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GOOD EXAMPLE.

Fear ye foes who kill for hire!
Will ye to your homes retire?
Look behind you! they're on fire!
And before you, see

Who have done it!-From the vale
On they come !-and will ye quail?
Leaden rain and iron hail

Let their welcome be!

In the God of battles trust!
Die we may, and die we must:
But, O, where can dust to dust
Be consigned so well,

As where heaven its dews shall shed
On the martyred patriot's bed;
And the rocks shall raise their head,
Of his deeds to tell!

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GOOD EXAMPLE.

LIVING under the influence of a bright example, is to the soul, what breathing a pure, wholesome air is to the body. We find ourselves mended and improved, and invigorated by both, without any sensible impression made upon us, and without perceiving how the happy change is brought about.

When people offer us advice, it often seems to argue a kind of superiority which sometimes piques and offends us. We are apt to set ourselves against it, out of mere pride. But we cannot possibly be angry at a man for taking care of his own conduct, for going on the right road himself, and leaving us to follow him or not, as we think fit.

TRUTH.

THE Egyptians of old ever used to wear a golden chain, beset with precious stones, which they styled truth, intimating that to be the most illustrious ornament. The sacred writings tell us that "God is truth," and therefore to pervert the use of our speech, which so remarkably distinguishes us from the beasts that perish, must be a high offence to him.

Lying is the vice of a villain, a coward and a slave. If a liar be discovered, he becomes forever suspected. "All that thou canst get by lying or dissembling, is, that thou wilt not be believed when thou speakest the truth."

THE DROWNING BOY AND DOG.

A FABLE.

A LITTLE boy, playing on the side of a pond, fell into the water. His playmates cried, but could not help him out. He thought he should have been drowned, and must have been so; but at that moment, a noble dog happening to pass by, and hearing his cries, ran up to the pond, and said, as well as he could, "I will help you out, little boy;" and then instantly plunged in, and brought him safe on shore, without hurting a hair of his head.

When we see any one in trouble, we should imitate this noble creature, and if we can, try and help him out.

INGRATITUDE.

INGRATITUDE is a sin so shameful, that there never was a man found, who would own himself guilty of it.

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER.

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Ingratitude perverts all the measures of religion and society, by making it dangerous to be charitable and good-natured; however, it is better to expose ourselves to ingratitude, than to be wanting in charity to the distressed.

He that promotes gratitude pleads the cause both of God and man, for without it, we can neither be sociable nor religious.

An ungrateful man is a reproach to the creation; an exception from all the visible world; neither the heaens above, nor the earth beneath, affording any thing like him.

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER.

A FABLE.

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IN the winter season, a commonwealth of ants was busily employed in the management and preservation of their corn; which they expose to the air, in heaps, round about the avenues of their little country habita

tions. A grasshopper, who had chanced to outlive the summer, and was ready to starve with cold and hunger, approached them with great humility, and begged that they would relieve his necessity, with one grain of wheat or rye. One of the ants asked him, how he had disposed of his time in summer, that he had not taken pains and laid in a stock, as they had done.

"Alas! gentlemen," says he, "I passed away my time merrily and pleasantly, in drinking, singing, and dancing, and never thought of winter." "If that be the case," replied the ant, "all I have to say is, that they who drink, sing, and dance, in the summer, must starve in the winter."

MORAL.

Who pleasures love
Shall beggars prove.

VIRTUE INDISPENSABLE.

IF good we plant not, vice will fill the mind,
And weeds take up the space for flowers designed;
The human heart ne'er knows a state of rest,
Bad tends to worse, and better leads to best.
We either gain or lose; we sink or rise,
Nor rests our struggling nature till it dies;
Those very passions that our peace invade,
If rightly pointed, blessings may be made.

EPITAPH ON AN INFANT.
ERE sin could blight, or sorrow fade,
Death came with friendly care,
The opening bud to heaven conveyed,
And bade it blossom there.

DUTIES OF PUPILS.-THE LARK.

143

DUTIES OF PUPILS.

THE duties of pupils consist in docility and obedience, respect for their preceptors, zeal for study, and a thirst after the sciences, joined to an abhorrence of vice and irregularity, together with a fervent and sincere desire of pleasing God, and referring all their actions to him. The exactness and severity of our teachers may displease sometimes, at an age when we are not capable of judging of the obligations we owe them; but when years have ripened our understanding and judgment, we discern that their admonitions, reprimands, and a severe exactness in restraining the passions of an imprudent and inconsiderate age, are the things which should make us esteem and love them.

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THE LARK AND HER YOUNG ONES.

An old lark, who had a nest of young ones in a field of wheat, which was almost ripe, was not a little afraid the reapers would set to work, before her lovely brood were fledged enough to be able to remove from the place. One morning, therefore, before she took her flight, to seek for something to feed them with, "My dear little creatures," said she, "be sure that in my absence you take the strictest notice of every word you hear, and do not fail to tell me of it as soon as I come home again."

Some time after she was gone, in came the owner of the field and his son. "Well, George," said he, "I think this wheat is ripe enough to cut down; so tomorrow, mind ye, I would have you go as soon as you can see, and desire our friends and neighbors to

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