"I am afraid you would have done," said Mary's father; " and one blow of your angry arm with such a heavy thing in your hands might indeed have killed her. Now, instead of being here safe, your sister might be lying on the road, with blood streaming from her head, not able to speak or to move. Is this a sight you would like to see Henry?"

The boy burst into tears; he did not like to think of what he might have done; and he said he was very sorry.

Then he spoke to Lucy. He told her how very wrong it is to do any thing to provoke another; and that he was sorry she should lift her little hand to strike a brother, even though she did not mean to hurt him much.

She also said that she was sorry; and she began to cry. Then he told them that they ought to confess their sin to God, and ask pardon of him; and to ask his help to keep them from being so naughty in future. He told them that if they were to live in peace with each other, they would be much more happy than they ever had been; and that the great God who sees all things, takes notice of children who live in love, and is pleased with them. But he is angry every day with the quarrelsome, and says that where He is they cannot come.

"Let us hear," said he, "what the Bible says to you. These are the words of God, 'Little children love one another.' 'He that loveth not his brother, abideth in death.' 'Whoso hateth his brother is a murderer.' 'My little children let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.""

He then led Henry and Lucy out of the garden, and they went home together in peace.

Great Truths for Little Children.

SOME POOR CHILD'S FATHER.

THE omnibus was slowly pursuing its way up one of the long hills that lead to the outskirts of Cincinnati, in America, when the attention of its various inmates was directed to a man lying on the road side, with flushed and swollen

face and trembling limbs, who vainly strove to raise himself from the earth, muttering broken and incoherent sentences, and ever and anon falling back into the dust, which had already plentifully begrimed his face and clothes. Some of the passengers gazed on him with a contemptuous smile of pity, some with an expression of loathing and disgust, while a few of a coarser sort on the top, burst forth into an expression of vulgar derision.

"Go it, old chap," said one. "Try it again," shouted another, as he made a fruitless attempt to rise.

A little boy, about five years old, was stretching his neck to watch the sight, and joined, unhesitatingly, in the laugh set up on the outside.

"Hush, hush, my dear!" said a gentlewoman by his side, "don't laugh, Henry; that man is some poor child's father, I suppose."

The boy seemed to feel at once the force of this appeal, for he looked with astonishment and sorrow into his mother's face, and several of the passengers appeared by their thoughtful air, to have felt the force of the gentle appeal, and looked more as Christians should look on the fallen creature they were leaving behind.

And there, indeed, was some poor child's father, as the gentle voice had said. Look with us inside of this low and shattered room, and there you will see a pale and faded woman sitting up, sick and feeble, by a decaying fire, striving, with trembling hand and failing eye, to finish a piece of sewing; her head is weary and giddy-the room often seems turning round and round with sickening motion, and her hand often stops and trembles as she still urges her needle, but the only reliance of those helpless ones around her. On the floor sits the baby, often pulling at her dress and raising his hands in dumb show to try to make her feel that he is weary of apparent neglect, and wants to find a warmer seat on her lap; while two pale wistful-looking children are gazing from the door, as if expecting something and weary of delay.

"O, Mary, do take up Benny," said the mother, after vainly striving to raise him, "and try to keep him a little

longer, till I finish this work, and then you can carry it up to Mrs. and get the money for it, and you shall have something good for supper."

"O dear! why doesn't father come!" says the girl, as she takes her little brother from the floor. "He told us certainly that he would be back in an hour, and bring the medicine for you, and some things for us; and he has not come back yet."

The woman sighs. Long experience has taught her why he does not come; but she only says, "I know he meant to be home before this."

At last the boy steals in silently and pale, and standing behind his mother's chair, says apprehensively, 6 O, mother, he is coming; but he hasn't got anything for us I know." The mother had guessed as much before, and the tired and hungry children looked with a discouraged and hopeless air from the mother to each other, as the door is pushed widely open, and the man who lay by the roadside totters in and throws himself into a chair.

