I THREE BLACK THREADS OF LIFE. OFTEN think that human nature as velvet, but for three black, coarse, ugly The first black thread is THOUGHTLESSNESS. A great many unkind words are spoken, and unkind deeds done, not so much from intention as thoughtlessness. People do not think. I have read amongst the fairy tales of an old woman who never opened her mouth but out jumped a toad, or a snake, or a leech. We should think such an old lady a very disagreeable companion to sit down to tea with; but all persons who carelessly tell stories calculated to do their neighbours harm, who indulge in scandal and in mischief-making, are like the old woman in the fairy story; and when I go from house to house, and hear this bad tale and the other-although I cannot see the person who tells me-I say, as each sad story is told, "Ah, there goes a toad-there goes a snake--and there a leech that is sure to draw blood." The wise man spoke of a madman who flung about firebrands, arrows, and death, and said, Am I not in sport? The careless slanderer is just such a fire-brand flinger. "Where there is no tale-bearer, the strife ceases; and most tale-bearers are thoughtless persons, whose mischief is done, not so much out of wilful wickedness, as careless idleness. I knew a man once-I have known many such men, but this man I especially remember-who had nothing to do. He walked every day over the village, looking into the business of everybody. He picked *From an excellent little book, entitled "Blind Amos," by the Rev. Paxton Hood. London: Partridge. up one story and carried it to this house, where it received some additions, and was then carried to another. He had nothing to do but to travel about this sort of way: he never thought of doing any harm; but the mischief was, he never thought of doing any good. There was a poor girl in the village, who lived with and worked for her mother. Her life was as gentle and as innocent as the flowers in her garden; but this old man thought he had discovered something against her; and he came to me and sat down, and, after a little silence, he told me what he thought. I knew the poor girl well. I knew her piety and her purity of life. I heard his tale out; then said I, "Peter, how far do you mean to let that toad travel?" "Toad!" said he, "what toad ? "That toad," said I. "Don't you see that story you have just told me is an ugly black toad. It will never do to let it go sprawling and crawling over our village. Pretty work, indeed! So, Peter, let us kill it here at once." And we did. I never heard the story mentioned again: and I believe I did the old careless gossip some good; for often when he began to talk to me or tell me a tale, I would say to him, "Peter, no more black toads, I hope." Yes, my lads, thoughtlessness spoils and defaces the beautiful velvet of life. I said it was the black thread in it-its coarse grain. You would save yourself from doing a great deal of evil if you would ask before you do anything, what it is you are going to do; and it often happens, my young friends, to you and to much older people, that you do evil almost unintentionally, because thoughtlessly, and then do evil to support yourselves in the evil you have done already. A good many people act as John Webster did with his cow: he did not mend his hedge, so the cow got out, and got into the pound, whereupon John mended his hedge, but he was so angry with the innocent cow that he actually tied her to a stake in the middle of the field. The cow acted sensibly enough; it was John Webster who was to blame, and so he sought to mend his own negligence by his cruelty. Children, love one another; and that you may do so, be thoughtful. Remember others have feelings as well as you. Black words don't make white actions. If your tongue is a spur, it may make somebody kick. If you sow nettles in your throat, don't let them grow outside your tongue. In a word, that you may love one another, think before you speak. The second coarse black thread in the velvet of life is PASSION. Many a blow has been struck-many a word has been said—many a deed has been done, and the speaker and the doer would have given nearly their all to have recalled them; but it was impossible. Passion has made foes of the best friends. Passion has darkened the windows of many a heart and many a home. Passion, my boys, is the gunpowder of life; and it often does for a life what gunpowder does-lays it in ruins in a moment. Even things well to be done, are not well done in a passion. If a thing will bear doing, it will bear reasoning about. But passion never reasons. Passion is usually blind. When I was a lad I knew two men-prudent, kind, respectable men ordinarily; they had some dispute about a mere trifle, and parted in high anger. They had to meet one another again shortly, and it was hoped that the dispute might be made up; and it would have been, but one spoke hurriedly, and made, I believe, some slight mistake. The other called him a liar. was the meeting of spark and powder. His old friend lifted up his hand, and felled him at a blow, and that blow killed him. He was tried for manslaughter, and he was ruined in character for life; but that was trifling compared with his sufferings from It the recollection that, in a moment of passion and frenzy, he had