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JOYS AND GIRLS,--Here is a story that may draw a smile from you, and we hope you will listen attentively to the conversation between the wind and the rose-branch. God's works are full of language, and there is no place where, by the thoughtful observer, their voice is not heard; but you will not think that the wind and trees talk to one another—it is an allegorical dialogue. If you refer to the ninth chapter of the book of Judges, you will find a parable put forth by Jotham, of the trees going to anoint a king. Now, although this about the wind must not be put side by side with the HOLY SCRIPTURES, yet, like that, it is written as a parable, and we hope you will all glean the instruction it contains, and if any of you are at all self-willed, you will profit by it.

It was quite a well-known story that the wind was telling. He was saying as he went along, how the line of trees on the edge of the hill came to be so ugly and misshapen, and bent in one direction, because they would always stand up so stiffly when the wind said, "Bow down!" and, as he was obliged to go that way, crack went first this branch and then that, until the trees began to look very bare and odd-until, in fact, the strength of the blast prevailing, they became bent and crooked just as they now stand.

But the remainder of the story is by far the pleasanter part. It is all about the silver birch, the beautiful lady-tree of the forest. So gentle and so meek is she, bending so readily when the storms of heaven are sweeping by, so that they never harm her, but only lift her branches, carrying away from them all the old dead leaves, and making her fairer than before. This was the favourite story which the wind was telling over and over again as he sauntered through our village.

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Here, wind!" cried an impatient voice e; "wind, come and help a friend

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in trouble, will you? Here I am, this way! Rush up the lane, and then round to the front of this cottage."

The wind good-naturedly did what was required of him; and, on arriving at the front of the cottage, found a long branch of a climbing rose-tree stretching forward from the wall, as if striving to get loose from some bands which held it fast.

"Oh, help me, do!" it said; "help me to drag out this provoking nail, that I may get free." "why

"Nonsense!" was the reply;

do you wish to get loose? That nail is there to train you properly, so that you may grow up a beautiful plant, covered with white blossoms."

"Just as if I did not know my way up the wall, without any of these stupid nails and strips of cloth!" exclaimed the rose angrily.

"Well, but even if you know your way -and I'm not too sure of that I doubt your having strength to climb without any help."

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Well, at any rate, I don't choose to be helped," said the proud rose-branch, stretching forward again as far as she was able, trying to draw the nail.

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Don't choose!" repeated the wind; "don't choose! Ah! that is another thing altogether-just the same sad story over again."

"What do you mean?" the trees and flowers asked, as they listened to him; and he said

"Thousands of years ago I wandered through Eden-beautiful, happy Eden! There I saw the rebellious hand lifted to do the forbidden thing, because 'it did not choose' to be bound by any rules or conditions. Oh, the misery that brought! The misery, the misery!"

"I don't care; I'll not be tied, and trained, and fastened up. I know the way up the wall by myself; at any rate, I don't choose to be tied," cried the

impatient branch again; "and, if you don't help me to get loose, I'll tear away the nails myself; I'm determined I will." "Have your own way, then," answered the wind, sorrowfully; and with a little force he bent the branch forward until the nail was drawn from the wall, and the dissatisfied one drooped towards the ground.

A heavy shower fell that night. It splashed upon the house-tops, and went rushing merrily off the thatch; it fell upon the trees, and when the morning came, they all glittered in the sunlight as if they were covered with diamonds; it sprinkled the rose-tree fastened to the cottage wall, and that too sparkled, looking all the fresher; it fell upon the untied branch, and bent it down into the earth. "That delicious shower has done us all good," cried every blade of grass, every flower, every tree.

"It has not done me much good," muttered the foolish branch, as it lay stretched upon the soaking ground, splashed all over with mud.

"Well," remarked the wind, when he saw it in such a plight, "what do you say now to a few nails and a few shreds of cloth, to keep you out of the mud?"

"I say as I said before," it answered, obstinately, "that I don't choose to be tied."

"But see what your choosing has come to," pleaded the other.

"I tell you, I don't care," was the reply again. "I choose to be left to myself: it is not at all great or grand to be tied up and nailed up."

