bunches of grapes on the parlour tablesome were deep purple, and some light yellow, like amber.

"Oh! where did these fine grapes come from?" cried Edward, quite delighted; "and whose are they?"

"They belong to you, Edward," said his mother; "for your grandfather, hearing that you were not very well, sent them to you with his love. He says they are some of the first grapes that have ripened in his green-house."

"How very good grandfather is!" said Edward; "I will write to him without delay, and thank him. Oh! if I could give him any pleasure, how happy it would make me."

"I am glad you feel so grateful," said his mother; "but what would you say if you had a friend who would not only send you grapes, but all sorts of nice fruit? Would you not be as thankful to him as to

could imagine: and, to do all this, had given his only Son to die a most painful death!"

"Oh, mother," said the child, beginning to see her object, "it would never be possible for me to feel grateful enough for such wonderful love-1 should always think of that friend. I would do everything I could to please him; yet still I could never love him enough."

"No, truly, my child," said his mother, while she pressed his little hand in hers; "and yet you and all of us have such a friend; one who is never weary in doing good, and of renewing his gifts. He causes the fruit from year to year to swell and ripen on the trees, so that we and all creatures may not only live, but rejoice in our being. If you are thus thankful to an earthly friend for a single gift, how much more thankful should you be to our Father in heaven for his innumerable blessings: and for having so loved the world that he

"But if this good friend," continued his mother, "were to send you a thousand other things, not merely agreeable and useful, but absolutely necessary to your existence, and which you could not get except for him-"

"Then," replied Edward, "I would be more grateful to him than I can tell you, mother. I would write long letters to him every day to thank him for so many gifts; and I am sure I should never cease thinking of what I could do for him."

"And," continued his mother, "what if he should not only send you these presents once, but every day, and every hour, and every minute?"

"Oh, mother, what a wonderful friend he would be! He must be so rich and powerful, and full of love!"

"And if, besides all these good gifts," his mother added, "there was another and a far greater sign of his love to you: if, not satisfied with providing for you the comforts and pleasures of this life, he had devised a means for giving you joys which should last for ever, and exceed all you

ever believed in him should not perish, but have everlasting life!"

"Mother, what a wicked heart a person must have who could be ungrateful to God! how wicked it would be!"

"Very wicked indeed, my child," said his mother, kissing him; "therefore be careful not to be ungrateful to your dear Friend for all his benefits to you. If you do not love him, and strive, through the Divine Spirit, to keep his commandments, you will be the source of the deepest misery to me. I should weep for you as for a lost child: we could no longer have any joy or peace. You can have no happiness without the favour of God: nor could I have any hope for my Edward, if you are not his child!"

THE WHOLE TRUTH. As Albert walked slowly along toward home, his reluctance to tell his father exactly how it happened that he had been tardy at school increased. The reason of this was, that he had been trying to make it seem right to keep back a part of the truth. If he had resolved at once to go

stance just as it occurred, there would have been an end of all difficulty. But he did not like to be blamed, even a little, and therefore he did not wish to say anything about playing with the dog.

Just before he came in sight of home, and before he had concluded what to say, he saw his father walking along in a direction towards him. As they came near to each other, his father looked surprised at seeing Albert, and inquired why he was not in school?

Albert hesitated a moment, and then said, "Why, as I was going to school, I stopped to help little Willie Hall up. He had fallen upon some stones, and cut his hands, so I went home with him; and when I came back and tried the door it was fastened."

"Well," said his father, "I am glad that there was no blame about it;" and he walked on as if in haste.

Albert had done wrong in naming Willie Hall's accident as the only cause of his being out of school. He should have told the whole story, and then his mind would have been at ease. As it was he felt restless and uncomfortable. He could not help thinking that he had not done quite right, and he thought that he would talk with Joseph Page about it when school

was over.

So as soon as the time came for the dismissal of the scholars, Albert set out on his way to meet Joseph. He told him the whole story, beginning at the point where Joseph left him for school, and concluded by asking if he thought he had done very wrong?

"I think you did wrong," said Joseph, "but not very wrong. You ought to have related all the circumstances to your father. By staying so far from the schoolhouse till the bell rung you were in danger of being late, even if no accident had happened. Your having said nothing about playing with the dog until nine o'clock, seems something like abusing your father's confidence in your honesty."

"That will be doing right," was the reply: "and then you will feel happy again."

So as soon as his father came in to dinner Albert carried his good resolution into effect, not forgetting to say that Joseph Page had advised this sincerity and frankness.

