pretty well. The bell on which the hammer struck the hours was the neck of a broken bottle. Having then no idea how any time-keeper could go but by a weight and a line, I wondered how a watch could go in all positions, and was sorry that I had never thought of asking Mr. Cantley, who could very easily have informed me. But happening one day to see a gentleman ride by my father's house, which was close by a public road, I asked him what o'clock it then was; he looked at his watch, and told me. As he did that with so much goodnature, I begged of him to show me the inside of his watch; and though he was an entire stranger, he immediately opened the watch, and put it into my hands. I saw the spring-box with part of the chain round it, and asked him what it was that made the box turn round; he told me that it was turned round by a steel spring within it. Having then never seen any other spring than that of my father's gun-lock, I asked how a spring within a box could turn the box so often round as to wind all the chain upon it. He answered that the spring was long and thin, that one end of it was fastened to the axis of the box, and the other end to the inside of the box, that the axis was fixed, and the box was loose upon it. I told him I did not yet thoroughly understand the matter:—'Well, my lad,' says he, 'take a long thin piece of whalebone, hold one end of it fast between your finger and thumb, and wind it round your finger, it will then endeavour to unwind itself; and if you fix the other end of it to the inside of a small hoop, and leave it to itself, it will turn the hoop round and round, and wind up a thread tied to the outside of the hoop.'-I thanked the gentleman, and told him that I understood the thing very well. I then tried to make a watch with wooden wheels, and made the spring of whalebone; but found that I could not make the watch go when the balance was put on, because the teeth of the wheels were rather too weak to bear the force of a spring sufficient to move the balance; although the wheels would run fast enough when the balance was taken off. I enclosed the whole in a wooden case very little bigger than a breakfast tea-cup; but a clumsy neighbour one day looking at my watch, happened to let it fall, and turning hastily about to pick it up, set his foot upon it, and crushed it all to pieces; which so provoked my father, that he was almost ready to beat the man, and discouraged me so much that I never attempted to make such another machine again, especially as I was thoroughly convinced I could never make one that would be of any real use." What a vivid picture is this of a mind thirsting for knowledge! And who is there, too, that does not envy the pleasure that must have been felt by the courteous and intelligent stranger by whom the young mechanician was carried over his first great difficulty, if he ever chanced to learn how greatly his unknown questioner had profited from the brief interview! 1. When and where was Ferguson born? 2. In what way did he learn to read? 3. How did he amuse himself when a shepherd boy? 4. What does he say of Mr. Cantley? 5. How did he earn a livelihood in Edinburgh? 6. What special honour was paid him by the Royal Society? 7. When did he die? HOWARD, THE PHILANTHROPIST. Slightly abridged from "Bayne's Christian Life." Phi-lan'thro-pist, n. (Gr. philos, | Maʼni-ac, n. (Gr. mania), a mad- Laz-a-ret ́to, n. (Lazarus, the beg- | man; a person of disordered intellect. In-de-fat ́i-ga-ble, adj. (L. in, de, fatigo), unwearied; not yielding to fatigue. In-ex-tin'guish-a-ble, adj. (L. in, ex, stinguo), that cannot be extinguished or put out; unquenchable. THE days in the Venice lazaretto rolled slowly on, wearisome, dismal, unvarying; Howard watched everything, knew everything, and felt the weariness he longed to relieve. His faith failed not; with calm and easy feelings, he looked forward to the term of his confinement. But suddenly there came a change; darker clouds than had ever yet cast their shadow over him took their course towards that dreary lazaretto. On the 11th of October, 1786, he received letters from England, with two pieces of information. The one was, that his son was following evil courses, and dashing wildly on in a path, whose end, dimly indicated to the father, must be one of the deepest darkness; the other, that a movement was proceeding in England, under high and promising auspices, for the erection of a monument to himself. Not hearing, at first, the worst concerning his son, he wrote home with deep sorrow, yet in hope. The proposal for a monument next required his attention. An English gentleman had formerly had an interview with Howard, at Rome, of an hour's length, and the result was an admiration on the part of the former which knew no bounds. On his return to England he had proposed, through the columns of the "Gentleman's Magazine," that a public monument should be erected to one whom he styled, "the most truly glorious of human beings." The wide-spread and profound admiration for Howard which, ere this time, had sunk into the British mind, had thus found vent; at once the proposal had taken effect, and the movement was headed by certain noblemen. With astonishment it was heard that Howard had written, absolutely refusing the honour, and alleging that its idea gave him exquisite pain. At first this was thought a graceful mode of acceptance, or at least a struggle of excessive modesty, easily to be overborne; but the fact was soon put beyond dispute. Even after long arguing and urging by intimate and honoured friends, he decidedly and unalterably refused his consent. From the lazaretto of Venice he wrote to his friend Mr. Smith of Bedford, rehearsing the directions he had given ere quitting Cardington respecting his obsequies; his words were as follows; we copy them with no alteration, and with no comment: (a) As to my burial, not to exceed ten pounds. (b) My tomb to be a plain slip of marble, placed under that of my