nuns "Resignation looks with placid eye I think it was during the Revolution of France, that a lady abbess and her were led to the guillotine. As they left their prison, they began their hymn to the Virgin. When one of them was beheaded, the remainder paused not; when another fell, they continued their strain; a third perished, but the song was unbroken. It grew weaker as their number diminished, until one shrill voice alone was heard chanting the song of praise: nor did it cease, even for a moment, until the descending axe of the guillotine severed the neck of the last fair victim. O, my dear girls, that we all possessed an equal degree of self-possession and piety! If they could persevere even unto death, in raising their song to the Virgin, ought not we to persevere in praising the Creator, the Preserver, and the Redeemer of mankind? Ought we not to be "faithful unto death," that we may receive "a crown of life?" I have known persons, naturally timid, when under the full influence of Christian principle, triumph over their fears both in life and in death. Great advantages are sometimes derived from constitution and education, in bearing the evils of life: but nothing, my dear girls, short of confidence in God through the Redeemer, and a conviction that "all things work together for good to them that love God," can be expected to make us collected in the prospect of death. Think of this, my dear girls. Endure patiently what God in wisdom requires you to endure. Be collected, not only in trivial trials, but in the heaviest calamities. Look upwards, and all will yet be well. ABOUT SLEIGHING. Now comes the season of sleighing. How the bells jingle! And how swiftly the loaded sleigh glides over the hard snow path! There goes a load of thirty or forty boys, on a pleasure excursion. See the engraving on the second page of this number. It is a holiday; and they have obtained the consent of their parents and teachers to go a sleighing. So they have hired a gentleman to go with one of those large omnibuses-as they might be called-which run between Boston and Roxbury, and will hold a whole school at a time, and carry them to Dedham and back. They pay him out of their pocket money, twenty-five cents a piece. It is a large price; but the drivers of sleighs always expect large prices when people ride for pleasure. Perhaps it is more for the health of ABOUT SLEIGHING, SKATING, &c. these boys as well as for their profit, to take a ride, with a careful driver, than it would be to stay at home, and lounge about, and eat confectionaries or fruits half the time. Do you say they might just as well spend the time in skating or coasting, and spare the poor horses? They might skate, I grant; or if they have no skates, they might slide; but as to coasting, Boston is not a very good place for that. There are few hills; and where we find any, it is commonly difficult to use them. It often happens that in order to coast you must endanger the life or limbs of people. I have seen many a person knocked down and more or less injured by boys who were coasting. Besides, this coasting in the street gets the path very slippery, and exposes people to the danger of falls, when nothing touches them. And more than all this, it is against the law. And as to the horses; why, if well used, they suffer very little. I know, very well, that there are drivers who are careless, and some who are cruel. But I hope the number of either sort is very small. Careless drivers will sometimes allow their horses to stand in the cold, after they have been perspiring freely, and without a blanket. This is quite a mistake. They also sometimes guide them to a part of the street where the sleigh runs harder than in other places, and compel them to use their strength without any necessity. They will also suffer the harness to rub or chafe them. Cruel drivers will often whip their horses when there is no need of it; and sometimes get angry and beat thein, in a way which they themselves are afterward sorry for. They will also drive them too swiftly, when they take it in their heads to do so. But I still say that, if horses have good care taken of them, they do not suffer much, on an ordinary pleasure excursion, in sleighing. In fact, I have seen some horses that appeared to enjoy the sport almost as much as the riders. "Then you are quite in favor of sleighriding for pleasure, are you not?" Not exactly that either. I only say, it is not so very bad, if it is properly managed, as is sometimes pretended. It is the abuse of it, which is so very blameworthy. I do not recommend it after all. It has its disadvantages, its evils, and its dangers. I never ride in a sleigh for mere pleasure, myself. Nay more; I never did, when I was a boy. I thought it better to skate or slide. I think so still. I know there are dangers attendant on this sport. Boys sometimes catch sad falls on the ice, in learning to skate. They also sometimes skate over deep water where there are what are called breathing holes in the ice, into which they fall, and are perhaps drowned. They also venture on the ice after a thaw has commenced, when it begins to be tender or rotten, and in these cases, too, they sometimes break through, and, if they do not get drowned, catch cold and have a fever. I have seen and known and heard of so many accidents which happened to boys while skating or sliding, that, in closing this article, I must beg every one who reads it, to beware. Venture not over deep water at all; whether the ice is strong or weak. Go to some place -there are usually enough such placeswhere the water is well known to be shallow. But avoid getting your feet wet, even if there is no danger of drowning. It is not a small evil to have a course of fever or a tedious rheumatism. SNOWBALLING. hands and skip about with joy, as I used to do, and ask the first boy that came along, whether he thought it would be good snowballing! There are some old people, I know, who grudge the time we spend, while boys, in snowballing. But such people, I sometimes think, have forgotten that they themselves once loved this very fun, as well as we. They have forgotten that they once delighted to skip, and romp, and frolic, and play. They