BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLIES.

FEW winged insects attract more attention from children than butterflies. How is this? I think I know; for I remember what I thought and how I felt about them when I was a boy. I thought I could catch them-that was it. I never could catch a sparrow, for it always flew away before I could get near it, though I was told the silly story that I might if I only put a bit of salt on its tail! But these butterflies, which I looked upon as some sort of birds because they had wings and could fly, I thought I could catch. They mostly flew near the ground, and were always alighting upon the flowers, and so they gave me, as I thought, a better chance. Ah! many an hour have I spent in chasing over sweet-scented meadows the white and red butterflies-sometimes successful, but generally disappointed.

Chasing butterflies! How often does the sight even now excite a smile and remind me of the days of my youth. But it is not children only who chase butterflies.

That young man, or young woman, who runs after the pleasures of the world is a chaser of butterflies. Those pleasures will elude their pursuit, or turn to powder in their grasp?

That man who spends all his days in heaping up riches is a chaser of butterflies. They will take themselves wings and fly away!

That man who is seeking to lay hold of the flowery garland of popular applause, is a chaser of butterflies! The breath of popular applause dies away, and the garland withers in neglect.

Be not, then, young reader, all your days a chaser of butterflies. Seek for glory, honour, immortality, and then you shall find

EDMUND PALMER AND THE OLD

CRIPPLE.

"ONLY look, Mary, at that old cripple going down on the other side of the street,” said Edmund Palmer to his sister, as she sat sewing at the table, and he was gazing out of the window at the persons who were passing by. Mary went to the window and said, "Oh, Edmund, do not talk in that way! that poor man cannot help being so; he was born so, and he cannot help it." Edmund burst into a loud laugh, and said to his sister, "What a soft old fellow he is; I would not be so if I could help it; I would soon get a cure for it, and never be laughed at by people as he is." " My dear," said his sister, "I am grieved to hear that you have so little pity in you for that poor man, who, you know, cannot help being so, and he cannot get a cure for it. I am sure if you were to be so you would feel very much hurt if any one were to say of you what you have said of that poor man. Never again say so, my dear." Edmund only laughed again, and went away.

Now Mary and Edmund had, by the will of God, been deprived of their dear parents, and, with another brother and sister, were left alone. But they were all old, except Edmund, who was of a random turn of mind, and would be a soldier in spite of the advice of his sisters, and brothers,

and friends; so one day he went to the barracks and enlisted.

It was many years after that he returned home from the wars to his native town, with only one leg. As he came down the street with a crutch, and faint and weary, he blushed when he thought of the poor fellow he mocked when a boy. As the big tear ran down his sunburnt cheek, he at last arrived at the home of his brothers and sisters, where he lived and died a happy and sincere christian.

Let this tale be a warning to those of my young readers who have ever mocked or laughed at a cripple, for who knows but that some day they too will be in the same condition ?

My dear young friends, the old soldier felt deeply, when he was himself deprived of a limb, the ridicule he had made, when a boy, in laughing at that poor old cripple. Now pray remember, when beholding a deformed person, how gracious the Lord has been in granting you the use of all your limbs, and daily let your prayers ascend unto Him for these, and all the blessings continually showered upon you. God careth not for the outward appearance, but all who love Christ in their hearts are heirs of the kingdom of heaven; where all will be perfect.

JUNIUS.

AN APPEAL TO THE YOUNG ON

BEHALF OF MISSIONS.

You have often heard of the poor black children over the seas, who worship idols, and do not know the true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. You have heard that missionaries have been sent to some of them, and that they have cast away their idols, and have learned to read the Bible, and to pray to Jesus. You have heard how quickly they learn, how dearly they love their teachers, and how thankful they are to English people for sending them. But do you know how very few those are who have had missionaries sent to them, and what a vast number have never seen a single christian ?

Hundreds of thousands of little infants are cruelly put to death in heathen countries. This was the case in all the South Sea Islands before