for Church, I felt a secret desire to get a Bible, which my mother had given me, out of my trunk, and read in it, for I had been brought up so by my parents, as to regard it as a duty at home to read a chapter or two in the Bible every Sunday. I was now very anxious to get my Bible and read, but I was afraid to do so before my room-mates, who were reading some miscellaneous books. At length my conscience got the mastery, and I rose up and went to my trunk. I had half raised it, when the thought occurred to me that it might look like over sanctity and Pharisaical, so I shut up my trunk and returned to the window. For twenty minutes I was miserably ill at ease: I felt I was doing wrong. I started a second time for my trunk, and had my hands upon the little Bible, when the fear of being laughed at conquered the better emotion, and I again. dropped the top of the trunk. As I turned away from it, one of my room-mates, who observed my irresolute movements, said laughingly

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"I what is the matter. You seem as restless as a weathercock!"

I replied by laughing in my turn, and then, conceiving the truth to be the best, frankly told them both what was the matter.

To my surprise and delight, they both spoke up, and averred that they both had Bibles in their trunks, and both had been secretly wishing to read in them, but were afraid to take them out, lest I should laugh at them.

“Then,” said I, "let us agree to read them every Sunday, and we shall have the laugh all on the one side."

To this there was a hearty response; and the next moment the three Bibles were out; and I assure you we felt happier all that day, for reading in them that morning.

The following Sunday, about ten o'clock, while we were each reading our chapters, two of our fellow-boarders from another room came in. When they saw how we were engaged, they stared, and then exclaimed

"Bless us! what is all this? A Conventicle?"

'In reply, I, smiling, related to them exactly how the matter stood; my struggle to get my Bible from my trunk, and how we three having found we had all been afraid of

each other without cause, had now agreed to read every Sunday.

"Not a bad idea," answered one of them. "You have more courage than I have. I have a Bible, too, but have not looked in it since I have been in Boston! But I'll read after this, since you've broke the ice."

The other then asked one of us to read aloud, and both sat and quietly listened until the bell rang for Church.

That evening, we three in the same room agreed to have a chapter read every night, by one or the other of us, at nine o'clock, and we religiously adhered to our purpose. A few evenings after this resolution, four or five of the boarders (for there were sixteen boarders in the house) happened to be in our room talking when the nine o'clock bell rang. One of my room-mates, looking at me, opened the Bible. The others looked inquiringly. I then explained our custom.

"We'll all stay and listen," they said, almost unanimously.

'The result was, that without an exception, every one of the sixteen clerks spent his Sabbath morning in reading in the Bible; and the moral effect upon our household was of the highest character. I relate this incident,' concluded the clergyman, 'to show what influence one person—even a youth-may exert for evil or good. No man should ever be afraid to do his duty. An hundred hearts may throb to act right, who only want a leader. I forgot to add that we were all called the "Bible clerks!" All these youths are now useful and Christian men, and more than one is labouring in the ministry.'-Banner of the Cross.

ORIGIN OF THE WORDS, BLANKET, WORSTED, KERSEYMERE, AND LINSEY-WOLSEY.

WHILE Edward III., in 1337, repeated his invasion of Scotland, and "ravaged the country with great fury, burning Aberdeen and many smaller towns," as the historians tell us; and while he was engaged in raising an army to

invade France, in 1338, exacting from the impoverished English people all their wealth to waste in war; and when he was wasting France with war, borrowing money from all foreign princes who would lend to him, pawning the English crown, which made him a king, that he might still farther extend destruction over fertile France; when in the battles which our historians and poets have so minutely recorded, and loftily sung of, swords clashed with swords, and battle-axes rung upon the coats of mail, the warrior heroes of England mingled their blood and hacked heads with the blood and hacked heads of the warrior heroes of France, there was a servant of mankind making a noise in Bristol, which was of infinitely greater service to England than the entire conquest of Europe would have been. This was Thomas Blanket. The noise he made was not that of the clashing sword, but of the clashing shuttle, His purpose was not to destroy what his country already possessed, but to give his country what it did not yet possess-blankets, a covering of comfort to go to bed with, to sleep under, that it might be refreshed in sound sleep, and rise in health and strength to its daily work of making mankind happier by being happier itself. Thomas Blanket was soon imitated by his neighbours, who, like him, set up looms in their own houses, and made woollen cloth like that which he made. The cloth was named by his name; and to this day, and through all time in this country, will the name be known, though nothing else is known of this weaver, than that he was the first to introduce the blanket manufacture into England. No cloth of any kind had been weaved in England before the reign of Edward III. We read that, in 1331, John Kemp, from Flanders, introduced the weaving of cloth into England; that the king invited fullers, dyers, and so forth, to come from Flanders and settle here. This policy on the part of Edward was discrect; and, viewed in connection with some other of his actions, prove him to have had some perception of the real sources of national well-being. But he no sooner allowed the cloth manufacture to be implanted in England, than he almost rooted it up again by restrictive enactments and oppressive taxes to carry on his wars, The manufac

ture of the twisted double thread of woollen, called worsted, was introduced into England about this time, or soon after. The village of Worsted, about fifteen miles from Norwich, was the first place at which this thread was made, and it took the name of the village. There is no spinning nor woollen manufactures at Worsted now; but from the tombs in the grave-yard, and the benefactions left to the parish, which are all recorded in the church, we have proof that the manufacturers of Worsted were numerous, opulent, and lived there in successive generations, during several centuries. It may also be noticed here, that after inquiring into the history of the parish and manufactures of Worsted, we visited Linsey, which gave the name to the fabric known as linsey-wolsey; and Kersey, and the Mere close to it, Suffolk, where the workshops are situate in which the cloth called Kerseymere was first made. The cloth so-called, now differs from the original, and there is but little trade of any kind in Kersey now. But, as at Worsted, the graveyard and the church have many records of manufacturers long deceased. Their names, though now Anglicised and common in Suffolk, are all of Flemish origin.-Somerville.