the Colonies; and you ask what is the use of being taught so much about people and countries-thousands of miles off-and with which you have nothing to do. But have you nothing to do with them? Can you eat your breakfast without making use of the productions of these distant lands? Do you not care to know that you may now drink tea that comes from Assam, and is cultivated by English people, instead of depending wholly on China? Is it not pleasant to feel that your sugar has not been grown by wretched slaves, working amongst the sugarcanes under the lash of a driver? Are you not glad that your cotton frocks are no longer obtained by means of the labour of Africans stolen from their homes?

And how can you tell what may be your future line of life? If you go into trade, surely it is needful to have some knowledge of the countries to which you may send your wares. For want of this, a foolish merchant once sent a quantity of warming pans to Africa to warm their beds, whereas, as you know, the people there are panting with heat, and never use anything that we should call a bed. Depend upon it that all information is like pence put into your money-box. The day will come when you will want something that those very pence will buy.

Remember, too, that all you have learnt in these reading books, is merely like opening the door of a palace full of wonderful and beautiful things, and letting you peep in, just to see how much more there is to be seen. You all leave school at the age when your education is in fact only beginning-but we hope that you have learnt enough to make you wish to know more. One instructive book

that you read of your own free will, from a real wish to improve yourself, will do you more good than any number of lessons that are poured down your throat as it were, while you are yawning, and fidgeting, and watching the clock, to see when "time will be up" and school

over.

It is so very important that you should not forget all you have learnt, that it would be well if you would refuse to take a very laborious place where "you will not have a minute to yourself." You should inqure into this before you engage yourselves, for, remember, if you do not do so, your time is not your own. It belongs to your master or mistress, and you have no right to use it for purposes of your own. Do not bring education into disgrace by causing it to be said (one does sometimes hear it) that the boys and girls who are very well up in the three R's, neglect the work they were hired to do, for the sake of reading an amusing book, or of writing endless letters to school-fellows. "This ought not so to be." The more intelligent you are, the better you ought to do your work. The more you have been taught to do your duty, so much the more you will feel that it is not right to neglect it. But if I were you, I would not be tempted by high wages to take a place where I had not part of Sunday for myself, and where my work was not over at a reasonable hour at night. In all considerate families matters are arranged so that servants may enjoy some such rest. Then you will have time enough to carry on that education of which only the foundations can be laid at school.

CHRISTINGLES.

[Christingles are made in this way. A hole is made in an orange, and a piece of quill, three or four inches long, set upright in the hole, and usually a second piece inside this. The upper half of each quill is cut into small strips, and the end of each strip inserted into a raisin. The weight of the raisins bends down the little boughs of quill, forming two circles of pendants. A coloured taper is fixed in the upper quill, and lighted on Christmas Eve. The custom is German.]

THE children stood and watched me,

As I cut them one by one,

In the bright December morning,

In the clear December sun.
The church clock struck eleven
Ere the first quill was done,
And the children listened to the strokes,
And counted them one by one.

And they looked from the nursery windows,

High up under the eaves,

Where the creepers used to climb and cling,
With their clusters of crimson leaves,-

They looked from the nursery windows
On the church-yard down below,
Where so many their quiet Christmas kept
Out of sight of the snow;

They looked at the gentle shadows,

And the wintry beams that crossed
The sprinkled snow on the happy graves,
And the glittering white hoar-frost.

And before the talk was over

That the clock had made by striking,
Or the eager eyes were wearied out,
I had fashioned the quills to my liking.
They were very patient children,

And they had not long to wait;

There were six quills only this Christmas-time, And there always used to be eight.

So then my Christmas-keepers,
They rushed away to be dressed,
To go out for the coloured tapers,
And the raisins, and all the rest.
Oh merry Christmas shopping!
And the little gray old man,

That kept the shop where the tapers were,
Could talk as children can;

He showed such store of colours,
And he was as pleased as they,

And said the brightest were the best,
For one must be good to be gay!

Only the little faces

Grew silent when he said,

“Red is better than yellow,

Will nobody have the red?"

Before we put the holly up
That busy afternoon,

I called for the tapers and oranges,

And the children brought them soon; And we gave each slender quill-stem

An orange for its root,

And made the delicate branches bow

'Neath the load of raisin fruit.
And the tapers stood in the middle,
Yellow and green and white,
And the Christingles were ready
To be lit at fall of night.

Then I stooped for a bough of holly,

That had fallen on the floor,

And there fell to the ground as I lifted it,
A berry, or something more;
And after it fell, my eyes could see
More clearly than before.

But oh! for the red Christingle
That never was missing of yore!
And oh for the red Christingle

That I miss for evermore.

I lit the three Christingles,
I lit them one by one,

On the merry, merry Christmas Eve,
When all the work was done.

I lit the three Christingles,

And they burned with a joyous ray; But the faces that bent above them Were fuller of light than they.

But the table had four corners,
And the lights were only three,
So I put the gifts at the other end,
That the father might not see.