in, and money enough to dress as extravagantly and as elegantly as she pleased. This man was a member of Congress, and when he went to Washington he took this girl with him, indulged her in all the extravagances of that metropolis, had her attend the balls and levees, and, at one time, she said she had a dress that cost one hundred and fifty dollars."

"Did he do all that for her, mother? Oh, how happy she must have been!"

"Happy! away from all her friends, indulging in vain amusements, extravagance, and idleness, destroying her health, her mind, and her morals! Suppose she had died then, what would have become of her?"

"I should not want to die in the midst of so much pleasure. I should hope to live a great while."

"But you know, full well, that many are cut off in the midst of their days. This girl, however, lived a number of years, but found, in the end, that the way of transgressors was a hard way. The man who thus indulged her had a wife, and was a very wicked man. By and by he got tired of this girl, and left her. Next, she was supported by another man. But ere long he died, and then the poor girl was left pennyless, homeless, and friendless, a worthless outcast. Probably her friends knew not where she was. She was ashamed to return to them. She despised herself, and every one that knew her despised her too. Destitute of the comforts of life, she went from one degree of

vice to another, until she was found among the vilest of the vile." "Why did not somebody try to reform her?"

"Very few are willing to go into those dens of infamy where such miserable beings congregate. However, this girl was found, and some good ladies gave her employment and good instruction, and for a time she did well. When they spoke to her about her mother, she would weep bitterly."

"I hope she went to see her mother."

66

ever,

No, she never met her again in this world. For a short time, howshe did pretty well; but she had become so in love with vice, that Satan, a wicked world, and her own wicked heart, soon drew her again into the vortex of ruin. In her bad conduct she was taken up, and carried to the House of Correction, there died suddenly, and went to render up her final account. Now, only think how much is lost in consequence of the love of dress. She lost her character, the enjoyment of her friends, her health, the life of the body, and, as we have reason to believe, the life of the soul."

"Well, mother, I am sure I will be satisfied with my old frock; for if the love of dress causes so much suffering and loss, I am sure I will not indulge in it."

"That is right, my daughter. Only think what you ought to do; yield your heart to the Saviour, seek to please him, and you need fear no evil." Youth's Companion.

MONTHLY CALENDAR

OF NATURAL PHENOMENA.

MAY.

MAY-DAY may be very properly called the first day of summer, notwithstanding the note in the almanacks that "summer begins" on " the twenty-first of June." All nature now is putting on a summer garb; and ere the month ends, lengthened days, warmer suns, and milder air, will have brought all out into really summer character.

To our feelings, no month in all the year comes in so welcomely as this. The winter is now fairly over and gone The singing of the birds has come fully round. All nature has woke up. Innumerable flowers bedeck our hills and vales. There is a freshness, a beauty, a life, a joyousness about the month, unsurpassed, nay, utterly unequalled, by any month in the year.

Let our readers get up some fine May morning and take a stroll through the fields and woods before the dew is off the grass, and scent the fragrance, and feast themselves upon the sights and sounds to be met with in any quarter of the lovely country round them, and we think they will accord with us in giving the palm to May. Our forefathers felt all this, and more, about it; so they hailed its coming in with great rejoicings, and decking themselves out with some of the beauties that it brought, they gave to it a joyous welcome.

The vast numbers of plants and shrubs now in leaf and flower, the many birds now flocking to our

shores, and the numerous insects now bursting into life, so far exceed our limits, that we cannot attempt even a bare enumeration of them, and we must content ourselves with a very cursory glance indeed.

Now you may form a full garland of wild flowers-hyacinths, violets, cowslips, primroses, anemones, lilies of the valley, and some hundreds of other lovely productions, may be gathered in almost every country stroll. Hedges and woods, too, are now in their loveliest attire, and nothing can exceed the beauty of their lively green, here and there broken by the white blossoms of the hawthorn, or some other flowering tree.

Our gardens, too, are now lovely spots, and many early and later flowers combine their hues and scents to make them little paradises. There are the scarlet and white hawthorns, the guelder rose, the elegant laburnum, blue and white lilacs, honeysuckles, various roses, a few rhododendrons, several azaleas, the rose acacia, and a number of other ornamental trees and shrubs; while about their feet, and filling the borders on every hand, are violets, wallflowers, auriculas, double primroses, heaths, rockets, columbines, stocks, and a host of other gay and fragrant things.

The choirs in the woods are now full by the arrival of nearly all the birds that come to us for the summer months; and their nests are to be met with in vast numbers on every hand. Nothing can be more delightful to listen to, than the varied cries and songs of these happy visitors; and certainly nothing more interesting to

examine, than their diversified, but ever curious and ingenious nests.

Many insects, too, come out this month; bees swarm, and butterflies and moths are to be met with, in great numbers by the close.

The SUN rises on the 1st at 4h. 34m., and sets at 7h. 20m.; making the day 14h. 46m. long in London. The day in Edinburgh is half an hour longer. Towards the end of the month it will be scarcely dark all night.

The MOON will be at the full on the morning of the 7th at 7h. 7m., and will be " new at 7h. 37m. on the morning of the 22nd. The moon in its journey this month will pass very near Mars; and Saturn on the 18th, within about a quarter of a degree, and can only be observed early in the morning just before sunrise. The moon will pass Venus on the morning of the 21st, but both will be too near the sun for observation. Jupiter will be within three degrees of the moon on the morning of the 27th, and may be best observed on the evening of the 26th or 27th.

