r was not only in relation to others that Amos applied his velvet principle; he was very fond of applying it to the various disasters and evils of life; he used often to say to anyone who brought him a piece of bad news-of a bad crop of potatoes or apples, or of a loss of money, or of a piece of unkind treatment-" Ah! I'm very sorry to hear it; but don't fret. If the cloth be bad, fraying it will only wear it out more quickly; fretting kills more people than the cholera; take it quietly; if the physic be nasty, swallow it down quickly; if the road be unpleasant, and you must travel it, walk over it as quickly as you can, and lighten the way by singing something cheerful; if there be a dark prospect without, it will not mend it to have another dark prospect within; oil does more good than blows to a creaking door or a strained leg; when a man falls into the gutter, grumbling never picks him up again; and whatever evils happen, the Psalmist's advice is good, Fret not thyself.'"

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"I shall not very soon forget," said Amos one day, a lesson I had when poor Bill Mason fell from the ladder, and was carried home so stunned. When they brought him in on a shutter, his wife frightened the poor fellow and the whole house and parish, crying that Bill was killed. I dare say it was very bad for the poor thing, but his married sister, who lived next door to him, came in, and was very much shocked and frightened, still she was as quiet as a shadow in the house; till the doctor came in she easied his pain, applying lotions of water to the pained and inflamed parts. If poor Bill had depended on his wife for a nurse, a long bad time he would have had of it; but his sister sent

* From "Blind Amos." By the Rev. Paxton Hood. London: S. W. Partridge.

his wife in to attend to her own house, and she moved about never in a bustle and

never forgetful. His wife was always crying about her poor husband, and the loss of time, and the small money from his club; but his sister, while feeling quite as much for her brother's pain, often stopped her short, in the midst of her cries, with 'Polly, Polly, don't fret.'

"Fretfulness is generally idleness; it reminds me of Tom Rawson, whom I met some years ago, sitting down crying in the lane. What's the matter, boy?' said I. 'I've lost master's pig,' said he. 'How came that about?' said I. 'Why,' said he, 'I was sent to drive it home to butcher Perkins, and I just got up to get at one or two of these apples, and the pig was gone; and I've been back and forward ever so far trying to find it, and I can't, and master 'ill beat I so.' Here there came another blubber, and a long string of 'oh my's, oh my's.' 'Well,' said I, 'thou art a stupid little chap: sitting here won't find the pig.' 'I've looked everywhere after it,' said he. 'Not everywhere, my lad, or thou wouldst have looked in the right place, and found it.' The apple tree the young urchin had been gathering from hung over from an orchard across the road; and even while we were talking I thought I heard, somewhere close at hand, a humph, humph,' a very pig-like soliloquy. It's my belief, lad,' said I, ' if thou hadst spent as much time in looking after thy lost pig as in grieving over it, thou wouldst have found it by this time; come, guide me round here— we shall find a gate or hedge open, I believe.' It was so. There he be, sure That's well,' said I. Now recollect always that the worst thing you can do, whether you lose a pig or anything else, is to sit down, pig-like, to grunt over it, when you should be mending

enough,' said the lad.

the mischief. Do your duty, my lad, and don't fret.'

"Sometimes our fretfulness is still more unamiable than this; it is not over our own disasters, but over our neighbours' prosperity. Many people put me in mind of a boy, a schoolfellow of mine, who was always crying for what was not his; I recollect the first time I saw him he was crying in the playground. 'What is the matter?' said I. I want his marbles,' said he. He had a great bag of marbles of his own, but that was not enough; he pointed to a boy who had a large bag of marbles, and nothing would satisfy him but those so he went crying about. He was afraid to play with his own, for fear of losing them, and so he walked about the playground, and cried, 'I want his marbles -I want his marbles.' In a week or two the cry changed, and he saw the boys with their leaden dumps; then he began to cry, 'I want his dumps-I want his dumps.'

"What a true type was he of many lads and many men! I have known a peer of the realm unhappy because he could not get the farm belonging to some humble man, and add it to his estate; I have known an old lady to be almost ill of a fever because she could not get a little piece of ground from an allotment to add to her garden. I have known a man doing well in business, and making a fortune, not easy until he had prevented some honest family from getting a living at all, by taking it into his already encumbered hands; and when I have seen these things and many others like them, I think, as I go through the streets of the village or the town, that I see thousands of the human family fretting because they cannot get more marbles. 'What are you fretting for, my little fellow?' I said once to a little chap sitting at a table with a great lump of Christmas pudding before him; and as I spoke to him he blubbered out, I-II

can't eat any more.' Poor little epicure, the fretfulness of millions of people in this world has no wiser origin than this. DON'T

FRET.

"When the winter comes, put on your velvet waistcoat. There is an old proverb which says, 'A hundred cart loads of care will not pay an ounce of debt;' and again, 'If the pain is very severe it cannot last, and if it is moderate it may be borne.' 'Black land produces white bread, and heavy trials ought to make the heart tender.' 'Leave off groaning when trouble comes, and take to praying.' 'Why should a living man complain for the punishment of his sins?' To fret is only to sow the wind, and that is a seed that will not produce a good crop by itself.'

"I had an old neighbour who was like a knight of a sorrowful countenance; he had no real cause for misery, and, I believe, that made him miserable. He often tried to get me to pity him, but there are so many objects of real pity in this sad world, one has no pity to spare for the mere fretters. Sometimes he tried one way, and sometimes another; he would say that he knew he should die in a workhouse. What a mercy it is,' said I, 'you are not in the workhouse already! and what a mercy it is that there is a workhouse to die in! The workhouse is a far better lodging than my blessed Lord had. "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests," but He had not where to lay His head.' He was just one of those people who wanted you to pat their troubles on the back, and say, Poor thing!

