I know he won't want it till afternoon, but he did'nt tell me I might stay."

"I'm glad I haven't got such a strict father," said one whose father frequently had lodgings in the county jail, from certain mistakes he was liable to make in regard to the right of property.

"Your father did not say you shouldn't stop," said the drummer, "did he ?"

"No."

"Then you don't disobey him by stopping: so step into the ranks."

This reasoning would have satisfied some boys in such circumstances of strong temptation, but it did not satisfy Gilbert. Still less did a remark of another boy of valour, "Your father will never know it, if you don't stop too long."

"Take him prisoner," said the orderly serjeant; press him."

Several now seized him and led him into the ranks, or rather, rank.

"There, now," continued the said officer, "you can't go, and you are not to blame for not doing what is impossible."

Gilbert thought for a moment that this might be a valid excuse for staying, but then he knew it was possible for him to go home.

He was the swiftest

runner in school, and could escape from them if he pleased.

"It is no use to talk," said he, almost crying, "I must go home. I've stopped too long already.

I shall have to make haste back.

He set out. No effort was made to detain him.

He could not help crying when he saw them marching off, with colours flying and the drum beating, to the storming of a Fort, as they called it, a sheep-pen, near a neighbouring stream. He reached home, told his father his story, and received his permission to be a soldier for the day. Away he bounded with a light heart, all the lighter for the victory gained by him in the moral battle that was fought in his own bosom. Such are the victories which make men heroes in the sight of God.

THE SABBATH BELLS: FOR A LITTLE CHILD.

LISTEN! listen to the bells,

How sweet their music on the ear;

It dies away, and now it swells,
By every passing gale brought near.

Listen listen to the bells;

They call us to the house of prayer ;
They call to hear what Jesus tells:
Oh! how delightful to go there!

Always I shall love that sound,

The bells that ring on Sabbath day,
And ever there may I be found,

Where that blest music calls to pray.

W

LESSON XXXIV.

THE HORSE.

ILLIAM POPE was a farmer, and he had a waggon and three horses; one of them was brown, and another was black, and another was gray. His little boy, Jem, used to go out with his father to help to drive them.

Sometimes they put sacks of corn into the waggon, and the horses drew it to the mill where the miller took out the corn, that it might be ground, and made into flour. In the summer time, when the hay was well dried, William Pope would tell Jem to take the long whip in his hand, and to drive the horses and the waggon into the hay-field, that the hay might be put into the waggon, and carried to the rick.

Jem liked to crack the long whip by the side of the horses; but he would never beat them, or use

them cruelly: and when the work was done, and it was night, he would help his father to take them out of the waggon, and to take off the harness, and turn them out in the field, that they might rest themselves after their long day's work, and eat a nice supper of fresh green grass.

When William Pope wanted to plough his field, he put his three horses to his plough, and they drew it up and down the field, and ploughed it ready for the corn to be sowed.

One day, as they were ploughing, one of the iron shoes, which are put upon horses' feet, came off the gray horse's foot, and William Pope told Jem to lead him away to the blacksmith, that he might nail on a new shoe, for the poor horse's foot would soon have become very sore, if he had gone without a shoe.

When Jem and the gray horse came to the blacksmith's he was busy nailing some shoes on a pretty little pony, and they were obliged to wait till he had done; then he put on the gray horse's shoe, and Jem got upon him, and trotted back to his father.

Horses' feet are hard like our nails; they are not made of skin and flesh as our feet are, so that it does not hurt them to nail on their shoes. This hard part of the foot is called the hoof.

ONE day, Mary Jackson and her brother Tom were

walking together in a green field; they stopped to look at the sheep that were eating the grass, and at the little lambs that were skipping about. "Tom," said Mary, "do you remember the hymn we learnt at school, which begins

'Abroad in the meadows to see the young lambs,

Run sporting about by the side of their dams?'

Now look at those pretty little lambs, that are running about after their mothers, as the hymn says." "Yes," said Tom, " and see how lovingly they are playing together."

"I am sure," said Mary, "I hope we shall always