometimes twice. In order to have them continue to beat, they must be wound up once in twenty-four or thirty hours. One kind, however, will run eight days without winding up. If a good clock is wound up at

suitable times, it will run twenty or thirty years and sometiines longer. This, some of you may say, is wonderful; but I can tell you something which is more wonderful still. There is a kind of machine which will run months and years without winding up at all. A machine, did I say? There are several hundred mil lions of them. They do not beat slower than a clock, the smaller ones faster. Mine beats just about once in a second, or sixty times in a minute. Some of them run one year; others not so long; others again ten, twenty, fifty, and occasionally more than a hundred years. One in England, a few years ago, run one hundred and sixtynine years.

Do you think I am jesting? By no means. The human heart, in an adult; beats sixty times in a minute, or once in a second; in a child, the motion is much swifter. I know a man who is over ninety-seven years old. His machine, or heart, has therefore beat constantly ninety-seven years.

It would be curious to estimate the number of times the heart of that old man has beat in his whole life. But this cannot be done with exactness, because it has beat sometimes faster than at others. But it has always beat at least sixty times in a minute; this is 3,600 times an hour, 86,400 times a-day, 31,547,600 times a-year; and during ninety-seven years, 3,061,087,200. Even now the machine is not quite worn out. It may last to one hundred years, and perhaps longer. The owner can walk a half a mile or a mile at a time, and perform con siderable light labor in the course of a day.

Seek in the Right Place.

My grandfather one night had lost his spectacles, and two or three of us undertook to find them; but, after looking for some time to no purpose, we gave up the search, and my grandfather at last found them on the top of his own wig. We all had a hearty laugh, in which ne as heartily joined, and he then began to talk to us on he advantage, when any thing was lost, of looking in the proper place; and he thus proceeded:

"Once I remember losing a crown-piece, and setting a servant to find it. He pulled about the chairs and tables, removed my writing-desk, took up the fender, and rumaged the room thoroughly, making a great bustle, and wondering how it could be that the crown-piece was not to be found. Still he did not find it for m though he said he had looked every where, and so he had, every where but in the right place, and that was his own waistcoat pocket, for there I understood it was all the time; so that he need not have wondered so very much at his not being able to find it.

"You may depend upon it, that this looking for things in the wrong place is a very general failing among us all. "When a poor man finds that poverty has made his own house uncomfortable, where does he look for comfort? Too frequently at the public-house. Away he goes with what little he has got, and sitting himself down in the corner by the fire, he calls for his pint of ale. While he sits drinking, a friend pops in that he has not seen for some time, so they must have another pint between them; and then, as their hearts grow warm, and the remembrance of their troubles passes away, it becomes next to impossible to leave a pleasant companion, and a pint of fresh ale, and a good fire, for an uncomfortable and cheerless home. Another pint is called for; one sings 'Begone, dull care,' and the other some foolish song. The poor man, at last rises to go, but his friend reminds him that it may be long before they meet again, and proposes a parting pint. The parting pint is brought in, and at a late hour, the poor fellow reels home to a poor habitation, and a wretched family, that he has made poorer and rendered more wretched by his intemperance. Why, this poor man finds out, to his sorrow, that he has not been looking for comfort in the right place.

"Almost all young people indulge in dreams that are in themselves useless. When they hear of the wide world, they think what great things they would do, if they were here, or there, or yonder; or, if they had this, or that, or the other. But depend upon it, almost all that is worth having; or at least, all that would be good for us to possess, may be obtained wherever we are, if we seek for it, by diligently and uprightly using the faculties