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to do is to follow closely the footsteps of their Shepherd, Jesus Christ, and listen to His voice. He will lead them safely, and bring them even through the last dark valley, and will suffer no harm to happen to them. If, instead of this, they listen to the advice and copy the example of companions as ignorant and weak as themselves, they will be sure to go wrong, and to be brought into difficulties, out of which they cannot be recovered unless their gracious Shepherd kindly come after them, and help them.

If you would be safe in this world, and happy in the next, obey the gentle voice of your Saviour, when He says, "Learn of Me."

THE EMPTY CASK.

H.

Now I have something more to tell you about

our excursion.

Soon we all have passed out of the dusty road, and are scattered on the green hill-side,-playing in groups, or trying who shall be first at the top of the hill; for it is there we are to take tea. Our Ministers are with us, and their voices soon call general attention: we gather round them, and listen to a kind and instructive, though brief, address from each of them, and then again disperse to amuse ourselves. They had used as a pulpit, or stand, in speaking, an empty cask, in which provisions had been brought up; and the cask is left standing near the brow of the hill. Soon it strikes the notice of Bome mischief-loving urchins, who say one to another,

"What fun it would be to set it to roll down hill! Shall we do it?" In an instant the cask i its side a very slight kick sets it off, and dow rolls, slowly enough at first; but it gathers force speed as it rolls, and dashes impetuously downw Those who are in its course get out of the wa fast as they can; but, ah! there are two boys don't see it. It knocks them down, passes them, and, still heedless and unconscious, rushe with still increasing force, just missing a man, was very near being thrown down by it. At let a fence at the bottom checks its headlong course bounds over, and is shivered to pieces. The boys are badly hurt, and are carried into a ne bouring house: there is some fear that one of t has had some limb broken.

No doubt the boys, whose love of fun had cau so much mischief, were very sorry when they their companions hurt; but they were thought and had no idea that the downward tendency wa strong. Suppose, now, they had wished to get cask to the top of the hill: do you think a sir push would have sufficed, and that it would t have rolled right up? Of course, it would not. T must have kept their hands and their strength t at every step, and persevered upward, or th labour would have been in vain.

There is something else I can

tell you of, wh has a downward tendency; and that is, our fal human nature. When God made man, He m him upright; but ever since the "fall," he has b

prone to do evil.

Error and sin may appear sm

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in their commencement; but who shall stop us if we once take this wrong course. Evil habits, once allowed, grow stronger and stronger. Sin, though it becomes blacker and more dreadful, hurries us along with greater violence. Having given way in one thing, who shall stop us? We may now turn, and live. God will help us, if we seek His aid; but, as in the case of the cask, every step upward is to be attained by diligence and care. If we think to be still, and give ourselves no trouble in the matter, we shall find we have made a fatal mistake.

Empty-minded and foolish persons are most easily made the sport of wicked and designing men: therefore let us get wisdom, and especially that true wisdom which comes from above. We are fallen, and almost every influence around us is waiting to set us in motion downwards. Evil examples, evil communications, evil tempers; all these are to be resisted. The longer we continue in the wrong course, the more difficult will it be for us to turn. And, alas! should the fatal course be run, and the sinning soul overleap the fence of death, it will be lost for ever. Let us then "watch and pray, lest

we enter into temptation."

SNOW.

IN flakes of feathery white,

It is falling so gently and slow;
O, pleasant to me is the sight
Of the silently-falling snow!
Snow, snow, snow!

The fall of the feathery snow!

The earth is all cover'd to-day

With a mantle of radiant show;
And it sparkles and shines in the ray,
In crystals of glistening snow!
Snow, snow, snow!

The sparkling and glistening snow!

How spotless it seems, and how pure!

I wish that my spirit were so;

And that, while my soul shall endure,

It might shine far more bright than the snow.
Snow, snow, snow!

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Were my heart but as pure and as bright as the

snow!

STORIES OF SCRIPTURE WATERS.

CHAPTER VI.

THE NILE.

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command of the w the poor Israelites were

"EVERY Son that is born, ye shall cast into the enty. Perhaps,

river." Such, dear children, was the cruel command of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, concerning the

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destroy their children:

Tery strict: but some w

children of the poor oppressed Israelites, whom he danger rather than giv held in bondage as slaves, and compelled to build The Scriptures relat Ichildren were to be cast was the Nile, which eat and good man. He his cities and storehouses. The river into which the boy from destruction flowed through Pharaoh's dominions, one of the child, from his birth; a rise among the mountains of Nubia, (formerly called were parents who fear Ethiopia,) uniting in its course with "the blue, and they believed th river," which rises in Abyssinia, After this con-uld preserve their

most celebrated streams in the world. It has its

Teason

why his parents

first three months of his

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