killed his friend. Children, that you may love one another, conquer passion; and if you ask me how, I have no better recipe than this: in the very moment of passion, pray. "The angry word and angry heart Should be your constant care; By the strong spell of prayer." Passion is madness; and I do not think any of you would like to be thought mad. There was a strange and very eccentric man lived once in a village where I spent some time, and not far from him lived one of the most ungovernable men I ever knew, whom we will call Passionate George; he wanted to rent a field belonging to the pious and eccentric man, whose name was Burley; but Friend Burley was wary and quiet, and he declined Passionate George for a tenant. So one morning he made his appearance at Mr. Burley's house, full of rage, to ask why he had been refused. In passion and in storm he burst into his room. A passionate man is usually met by passion; quietness makes him feel awkward and not at home. He began his conversation with some oaths, to which Mr. Burley replied, "If thou art going to talk in that way, I shall leave thee here to talk to thyself. If it is profitable to thee, thou canst swear away at these walls; thou wilt have just as much pleasure, just as much sin, and it will save me some pain." George was taken quite aback, as we say, when Mr. Burley said, "I never intended thee any harm just as you came in we were about to pray; if you have anything to talk over with me, it will do thee no harm to stay while we pray; it will quiet me and thee too." Poor George had not calculated on this at all. He knelt quietly down. Here, at any rate, was a man who would not go into a fit of passion with him, and there is no enjoying a fit of pas sion long alone. He got up and walked away. It was a sort of proverb afterwards, that nobody had ever been a match for Passionate George but quiet Burley. My lads, when a dog makes too free with you, jumps and bounds over you, you say, "Down, Nero; down, sir." That is what you must say when passion rises: "Down, sir." I once took a passionate man very much aback, by asking him to hold his tongue while he felt my pulse, or else while I felt his. It is astonishing how efficacious a moment or two of quiet is in the midst of a great storm. When the fit is very strong on you, think how you would appear before the glass, or rather think how you do really appear before God. The greatest of all heroes is he who can rule his spirit in a great storm. So, my lads, I would have you take the black thread of passion out of the velvet of life. (To be concluded in our next.) AS HE A COWARD? ISS-SS! - ah, hiss-ss, he's a coward! Nobby Dick hit him, and he's sneaking off!" "He won't fight-hiss-ss, he's a coward!" added the man they called Nobby Dick, who had rushed out of the public-house where he had been drinking, and struck at Will Turner, a sober bricklayer, who was going home after a hard day's work. Now, no man likes to be called a coward, but Will knew that it was a bravery rather to bear wrong than to do wrong; still he did feel being called "a coward." It was the last time ever anyone in the village called Will by such a name. That night, when he had spent all his money, Dick reeled home. He lived in a thatched cottage on Farnham Common. Will lived near him. Dick had a wife, and one poor feeble child, that had long been ill. Nothing frightened the child so much as his father coming home tipsy. The sound of his foot and surly voice would set the little fellow sobbing, as if his heart would break. The poor mother fearing the fright would almost kill her child, went up into a loft over the two lower rooms of the cottage, and knowing there was no fire or candle in the house, left her drunken husband to get to his bed. For a time all seemed safe, and the mother and child were both asleep on their straw pallet in the loft. But Dick was a smoker, and, not long after he came in, he groped his way to a lucifer-box in the cupboard, lighted his pipe, threw himself on the bed, and let the match, still alight, fall into a work-bag that hung on a nail beside the cupboard. The bag took fire; the draught from the fire-place blew the flame out at the open window, and it ran up and caught the thatch, where for a little while it smouldered. Will's old mother lived with him. She often lay awake at night, and her bed faced the window of her room. As she was quietly laying and looking at the stars, she saw a bright light, and, thinking it was fire, she called her son. He instantly arose, and saw Dick's cottage in a blaze. Away he rushed, dragging on his clothes as he ran shouting along. There was a well before Dick's door; but one man could not put out the fire. Will called, and called in vain. Before the other neighbours, slowly rousing, came to help, Will had burst in and dragged Dick out of the blazing room. The drink had so stupefied him, that he lay for a minute on the ground and took no notice. "Where's your wife and child?" said Will, shaking him. "In the loft," stammered the drunkard. "Then they are lost!" said one old man, who was drawing a bucket of water up the well. Will said not a word; he had dragged off a blanket when he tore Dick from his bed. This blanket he thoroughly wetted, and throwing it round him, rushed into the