THE ROSE-BUD.

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Why, to be sure, answered the boy, the flowers must have, like me, a mother and a father, to support, take care of, and bring them up.

One Father with us! replied the father of the boy, with emotion, but we see him not; we only feel his power and his love within and about us.

Thus spake he, and the boy felt an extraordinary sensation, for his father had placed a jewel in his heart.

And thenceforward he considered the rose-bush and the flowers of the field as kindred beings, and increased in wisdom and in years. But his father treasured the words of the child in his heart, and related what had passed to the tender mother of the boy.

How near, exclaimed the mother, is the most sublime of truths to innocent simplicity!

18. THE PEACHES.

A FARMER brought with him from the city five peaches, the finest he could meet with. It was the first time that his children had ever seen this sort of

fruit. They therefore admired, and were exceed

ingly delighted with the beautiful apples, with their red cheeks and soft down. The father therefore gave one to each of his four boys, and the fifth to their mother.

At night, when the children were about to retire to their chamber, the father said: Tell me, how did you like the pretty apples?

Very much indeed, father, replied the eldest. It is a delicious fruit; so juicy, and of such a fine flavour! I have taken care of the stone, which I shall plant that I may raise a tree from it.

Well done! said the father, thou hast shown a prudent forethought, befitting a cultivator of the ground.

I ate mine immediately, cried the youngest, and threw away the stone, and mother gave me half of hers. O, it tasted so sweet,-and it melts in one's mouth!

Well, said the father, thou hast acted, if not very prudently, at least naturally, and as a child might be expected to do. Thou hast yet time enough for the acquisition of prudence.

The second son then began: I picked up the stone which Alfred threw away and broke it. There was a kernel in it which tasted as sweet as a nut. But I sold my peach, and got so much for it that

when I go to town I can buy a dozen with the money.

The father shook his head, and said: This is prudent, indeed, but not childlike or natural. Heaven forbid that thou shouldst ever be a trader! And thou, Edmund? asked the father.

Edmund frankly and unaffectedly replied: I carried my peach to poor George, our neighbour's son, who is ill of a fever. He would not take it, so I laid it on his bed, and went away.

Well, said the father, which of you has made the best use of his peach?

Brother Edmund! cried the other three. Edmund was silent, and his mother tenderly kissed him with tears in her eyes.

19. THE BEES AND THE BUTTERFLY.

A BEE-MASTER conducted a young friend to his bee-shed, and directed his attention to the wonderful industry of the insect commonwealth. A beautiful butterfly meanwhile fluttered about them. The brightness of gold, the azure of heaven, and the purple of evening, were blended together on its

large wings. It settled upon a waving flower, and then flew away.

What a beautiful creature! exclaimed the beemaster, and yet that was once a crawling caterpillar!

His friend was surprised, and said: I always thought that you bee-keepers cared for nothing but your hives, and took no notice of the other gifts of

nature.

My friend, replied the bee-master, I love the bees not merely for the sake of the profit which they yield me. It is only the baser passions and propensities that contract the heart of man, and render him the slave of prejudice: but the more closely he attaches himself to nature the more his heart expands, and his eye delights in all that is good and beautiful around him.

But, continued the friend, the most beautiful butterfly is not to be compared with the industrious useful bee.

The bee-master pointed to the busy hives. Here, my friend, said he, thou hast the image of active life with its limitations, of the mind bound in its earthly operations-there the emblem of the mind at liberty, and elevated above the dust. Therefore did the divine sculptors of antiquity adorn the pure unshackled soul with the wings of the butterfly.

THE BEES AND THE BUTTERFLY.

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An image and an emblem, indeed! replied the other; but might not nature have united beauty with utility?

And the bee-master answered, in a tone of rebuke: Shall then what is spiritual and sublime be always chained to earth, and what is divine be drawn down to earthly purposes? This would indeed be a degradation of our divine nature!

20. SOP.

ESOP, the incomparable narrator of charming fables concerning animals and plants, was severely beaten by his cruel master, and cast out of the town into the wilderness. O unfortunate man! cried one of his fellow-slaves as he was being driven away. Unfortunate! cried Æsop; why more unfortunate than thyself? What then can afford thee pleasure and gratification in the wilderness? rejoined the slave: The feeling of my liberty-replied the fabulist, as they cast him forth.

In a few days those who knew him went forth with the intention of burying his body; for they imagined that he would himself put an end to his