EDWARD THIRD..

IT is to be hoped that Edward did not know any thing of the cruelty with which his father was treated, although Isabella his wicked mother said that it was done by his orders; but we can hardly imagine any thing so dreadful, as that a child should murder his own father, and you know we cannot believe any thing that Isabella said.

Edward the Third reigned a long time, and I wish I could tell you any thing that he did for God; but all his time passed in war, and the world called him brave, and he loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.' He had several children; the eldest was called the Black Prince, because he wore black armor, and had a black horse. His father was very fond of him, and very proud of him, because he was so brave. But, my children, there is no bravery in murder.

When the Black Prince was quite a boy, he fought a battle at Cressy, a town in France, and a few years afterwards he fought another battle at Poictiers, and took the king of France prisoner; and it was a curious thing that the English had also taken David, king of Scotland, prisoner, so that there were three kings in England at the same time; the kings of France, Scotland and England.

The Black Prince treated his prisoner very kindly, and paid him great respect. I like him for this; and I like him too, because he was always obedient and affectionate to his father. He died of a consumption. He had one little boy, Richard, afterwards king of England. The people were very sorry when the Black Prince died.

Run for the map of France, and look for the town of Calais. You see it is the nearest town to England. King Edward the Third wanted to take this town from the French, so he took a great many soldiers and set off for France. Now there was a high thick wall built round Calais, and a deep ditch round the wall full of water, so that no one could get into the town, except by a little bridge over the ditch, and a gate which was in the wall; but the bridge was a drawbridge, and the gate was very strong, so the people of Calais raised the bridge and locked the gate, and Edward could not get in. This put him in a great passion, and he made his army stay outside

the wall for eleven months, so that the people of Calais could not get out to obtain any thing to eat. They were forced to devour horses and dogs, and at last, when they were nearly starved, they opened the gate to let Edward and his army into the city.

They had done no harm, I think, in keeping the king out as long as they could, for he had no right to their city; but Edward was very angry, and he said he would kill every one in the city. Some of his officers and friends begged him not to do so, and at last the king said, that if six of the citizens would come out with ropes round their necks for him to hang, he would forgive the rest.

The poor people were very sad when they heard this, because they did not know where to get six men who would be willing to die for them, until a man named Eustace de St. Pierre offered to die, and five others then stood up and said they would die too, to save the rest of the inhabitants. The people were very grateful, and thanked them many times; and do you know, Edward would have hung them, had not Philippa his queen knelt to him, and begged him to forgive them. Lady,' said he, 'I could have better liked you had been elsewhere, but I cannot refuse you; do with them as you will.'

But I have no more time to talk of these things. I want to tell you of a brave man who lived in this reign. Yes, my readers, John Wickliffe was a brave man, a soldier of the Saviour; he fought

against sin, and his armor was the armor of God; his sword was the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God; and he went from place to place teaching the people. At that time the Bible was written only in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, so that the common people and children could not read it; but Wickliffe translated it into English. When you are older you will read many things about this great reformer, which you are at present too young to comprehend. Printing was not known at that time, but many people copied Wickliffe's translation with a pen.

Edward had several sons; the Black Prince was the eldest, and he and his brothers William and Lionel died before their father; the fourth son was John of Gaunt. You must try to remember the names of the third and fourth, because you will hear of them again.

Edward was very unhappy. In the last few years of his life his eldest son and his wife Philippa both died, and he lost all the towns in France that he had taken such pains to get. Soon after, he died, and of what use were his conquests then? The Bible says, no covetous man has any inheritance in the kingdom of God.

You would laugh, I think, to see the droll dresses which ladies and gentlemen wore about this time. Gentlemen's shoes were long and pointed, and fastened to the knee with gold or silver chains. They would wear a black stocking on one leg and a red one on the other. And the ladies had little daggers fastened to their

of grasshoppers, canker-worms, caterpillars, and other ravenous vermin.

But there is another species of animal, which from childhood had more than any thing else been an object of aversion and dread, and that we had always supposed would never be entitled to sympathy; we mean the Snake. In obedience to what we had considered a scripture command, we had made it a sort of religious duty to kill a snake whenever we should meet one; and several years ago, while travelling in a field with a Quaker friend, we were surprised to be advised by him to let off a striped snake which came conveniently within reach of our cane: 'He never did thee injury-he will do more good than harm-let him alone.' We confess we have often, since that time, been careful not to injure these animals. 'If our quaker friend induced us to look with kindness upon a striped snake, we never had supposed we should be in duced to let a huge black snake retreat when we could stop him with a blow. We have cleared land near the steep banks of a gully of light soil, in which the black snakes had found very convenient dens. While picking up the burnt ground we found the skin of one measuring nearly nine feet in length! At another time a large snake, laying over our path, glided beyond the reach of the hoe in our hands into a pile of brush.

'After all we are glad to find that our hostility even to the odious black snake is misdirected, and that it is better he should run away than be killed. We

are told that he is of great use in driving chip-squirrels and mice from our grain fields; and a gentleman who has a large farm in Epsom asks as a favor of his workmen that they will spare the black snake for the good he shall do in destroying and driving off the animals that eat, carry off and waste bushels of grain.

Just so is the Weasel hunted down, who drives from the cellar scores of rats, that either eat up or spoil every kind of provision within their reach.

'And even the very Skunk is a more offensive than dangerous animal, though man always wars upon him when he can do it with safety. There is no animal made in vain, and the skunk itself does more good than harm. He not only destroys in their season in the warm nights of early summer and autumn, thousands of the worms, beetles and other insects, that destroy vegetation and grain-but the moles and mice that infest the ploughed and grass grounds find in him an enemy that hunts them to a good purpose for the farmer. Last year there was in this region not over half a crop of potatoes; and of this half a crop the moles and mice made sad havoc. We know that a pair of skunks whose burrow was near a potato and cornfield of six acres, saved us many bushels by hunting out of the ground and destroying the mice that in great numbers had found a place of retreat under the sward of the field which had been turned down in the spring. If the skunks shall not molest us, let them live and do good.'