have forgotten that they were once young. Let us not bear any ill will against such persons, even if they should chance to be our own parents, or grandparents, or teachers. Let us remember that we too, may live to be old; and that if we do, our memories may also fail us, good as they seem to be just now. Should such a thing happen, and should we ever forget that we were once fond of fun and sport-that we, too, were once young-we shall not like to be hated for it. Nor shall we deserve it. We shall deserve pity and compassion, rather than hatred or ill will. Now comes the season for snowballing! and a pleasant season it is, too, for boys. How they love to see the snow descend in big flakes, as Autumn begins to fade, and Winter to resume her sway! How many a time, while yet a boy, have I watched the flakes as they became thicker and thicker, and fell faster and faster, anxious to know whether there would be enough of the fleecy mass to make it good snowballing. And even now, old as I am, hardly any thing Parents and teachers sometimes tell rouses pleasanter recollections and gives us; "O, I can't bear to have you engage me, for a few moments, more pleasura- in snowballing; I am afraid you will ble feelings than the thick, fast-falling get hurt." And is there not danger of flakes of snow, when their first appear- it? I have seen many a boy sadly inance betokens winter. Yes, old as I am, jured during this sport; and one boy were it not for the fear of being laughed whom I knew came very near losing his at-for we old people hate, above almost right eye. But the fault, in this case, all things to have people laugh at us-I was not in the snowball itself, so much am not certain that I should not some- as in the boy that threw it. The fault times rush into the street and clap my was that the snowball was made too hard! Im very much opposed to hard snowballs. I know, indeed, that you can throw them far better, and that they do far greater execution. But ah, boys, it is better to have them a little softer and lighter than to put out an eye. The eye is too valuable, and too costly, and too difficult to be replaced. And if replaced by a glass eye, as is sometimes done now a days, it is never, as you know, so good to see with as the old one. Make it a rule, therefore, to have your snowballs as soft as you can and yet be able to throw them. If you do this, you will hardly ever injure the eyes of your companions or endanger your own. If you do this, you will not have it to think of all your life-time that you put out such or such a boy's eye. "But I am afraid you will break the windows!" say some of our dear friends. Well, there is danger of that, I confess, if we are not careful. But this danger, too, may be avoided. It is not quite so likely to happen if you do not make your balls very hard. But it need never happen; for you can go far away from any houses or windows, when you snowball; and it is your duty to do so. I am grieved when I see boys or girls snowballing in the neighborhood of glass windows. Why will they do it? The world is wide enough. Some parents and teachers are afraid you will quarrel, if you snowball; and so am I. So often have I seen boys get into a passion by means of this sport, that I am sometimes tempted to denounce it, altogether. And yet it need not be so. Boys might throw snowballs as well as play at anything else, without ever losing their temper, if they would, And I have known some who did so. Angry feelings are much less apt to arise when the snowballs are not very hard. well as any of you; and it was his fortune sometimes to play with boys who were unfair. But Henry would never allow himself to get angry, in the least. Do you ask, how he could help it? Why he would keep his temper under. When the bad feelings began to arise, he would put them down. And if he found they were getting the mastery over him, he would leave the sport and go quite Henry Langton loved snowballing as So much, my young friends, for snowballing. When I began, I did not think to give you a long lecture, and lo! here are more than two pages! But what can I omit? If I knew, I would strike it out. But let it go; if you find the story too long, you can stop in the middle of it. away. Here I shall be told, I suppose, that all boys cannot govern themselves as well as Henry probably could. But, depend upon it, no boy knows how much he can do, in this respect, till he has tried, and done his best. Govern yourself, and keep down the bad feelings once, and you can, the next time, do it much easier; the next time easier still; and so on. BUILDING ON PILES. WHEN I was a boy, I remember to have read, very often, that Amsterdam, a European city of nearly 200,000 inhabitants, was built on piles, and that the Stadt House or State House of that city which is 282 feet long, 235 wide, and 116 high, without the tower, is built on 13,659 of these piles. But what are piles? I used to ask. I could not find out, however. I had not at that time-though every boy ought to have a good dictionary, else I might have conjectured. There are a dozen or two of meanings to the word piles, it to be, "a large stake, or piece of timber, pointed, and driven into the earth," can we doubt what the piles are on which Amsterdam is built? I have occasionally seen boys throw snowballs at a mark. This is the best sport. Go far away from any houses, or stores, or shops, or barn-yards—where is true; but when we find one of them you might frighten or disturb the cattle or horses or sheep-and set up your mark, and choose your men, and then fire away. In doing this, if you keep your temper, no mischief will ensue. The stake you throw at has no eyes, nor windows; nor has it the power of speech, to enable it to complain if you happen to make your snowballs a little too hard. Leave snowballing each other-so I say and learn to be satisfied with throwing your balls at a mark. Then, in addition to this, had I lived near some city, or had I been acquainted with some observing person who was acquainted with cities, I might easily have learned from him that it was uncommon thing, here in America, to build on piles. Where the ground is low and wet, it is a very common thing. no |