"Ho! ho! that is it," whistled the wind. Pray, tell me whom you think the greatest and grandest of all you know."

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Oh, well-the sun! yes, the sun to be sure. I should just like to see anyone nail up a ray of sunshine! Dear me! only fancy!" and, dismal though it felt down there in the mud, the rose-branch laughed at its own wit.

"Why, my friend," cried the wind, 66 nothing that I know of in the whole wide universe is more obedient to rules

than that same great sun. A time to rise and a time to set are given to it day by day; day by day also a path is marked out for it in the heavens, and never does it stray from its appointed course."

For an instant the rose-branch felt foolish, and at a loss what to say; but then it exclaimed in triumph

"It is all very fine to teach others, but what about yourself? A nice life of freedom you lead. Over hill and valley you go over mountain and over sea. No one nails up the wind, of course."

The wind began to whistle again.

"Ho! ho! you think so? Never was anything more carefully ruled and bound than I am by Him who holds the winds in His fists and the waters in the hollow of His hands. What would become of you, I should like to know, if I were let loose in all my strength? Dear me! how the houses would fly about in the air! How the trees would be torn out of the ground! As for such a thing as a poor weak little rose-tree, why, it would be torn to atoms!"

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Friend," ," said the branch one day to the wind, as he passed along again; "friend, I can sometimes get a glimpse of the rose-tree so high above me, nearly up to the top of the wall, and every time you move by me I smell the sweet breath of its blossoms."

"True enough," was the reply. "What then?"

"Why, only look at me down here in the mud-not a blossom nor a bud upon me."

The wind could very well have said, "It is your own fault;" but he was far too kind for that.

"What can I do for you?" he said.

"Oh, I don't know, I'm sure. I meant to be beautiful, and to grow to the top of the wall; but I thought I could do it by myself."

"Take my advice, then," said the wind, "and next time a kind hand fastens you up, don't break loose again."

"Still, I don't see why I am to be nailed and fastened, any more than the rose-tree herself. I don't see why I should not know my way up the wall as well as she."

"Ah! is that the mistake you have been making?" said the wind; and he went about among the leaves and bunches of blossoms, lifting them so that the branch on the ground could see the

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ing ash and knocking its branches against a window-pane, until the man who lived in the cottage came out with a hammer, and some nails, and some pieces of cloth, saying, "What is that? There must be a creeper loose somewhere;" and he looked about until he saw the poor rose-branch trailing piteously in the mud.

"It could not be this," he said;""but it wants a nail terribly." So he lifted it up and fastened it against the wall, although it kept on murmuring, "Too

many nails and shreds of cloth which had been used to train the climber, and which still held her to the wall.

66 See here, foolish one, see here. She would never have been anything but a straggler in the mud, if it had not been for these many bonds."

"Then lift me up, good friend, lift me up against the wall."

Nay, that I cannot do; but I will do what I can, only don't refuse help, if it be offered again." Then the wind went off whistling loudly, going to the droop

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ORIGIN OF GREAT MEN.

OME of the greatest men the world ever produced, either in ancient or modern times, were of very humble and obscure origin. Columbus, the discoverer of America, was the son of a weaver, and a weaver himself. Homer, the Greek poet, and the prince of ancient poets, was a beggar. Demosthenes, the great Grecian orator, was the son of a cutler. Oliver Cromwell was the son of a brewer. Benjamin Franklin was a journeyman printer. Ferguson, the Scotch astronomer, was a shepherd. Edmund Halley, an eminent English astronomer, was the son of a soap-boiler, at Shoreditch. Hogarth, the celebrated painter, was put apprentice to an engraver of pewter pots. Virgil, the great Latin poet was the son of a potter; and Horace, the son of a shopkeeper. Shakespeare, the greatest of English dramatic poets, was the son of a woolstapler; and Milton, the greatest of English epic poets, was the son of a money-scrivener. Pope was the son of a merchant; and Dr. Samuel Johnson, of a bookseller at Lichfield.