No child goes to him. When the unthinking baby puts out his little hands, its sister checks it with a "Hush, Benny; be still." They all know that this father is no father now, and that there is no safety but in keeping out of his way.

And yet that man left his house in the morning with as warm a heart toward his children, with as solemn a purpose to withstand temptation, as sincere a desire to provide something for his own, as man could have. That man is naturally warmhearted and affectionate and proud and fond of his children, and only this morning he promised to that sick, heart-broken woman, that he would begin a new life. He went out from his home honestly meaning to come back with comforts for his wife and little ones, and to make a cheerful evening fire-side. But in his work-shop-among the companions he daily meetshe has been assailed by temptations too strong for him— he has yielded, and this is the result. Such are the dreadful effects of the love of intoxicating drink.

A STARVING FAMILY RELIEVED BY A

KIND GIRL.

A POOR artisan, the father of a family, had been deprived of work by the depressed state of his trade during the whole winter. It was with great difficulty that he could get a morsel of food, now and then, for his famished wife and children. Things grew worse and worse with him, and, at length, attempting to rise one morning, for the purpose of going out as usual in quest of employment, he fell back in a fainting condition beside his wife, who had already been confined to her bed by illness for two months. The poor man felt himself ill, and his strength entirely gone. He had two boys yet in mere childhood, and one girl about twelve or thirteen years old. For a long time the whole charge of the household had fallen on the girl. She had tended the sick bed of her mother, and had watched over her little brothers with more than parental care. Now, when the father was taken ill, there seemed to be not a vestige of hope in the family, except in the exertions that might be made by her, young as she was.

The first thought of the little girl was to seek for work proportioned to her strength. But that the family might not starve in the meantime, she resolved to go to one of the houses of charity, where she had heard food was given out to the poor and needy. The person to whom she addressed herself accordingly inscribed her name in the list of applicants, and told her to come back again in a day or two, when the case would have been deliberated upon. Alas! during this deliberation her parents and brothers would starve! The girl stated this, but was informed that the formalities mentioned were indispensable. She came again to the street, and almost agonized by the knowledge how anxiously she was expected with bread at home, and she resolved to ask charity from passengers in the public ways.

No one heeded the modest, unobtrusive appeal of her outstretched hand. Her heart was too full to permit her to speak. Could any one have seen the torturing anxiety

that filled her breast, she must have been pitied and relieved. As the case stood, it is not, perhaps, surprising that some rude being menaced her with the police. She was frightened. Shivering with cold, and crying bitterly, she fled homewards. When she mounted the stairs and opened the door, the first word she heard was the cries of her brothers for something to eat-bread! She saw her father soothing and supporting her fainting mother, and heard him say— "Bread! she dies for want of food."

"I have no bread," cried the poor girl, with anguish in her tones.

The cry of disappointment and despair which came at these words from her father and brothers, caused her to recal what she had said, and conceal the truth. "I have not got it yet," she exclaimed, "but I will have it immediately."

After these words, without waiting a reply, she left the house again. A thought had entered her head, and maddened by the distress of those she loved so dearly, she had instantaneously resolved to put it into execution. She ran from one street to another, till she saw a baker's shop, in which there appeared to be no person, and then, summoning all her determination, she entered, lifted a loaf, and fled! The shopkeeper saw her from behind. He cried loudly, ran out after her, and pointed her out to the people passing by. The girl ran on; she was pursued; and, finally, a man seized the loaf which she carried. The object of her desire taken away, she had no motive to proceed, and was seized at once. They conveyed her towards the office of the police; a crowd, as usual, having gathered in attendance. The poor girl threw around her despairing glances, which seemed to seek some favourable object from whom to seek mercy. At last, when she had been brought to the court of the police office, and was waiting for the order to enter, she saw before her a little girl of her own age, who appeared to look upon her with a glance full of kindness and compassion. Under the impulse of the moment, still thinking of her family, she whispered to the stranger the cause of her act of theft.