"Some people are as careful of their troubles as mothers are of their babies; they cuddle them, and rock them, and hug them, and cry over them, and fly into a passion with you if you try to take them away from them; they want you to fret with them and to help them to believe that they have been worse treated than anybody

else; if they could, they would have a picture of their grief, in a gold frame, hung over the mantle-shelf for everybody to look at. And their grief makes them ordinarily selfish-they think more of their dear little grief, in the blanket in the cradle, than they do of all the world beside; and they say you are hard-hearted if you say, Don't fret. Ah! you don't understand me—you don't know me-you can't enter into my trials.'

6

"My friend of whom I spoke was just of this sort. Soon after I spoke about the workhouse he tried another ground, where, I suppose, he expected sympathy. I often think,' said he, I shall get to hell at last.' 'Ah!' said I, what a mercy, what a mercy it is that we are not there already, my dear old friend! what a proof of God's longsuffering and goodness and indisposition to send us to hell! what a proof that He desires not the death of the sinner, but that he should repent and live! and truly, if you are in hell at last, God will not be to blame. And again,' said I, if we reach hell at last, what a mercy, what a mercy, old friend, that hell is what it is that even there the Judge of all the earth does right! How much more dreadful hell would be if we did not deserve it! because that, you see, would destroy our faith in the rectitude of Divine judgments-even all hell says, "Let God be true, and every man a liar." If I go to hell, "nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure." "The Lord knoweth them that are His." "Though He slay

M

"I re

me, yet will I trust in Him." membered Thy judgments of old, and comforted myself."' 'Ah!' said he, 'you are saying things now beyond my depth— I can only think of my poor soul.'

"We sat still a little while; then said I, 'Old friend, the winter is coming on.' 'Ugh, it is,' said he. Now, I'll tell you what,' I said; if I were you, I would take off that horsehair shirt; it cannot be comfortable at any time, least of all in winter time.'Horsehair shirt?' said he. I wear no horsehair shirt-that is some of your nonsense, Master Amos-that is some of your conundrums and riddles, I know.' I went on, 'I would, if I were you, take off that horsehair shirt; and if you want to be warm and comfortable, get a nice velvet waistcoat to cover your shivering body— velvet is as cheap as horsehair-cheaper in the end.' 'What do you mean?' said he. Why, I mean this: fretfulness is like a horsehair shirt. The old monks used to wear these shirts to irritate their irritability. What a device! Studiously seeking for occasions for making themselves uncomfortable-like you, who would think something was wrong with the moral government of the world if you could be happy for a day together. Cure yourself of fretfulness. Velvet is nicer for the skin than horsehair. If you had more faith, you would have less fear. If you did more for others, you would think less of self; get rid of unbelief and your selfishness, and I shall not then have to say, Don't fret.""

robberies in the neighbourhood. He would never have been suspected, only he was caught in the act. He was tried, found guilty, and condemned to be executed. Of course Mr. Hill visited him while he was confined in the gaol. During one of these

"No, no, father; please let me have it." "I tell you you are not strong enough to carry it."

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Indeed I am, though. I can carry it very easily. Do please let me have it."

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Very well; if you will have it, you may. The parcel is no burden to me; but I tell you again, it is too large and heavy for you; but if you are resolved to have it, here it is."

The little boy took it, and at first got on with it pretty well. But soon it began to feel very heavy. He turned it over to the other arm. His father seemed to take no notice of it. He went on talking to his son about the weather, about their home, and about different things they were passing along the road. The little boy kept turning over the heavy burden from one arm to the other. But still his father didn't appear to notice it. At last the little fellow said—

"Father, what a heavy parcel this is!" "I told you so before you took it," said his father.

"It's very heavy indeed."

"I told you it was too heavy, and yet you would have it."

"It's very heavy-too heavy for me. Father, will you please carry it?"

"To be sure I will. Why didn't you ask me before?

Then his father took it up, and the little boy was very glad to get rid of it.

Something like this takes place with us very often. God, who made this great and beautiful world in which we live, is willing to be our burden-bearer. He says to each of us," Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He will sustain thee." He is willing to take all our burdens and bear them for us-the burden of our sins, and the burden of all our cares and troubles. But, like the little boy in the story, we think we can bear these burdens ourselves, and we are not willing to cast them on God; and this gives us a good deal of trouble. But as soon as we bring them to God, He bears them for us, and then we are happy. It is a blessed thing for us when we are willing to let God carry our burdens.

URRAN, the Irish orator, when a youth, had a strong defect in his articulation, and at school he was known as "stuttering Jack Curran." While he was engaged in the study of the law, and still struggling to overcome his defect, he was stung into eloquence by the sarcasms of a member of a debating club, who characterised him as "Orator Mum;" for, like Cowper, when he stood up to speak, on a previous occasion, Curran had not been able to utter a word. But the taunt raised his pluck, and he replied with a triumphant speech. This accidental discovery in himself of the gift of eloquence encouraged him to proceed

in his studies with additional energy and vigour. He corrected his enunciation by reading aloud, emphatically and distinctly, the best passages in our literature, for several hours every day, studying his features before a mirror, and adopting a method of gesticulation suited to his rather awkward and ungraceful figure. He also proposed cases to himself, which he detailed with as much care as if he had been addressing a jury. Curran commenced business with the qualification which Lord Eldon stated to be the first requisite for distinction as a barrister-that is, "to be not worth a shilling."-Smiles's Self-help.