dear Henrietta's in Cardington church, with this inscription:"John Howard, died- agedMy hope is in Christ.' Some time after, in grateful and courteous terms, he signified to his well-wishers in England that his resolution was fixed, and that he would accept no public mark of approbation what ever. Let this fact be fully and calmly considered; and let it then be said whether what we have alleged regarding Howard's grand motive in his work, is other than the bare and faintlyexpressed truth. For himself he would have no glory. He accept honour from men, who was the weakest of instruments, and whose highest honour it was that he was worthy to be made an instrument at all in the hand of God! He stoop to be crowned by men, whom the Almighty had honoured with his high command, and permitted to give strength and comfort for him! He listen to the applause of the nations, whom his inmost heart knew to be weak and unworthy, and whose most inspiring yet indestructible hope it was, that he might be numbered even among the least in the kingdom of heaven! The people seemed in loud acclaim to say, "Thou hast brought us water out of the rock:" Howard, with eager face, and outstretched hand, and heart pained to the quick, cried out, “I have done nothing, I deserve nothing; God has done all." "I Released from the lazaretto, and after spending a week in Venice, Howard proceeded by sea to Trieste, and thence to Vienna. During this time, the fever he had averted for a time continued to creep over him, the whole air of the lazaretto having been infected; it greatly impaired his strength, and the accounts, deepening in sadness, which reached him respecting his son, made his affliction almost too heavy to be borne. am reduced by fatigue of body and mind; I have great reason to bless God my resolution does not forsake me in so many solitary hours." It did not forsake him, it remained firm as a rock in vexed surge, it could ever raise its head into the pure light of God's smile; but human faith has not often been so sorely tried. In the letter written from Vienna, from which the above words are taken, he referred in approving terms to the conduct towards his son of several domestics whom he had left at Cardington, expressed his persuasion that it arose out of regard to his mother, and concluded the paragraph in these words: "Who I rejoice is dead." He often thought of Harriet, and we may conceive that now, in his extreme sorrow, the old days would flit past him robed in the still and melancholy light of memory; that tender and to him beautiful wife seemed to return, to lean over him in his loneliness and sickness of heart; but he thought of his son, and the tear which started to his own eye was transferred by imagination to that of his Harriet, where perchance he had never seen one before; then love arose and triumphed over anguish, and he blessed God that his best beloved was lying still. Has art ever surpassed the pathos of these words? Early in 1787, Howard was again in England, proceeding to make arrangements respecting his son. The latter was a hopeless maniac. He appears to have been of that common class of young men, whom strong passions, weak judgments, and good-natured, silly facility, render a prey to those who combine artfulness with vice. A servant in whom Howard placed absolute confidence betrayed his trust infamously, allured his charge into evil, and excited in his breast contempt for his father. That father, ever most anxious to provide him the best and safest superintendence and tuition, had sent him to prose cute his education at Edinburgh, where he resided with Dr. Black. There it was that prolonged habits of vice fatally impaired his constitution, and after a period he became deranged. In this condition, watched over with all the care and kindness which his father's efforts could secure, he lingered for a considerable number of years, and died. England was now for Howard all hung as it were in weeds of mourning. The hope to which he had clung, that his son might cheer him in his old age, had vanished utterly, or at least the term when such might be possible could not be fixed. There were probably in this world few sadder hearts at that time than John Howard's. But he had not yet discovered the secret of the plague; there was still work for mercy to do: it was now perhaps the greatest happiness of which he was capable to go upon that work. And he went; the weary heart to soothe and heal the weary-hearted; one of the saddest men in England, to meet the plague. On the 27th of September, 1789, he was at Moscow. He seemed now to feel that his end was not far, and we find him engaged in solemn transactions with his God. He brought out that old dedication of himself to his Maker, which we saw him subscribe in the days when his life had first been darkened, and when the terrors of the Almighty, which had rolled like low cloudy masses over his soul, were just being suffused with celestial radiance in the full beaming out of the Sun of Righteousness. Again he owned his entire unworthiness and his entire weakness, again he looked up to the Rock of Ages, again he gave up his soul, spirit, and body, for ever and ever, to God. As we gather, too, from the pages of Brown, he looked again on that covenant which his beloved had made with her Father in heaven: we think we can see the old and weary man gazing over its lines, while a tear steals from his eye, a tear of lonely sadness, yet touched with one gleam of light, from the thought that it will not now be long ere he again meet his Harriet. This was in the September of 1789: it was his last pause on his hard life-journey, his last draught of living waters from those fountains which divine love never permits to dry up in the desert of the world: again he arose and went on his way; but now the pearly gates and the golden walls stood before the eye of faith, calm, beautiful, eternal, on the near horizon. In the beginning of January, 1790, he was residing at |