GAME WON AND PEACE LOST. A LITTLE boy, about six years old, was in general a very good child, and behaved well. He dearly loved his mother, and attended to almost everything she said to him. But even good children and good people may sometimes do wrong, and this little boy did so too. One afternoon, after he had been at play, he looked very dull and sorrowful. He was asked if he was ill? He said he was not; but he talked very little, and he often sighed. His mother thought something was the matter with him, but she did not say much to him about it. At night he took leave of his dear mother and went to bed. About an hour after he had been in bed, the maid went to her mistress, and told her that she was very uneasy about the little boy, for he was very restless; she had heard him often sob: and he wished his mother to come to him, as he could not go to sleep till he had told her something that made him very unhappy. The kind mother went to him: and when she came to his bed-side, he put his little arms round her neck, burst into tears, and said to her, "Dear mamma, forgive me! I have been lie, and I have hid it from you. I was a very naughty boy to-day. I have told a playing at marbles with my cousins-I won the game through a mistake, which they did not find out; and I was so much pleased at being conqueror, that I did not tell them of the mistake. I have been very unhappy ever since; and I am afraid to go to sleep, lest that heavenly Father whom you so often tell me of should be angry with me. You say he knows and sees everything. What shall I do that he mother, "God is ever ready to forgive 'My child," said the may forgive me?" those who believe in Christ, who are truly sorry for their faults, and who resolve to amend. We cannot hide anything from him. He knows when we do wrong, and when we desire to do what is right. He hears our prayers, and he will teach us what we should do. Pray to him to forgive your fault, and try never to commit the like again, lest you should offend him more by the second offence than by the first."

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prayed to Almighty God to forgive him, and to grant him his grace to do better in future. He then fell asleep, and arose next morning happy and cheerful.

I suppose, when he saw his cousins, he told them that he had deceived them, and that he was sorry for what he had done; and I dare say he was very careful after that time never to tell an untruth or to deceive any one.

THE SUNSHINY WALK.

I WALKED abroad when the sun was in the sky, and when the blue arch above me was hung with beautiful clouds. "The heavens," said I, "declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handywork," Ps. xix. 1.

I looked around on the orchards laden with fruit, and on the fields "white al

ready to harvest." The ground was decked with flowers, and the rivers and running brooks sparkled in the sunshine. "The earth," said 1, "is full of the goodness of

the Lord," Ps. xxxiii. 5.

I sat down on a stile where a horse was

grazing in a field: as he satisfied his hunger he passed on. A cow followed and ate up the tufts of coarse grass which the horse had refused. After the cow came a sheep, who, with small sharp teeth, picked up a meal from what had been left by the other animals. Though the grass was thus cleared away, some thistles were yet standing, for these neither the horse, the cow, nor the sheep would eat; but the gate of the field was open, so that an ass which had been strolling about in the lane entered and banqueted on the thistles.

"And do we," said I, "ever doubt the watchful and providing care of our heavenly Father? The animal world seems to cry aloud against such mistrust and ingratitude. He careth for them, and careth he not for us? Shame upon us! Shame upon us! 'The eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them hat hope in his mercy,' Ps. xxxiii. 18. Let us say, then, with Job, Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him,' Job xiii. 15. With David, Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.""

WARNING TO RASH BOYS. WHEN the late Rev. Mr. Griffin was about six years of age, he was on a visit to a near relative at Woburn, in Buckinghamshire, who lived near to his paper manufactory. While there he received many earnest cautions from his affectionate aunt not to go to a certain part of the banks of the river, because the water was very deep, and the current very powerful. Some of

the family, in order to give force to the injunctions of his aunt, said, "If you go near to the river, John, Raw-head and Bloody-bones will draw you into it." But though he looked very grave while they were talking to him, yet, so anxious was he to see the forbidden spot of which so much had been said, that the first time he could escape unperceived from the house he found his way to the place of danger. The grass that grew over the bank was thick and long, hanging over the water, and hiding it from the eyes of the unwary arrived at the spot, than, mistaking the but anxious little boy, who had no sooner grass for the bank, he walked into the deep, very near a strong current which river, and in an instant plunged into the supplied some of the great water-wheels seconds he must either have been drowned of the manufactory. Here, then, in a few or crushed to death by the motion of the mighty wheel; but, providentially, one of the workmen saw him go to the bank, and called to him, but he was gone too far to return, for in a moment he was out of sight. The man had, however, means at untimely death, and prevented the unuthand by which he rescued him from an terable agonies of his relatives there, and of his father at a distance. He was soon taken to his aunt, who, though so watchful as seldom ever to suffer him to be out of her sight, had not missed him. As soon as he was recovered from the fright and the effects of the water, he was asked how he could be so disobedient as to go where he was so much forbidden, he said, with a very serious countenance, "I wanted to see Raw-head and Bloody-bones." Thus he had been ordered not to do. he very nearly lost his life by doing what

A GOOD CONSCIENCE. AN Indian being among his white neighbours, asked for a little tobacco to smoke, pocket gave him a handful. The day foland one of them having some loose in his lowing the Indian came back inquiring for the donor, saying he had found a quarter of that as it had been given to him he might a dollar among the tobacco. Being told as well keep it, he answered, pointing to his breast, "I got a good man and a bad man here; and the good man say it is not mine, I must return it to the owner; the bad man say, Why, he gave it to you, and it is your own now; the good man say. That's not right, the tobacco is yours, not the money; the bad man say, Never mind, you got it, go buy some dram; the good man say, No, no, you must not do so; so I don't know what to do, and I think to go to sleep; but the good man and the bad man keep talking all night and trouble me: and now I bring the money back I feel good."