Can you with frankness own a crime,
And promise for another time?
Or say you've been in a mistake,
Nor try some poor excuse to make,
But freely own that it was wrong
To argue for your side so long?

Flat contradiction can you bear,
When you are right, and know you are;
Nor flatly contradict again,

But wait, or modestly explain,

And tell your reasons, one by one,
Nor think of triumph, when you've done?

Can you in business, or in play,
Give up your wishes or your way;
Or do a thing against your will,
For somebody that's younger still?
And never try to overbear,
Or say a word that is not fair?

Does laughing at you, in a joke,
No anger, nor revenge, provoke?
But can you laugh yourself, and be
As merry as the company ?

Or when you find that you could do
To them, as they have done to you,
Can you keep down the wicked thought
And do exactly as you ought?

Put all these questions to your heart,
And make it act an honest part;

And, when they've each been fairly tried,
I think you'll own that you have pride;
Some one will suit you, as you go
And force your heart to tell you so;

But if they all should be denied,

Then you're too proud to own your pride!

GREAT EFFECTS RESULT FROM LITTLE
CAUSES.

THE same connexion betwixt small things and great, runs through all the concerns of our world. The ignorance of a physician, or the carelessness of an apothecary, may spread death through a family or a town. How often has the sickness of one man become the sickness of thousands? How often has the error of one man become the error of thousands?

A fly or an atom may set in motion a train of intermediate causes, which shall produce a revolution in a kingdom. Any one of a thousand incidents, might have cut off Alexander of Greece in his cradle. But if Alexander had died in infancy, or had lived a single day longer than he did, it might have put another face on all the following history of the world.

A spectacle-maker's boy, amusing himself in his father's shop, by holding two glasses between his finger and his thumb, and varying their distance, perceived the weathercock of the church spire, opposite to him, much larger than ordinary, and apparently much nearer, and turned upside down. This excited the wonder of the father, and led him to additional experiments; and these resulted in that astonishing instrument, the Telescope, as invented by Galileo and perfected by Herschell.

On the same optical principles was constructed the Microscope, by which we perceive that a drop of

stagnant water is a world teeming with inhabitants. By one of these instruments, the experimental philosopher measures the ponderous globes, that the omnipotent hand has ranged in majestic order through the skies; by the other, he sees the same hand employed in rounding and polishing five thousand minute, transparent globes in the eye of a fly. Yet all these discoveries of modern science, exhibiting the intelligence, dominion, and agency of God, we owe to the transient amusement of a child.

It is a fact, commonly known, that the laws of gravitation, which guide the thousands of rolling worlds in the planetary system, were suggested at first, to the mind of Newton, by the falling of an apple.

The art of printing shows from what casual incidents the most magnificent events in the scheme of Providence may result. Time was, when princes were scarcely rich enough to purchase a copy of the Bible. Now every cottager in Christendom is rich enough to possess this treasure. "Who would have thought that the simple circumstance of a man amusing himself by cutting a few letters on the bark of a tree, and impressing them on paper, was intimately connected with the mental illumination of the world!"

THE ORPHAN BOY.

ALAS! I am an orphan boy,

With nought on earth to cheer my heart;
No father's love, no mother's joy,

Nor kin nor kind to take my part.

1

My lodging is the cold, cold ground,
I eat the bread of charity;

And when the kiss of love goes round,
There is no kiss, alas, for me.

Yet once I had a father dear,

A mother, too, whom I could prize;
With ready hand to wipe the tear,
If transient tear there chanced to rise.
But cause for tears were rarely found,
For all my heart was youthful glee;
And when the kiss of love went round,
How sweet a kiss there was for me!

But ah! there came a war, they say:
What is a war? I cannot tell;
The drums and fifes did sweetly play,
And loudly rang our village bell.
In truth it was a pretty sound

I thought, nor could I thence foresee,
That when the kiss of love went round,
There soon would be no kiss for me.

A scarlet coat my father took,
And sword as bright as bright could be;
And feathers that so gaily look,

All in a shining cap had he.

Then how my little heart did bound!

Alas, I thought it fine to see;

Nor dreamt, that when the kiss went round

There soon would be no kiss for me.

At length the bell again did ring,
There was a victory they said,

'Twas what my father said he'd bring;
But ah! it brought my father dead.

My mother shrieked, her heart was woe;
She clasped me to her trembling knee;
GOD grant that you may never know
How wild a kiss she gave to me!

But once again, but once again,
These lips a mother's kisses felt;
That once again, that once again,
The tale a heart of stone would melt.
'Twas when upon her death-bed laid
(Alas! alas! that sight to see,)
"My child, my child," she feebly said,
And gave a parting kiss to me.

So now I am an orphan boy,

With nought below my heart to cheer;
No mother's love, no father's joy,
Nor kin nor kind to wipe the tear.
My lodging is the cold, cold ground;
I eat the bread of charity;

And when the kiss of love goes round,
There is, alas, no kiss for me.

THE SPIDER, CATERPILLAR, AND SILK-WORM.

"WHAT sort of a weaver is your neighbour, the Silk-Worm?" said the Spider to a Caterpillar. "She is the slowest, dullest creature imaginable," replied the Caterpillar; "I can weave a web sixty times as quick as she can. But then she has got her name up in the world, while I am constantly the victim of envy and hatred. My productions are destroyed, sometimes rudely and boldly, sometimes with insidious cunning; but her labours are praised all the