Akenside was the son of a butcher at Newcastle. Gray, the English poet, was the son of a money-scrivener; and Henry Kirke White, the son of a butcher at Nottingham. Bloomfield and Gifford were shoemakers; and Addison, Goldsmith, Otway, and Canning were sons of clergymen. clergymen. Lord Lyndhurst, late Lord Chief Justice of England, was the son of the painter Copley, and an American by birth. This list could be doubled-but it is unnecessary. These examples show that there is no state or condition of life, however humble or obscure, from which talents and genius may not rise by individual exertion to eminence and distinction.

VOLTAIRE'S ATTEMPT TO TRANSLATE THE FIFTY-FIRST PSALM.

PRESUMPTUOUS individuals, who venture to attack the Holy Scriptures with unpurified hearts and mere scholastic learning, without being enlightened by the Holy Spirit, are punished with confusion, blindness, and delusion. Voltaire was once daring enough to versify that affecting penitential Psalm, the fifty-first. Everything went well until he came to the tenth verse, where it is said, "Create in me a clean heart, O God." But his pride and diabolical hatred against God and His worshippers did not permit him, with the royal penitent, to entreat of God a pure and sincere heart; however, he strove to translate the verse poetically. But suddenly the terrors of hell seized him; the pen refused to move beneath the hand of the reprobate who had indicted so many blasphemies and obscenities for the de struction of innocence and the fear of God. He sought to flee, but could not; he fell half-senseless on his couch, and afterwards confessed several times to his friends that he could never think of this appalling occurrence without inward tremor and uneasiness.-Preface to Dr, Van Ess's New Testament.

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THE MILK-WHITE DOVE; OR, ILL you have a story, darling?

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I know one, very old,

For when I was a little child
I used to hear it told:

It is about a little boy,

And the pigeons which he sold. His mother, she was very poor,

And kept a rich man's gate; Until the carriages passed through, There Jacob had to wait.

Now Jacob was a patient lad,

A loving, faithful son:

Of all the things the rich man had
He wanted only one.

A pigeon with a crested head,

And feathers soft as silk,

With crimson feet and crimson bill,
The rest as white as milk.

He had some pigeons of his own,
He loved them very well;
But then, his mother was so poor,
He reared them all to sell.
He kept them in a little shed

That sloped down from the roof:
Great trouble had he every spring
To make it waterproof.

He used to count them every day,
To see he had them all :

They knew his footstep when he came
And answered to his call.
And one-a chocolate-coloured hen--
Was prettier than the rest,
Because there was a gloss like gold

All round its throat and breast.
You know the little birds in spring

Build houses, where they dwell,
And feed and rear their little ones,
And love each other well.

So the black pigeons Jacob had
Were mated with the grey;

And crested-crown and ring-neck made
Their nest the first of May.

For God hath made each little bird
To love, and need a mate ;
And so the little chocolate hen
Was very desolate.

LITTLE JACOB'S TEMPTATION.
And Jacob thought if he could get
The rich man's milk-white dove,
And keep it always for his own-
Now, listen to me, love.

He wanted that which was not his ;
That which another had ;

And so, a great temptation grew
Around the little lad.

The rich man had whole flocks of birds
And Jacob reasoned so-

"If I should take this one white dove,
How can he ever know?

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Among so many can he miss The one which I shall take? Among so many, many birds,

What difference can it make?"

But, darling, even while his heart

Throbbed with these wishes strong, A something always troubled him— He knew that it was wrong.

So time passed on; he watched the dove,
How every day it came
Nearer and nearer to the shed,

More gentle and more tame.
He watched it with a longing eye:
At last, one summer day,
He saw it settle on the roof

As if it meant to stay.
Now Jacob seemed a happy boy :
Said he, "It has a right
To choose a dwelling anywhere
Most pleasant in its sight."
And so he scattered grains of corn
And crumbs of wheaten bread,
Because he thought the dove would stay
Where it was kindly fed.

Well, time passed on-the milk-white dove

Well pleased with Jacob's care,
Soon learned to know him like the rest,
And seemed right happy there.

One morning he had called them all
Around him to be fed ;

And on the ground he scattered corn,
And peas, and crumbs of bread;