blazing cottage. The neighbours all thought he had gone to his death. They could not shout, for horror was in every face. Even Dick sat up, and looking wildly on the fire, began to understand the scene. Amid the roaring and cracking of the flames they heard a woman scream. Though, in reality, only a few moments passed, it seemed an age-when at length, through a trap in the wall that lighted the loft (the thatch all in a blaze around, and the house below one flame), they saw Will pushing out the woman and child. The neighbours rushed and held a blanket below. It was not far, and they both fell uninjured, except by fright. Then followed Will, as the roof gave way, and the blaze and sparks leaped out so bright and far, that for some time he could not be seen as he lay spent on the ground. His hands, and arms, and face were scorched badly. The neighbours raised him up and carried him home, as carefully as they protected the woman and child whom his bravery had saved from a fearful death. It was some time before Will was quite well of his burns. Dick, who had prided himself on being the best boxer in the county, hung his head with shame at the events of that night. He changed from that time; and when his eyes were opened to see his sin in its true light, he said to a religious lady in the district, in a tone she never forgot "And I called him a coward! He's a brave fellow; and I feel I was a boasting scamp. Oh, to think I ever called him—a coward!" -Clara Lucas Balfour. OOD old Bishop Hall said, that if the sun should rise but once to the earth every man would be a Persian, and fall down and worship it; whereas it now riseth and declineth, without any regard. This is very true. Familiarity deadens our sense of wonder. If the stars came out only one night in a year, we dare say that there are some readers of the HIVE who would think about them much more than they now do. Then, as we so soon cease to think about that which we see every day, it is a good thing that we have a change of seasons during the year. It is now January, and our readers will be able to call to mind last July, how different the earth now looks from what it did then. In July the trees were full of leaves; the fields were smiling with waving corn; the gardens were filled INTER. with flowers; the orchards were laden with fruit. All was then bright, and warm, and beautiful. But how different is the scene now! The trees are barren, there is not a living leaf to be seen. There are neither flowers nor fruits. The earth is bound in hard frost. The days are very short and the nights long. Now, have any of our young friends ever thought how this great change was brought about? If not, they should think, and inquire of their parents and teachers. The Psalmist tells us that "the works of the Lord are great, and sought out by all them that fear Him." But although the winter season is so bleak, and dark, and desolate, yet it has charms of its own. To the young, and to all who are strong, it is a joyous season. How pleasant it is on the long winter even ings, when the storm is raging without, to gather round the fireside, and read interesting books or play innocent games. The poet Cowper, whose works we hope our young readers will learn to love, in his poem on "The Winter Evening," thus describes the scene: "Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in." But not only are there pleasures in-doors, but out-doors also. In battling with the snow-storm there is a joy to those who are healthy and strong. Not only do boys delight in the snow, but even the dogs like to have a good run amongst the drifts. Cowper thus describes a woodman going forth to his work on a winter's morning, attended by his dog:"Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcern'd The cheerful haunts of man: to wield the ахе And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear, From morn to eve, his solitary task. Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears And tail cropp'd short, half lurcher and half cur, His dog attends him. Close behind his heel Now creeps he slow; and now with many a frisk Wide scampering, snatches up the drifted snow With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout; Then shakes his powdered coat, and barks for joy." We have known many boys who in a snowstorm have scampered about and shouted for joy; and we daresay some of the boys who will read these lines have done this. But perhaps the most enjoyable of wintry out-door sports are sliding and skating on the ice. On page 8 our readers will see a beautiful picture of a frozen river, and the question is, "Will the ice bear?" A very important question it is. Every year we hear of lives being lost, by boys being too venturesome. It is best not to go on ice where the water is deep, except after a long-continued frost. On page 9 we have a picture of a boy trying on his skates. He means to have some fine fun. Quite right, too. We like to see boys sliding and skating when they have learned their lessons, or done any work which it is their duty to do. Always duty first, my boys, then play. We hope the readers of the HIVE will this winter enjoy their sliding and skating. The Psalmist tells us it is God who has made the winter; and God intends us to be glad, both winter and summer. |