The planet Venus will now cease to be an evening star. For many a night we have noticed its beauty and brightness, but its light side is turned

new"

towards the sun; towards the end of the month it will be passing away from the sun, and then appear with a very narrow crescent, as a Venus, a morning star, rising, near the end of the month, at about 3 in the morning.

Jupiter will now, in the absence of Venus, be our evening star, setting on the 1st at 2 in the morning, and earlier towards the end of the month.

Mars and Saturn are both morning stars, are moving eastward among the fixed stars, and will be near together on the 25th (within one degree), after which day Mars will appear to the eastward of Saturn.

"MAY (Latin, Maius) is so denominated from Maia, the most beautiful of the Pleiades, and the mother of Mercury, one of the fabled deities. The corresponding Jewish month was Sivan (Est. viii. 9), the ninth month of their civil, and the third of their sacred year. The Saxons called it Tri-milki-monath, or Threemilk-month, because cows were now milked thrice a day. January and February were added by Numa Pompilius to the year, making this the fifth, instead of the third month."Christian Almanack.

rush and a roar, not with a gentle trot, or a moderate run, setting down one foot and then another, but at full gallop, two feet and two feet together.

Many things will be forgotten by me, before I forget this attack of the mad bull.

Where there are many men there are many minds, and certainly I have heard of very different methods of managing a mad bull; but the worst of it is, that there is some difficulty in the way of all of them.

One method is, to open an umbrella suddenly in the very face of the bull, that he may be taken by surprise, and find himself running off, flourishing his tail higher than his back, before he is aware. The objection to this course is, that if you do not happen to have an umbrella with you, the animal will not wait till you fetch one.

Another mode is, when the bull is coming at you, to open your eyes wide, and fix them upon him, that he may be overawed by you. But this plan of frightening a bull by out-staring him is not to be relied on, and I will tell you why: when a bull comes near enough to do you a mischief, he puts his head so close to the ground that I much question whether he can see your eyes at all. Now, if he cannot see them, he is not at all likely to be frightened at them.

A third way is, calmly to wait the attack of the enraged creature, and just at the moment when he is about to toss you, to toss him. There is, however, so much real difficulty in this mode, that I advise you never to attempt it. I managed my mad bull in a very different way.

If I had grappled with him, he would have been too strong for me; if I had talked to him, his voice

would have been louder than mine; if I had undertaken to outrun him, it is ten to one but he would have beaten me; and then, I was defenceless, while he was armed with strong, sharp horns. There happened to be a high gate close to me, so I nimbly mounted over it, and thus managed the mad bull, by getting out of his way.

But think not, because my remarks hitherto have been a little humorous, that I mean them to be useless; on the contrary, I hope to turn them to advantage, for there are many things in the world, beside mad bulls, which can only be managed by getting out of their way.

A fearful thing it is to approach a precipice, or to go into deep water if we cannot swim, or across a bog or a quicksand; and multitudes have perished, who, had they kept away from these places, would have been secure. Where duty calls we must go; but when this is not the case, the only way to be quite safe is to keep away from the cause of danger. As it is with the quicksand and the bog, the deep water and the precipice, so it is with anger, and folly, and sin; the only plan to manage them, is to get out of their way.

If you think, for a moment, that you can associate with an angry man, and keep your temper, believe me you are under a delusion. Again and again have I fallen into this error. However vigilantly I have been on my guard, one word has brought on another, till, growing warm by degrees, I have felt my face and my heart glow with unchristian emotions. This has afterwards

given me pain. "Cease from anger, and forsake wrath," Psa. xxxvii. 8. "Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man thou shalt not go," Prov. xxii. 24. The only mode to manage an angry man, is to get out of his way.

Neither can you make a foolish man your companion, without smarting for it. At first, it is true, you might be all alive to his folly; but after a time you would regard it with indifference, and in many instances, perhaps, practise it. The word of God speaks forcibly on this subject. "Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly," Prov. xvii. 12., The only method to manage a foolish man, is to get out of his way.

man.

But, if what I have said of the angry man, and the foolish man, be true, it is especially so of the wicked You may as well hope to walk through a quagmire and have clean feet, and to handle pitch and have clean hands, as to make a companion of a wicked man without partaking of sin and sorrow. "Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away," Prov. iv. 14, 15. There can be no dealing with a wicked man in safety; the only mode to manage him, is to get out of his way.

As Bible readers, you may remember how strong the language of holy writ is, on many occasions, when a thing is forbidden. When the children of Israel were not to go up into mount Sinai, there is no permission given for them to go a little way up, or just to stand on the edge

of it, but the words are as decided as they can be: "Thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death: there shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live," Exod. xix. 12, 13.

The command is, to refrain from going up into the mount; but, in order that there may be no temptation to break the command, the people are not allowed even to touch it with the tips of their fingers. This is the very way in which you should Ideal with evil, and teach others to deal with it. However lovely the shape that sin may assume, though brightly it may sparkle, and gay may be its attire, it is not on that account the less deadly, for it stings as a scorpion, and bites with the poisoned tooth of an adder. You have but one sure way of escaping its venomed fangs, and that is, by getting out of its way.

Old Alan Gray has not told you how he managed the mad bull merely for the sake of putting a smile on your faces; he has rather calculated on putting a lesson into your hearts, a lesson which, though not unknown to you, we all require to be reminded of again and again. Think over the points which have been brought before you, humbly and wisely; and fail not to "watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." The young are too apt to think that they can succeed where others have failed,