"What now, good friend?" I said; "this is no month for sowing corn; and I cannot say your lap-full looks like it." Hodge answered, "It is ill sowing corn upon a fallow field; but I am tired of looking at it as it is. Till the time that I can make it useful, I have a mind to make it pretty; and so we are planting it all over with these thistles." "Thistles!" I exclaimed. "Why, yes," said Hodge, with the look of a man who has solid reasoning on his side. "I was walking, the other day, upon the common, thinking, as one may do, upon my fallow field, and how much money I wanted of enough to buy manure for it, when my eye was taken by some tall, red flowers, growing in plenty on the waste. They looked very beautiful. The fine broad leaves lay gracefully folded upon the turf; their fringed heads shone in the sunbeams, with colours that might have shamed the rainbow.

"Thistles are of no use, I know; but then my ground will bear nothing better at present: they will look pretty from the window, and will do no harm for a year or two: so here we are all at work. I have fetched them from the common-seed, roots and all-and next summer we shall see." " "Friend," said I, "I have seen many men dig up thistles, but I never thought to see a man planting them." "But, perhaps," said Hodge, with a conscious superiority of wit, "you have seen them plant things not half so pretty." "But your corn-how is your future crop to grow, if you fill the ground with thistles ?" "Bless your heart," said Hodge, with a look of contempt, "why, then, to be sure, we can dig them up again-time enough yet-may be you a'nt used to digging."

It was in vain to resist the good man's last argu

ment, with all the hidden meanings with which his tone invested it, viz. that I had better mind my own business; that I was talking about what I did not understand; that I never had a field; and that, if I had, I should, in waiting, plant it over with thistles-therefore I passed on. So did summer heats and winter's cold, and blithely the thistles grew. The common never bore a finer crop; and, with all my prejudice, I was obliged to own the flowers looked very pretty.

Meantime the good man's store increased; the funds were forthcoming; the field was ploughed and sown; the wheat came up-and so did the thistles. A chancery suit could not have ejected them after so long possession. They had all the advantage; for, while the wheat was to be sown afresh for each succeeding year, the thistles came up of themselves. Then they were goodly and tall: they lifted their heads to the sunbeams, and scattered their seeds in the breeze, while the sickly wheat lay withering in their shade. I did not question him of his crops. Every spring I saw him rooting up thistles, and every summer I saw the thistles blow; and for every one he left, there next year came up twenty. Whether, as years advanced, they became less numerous, or whether he lived to see them exterminated, I cannot say; I have left that part of the country.

Do my readers not believe my story? Is my good man's folly too impossible? Let them consider a little; for I have seen other labourers than he, who sow a harvest they would be loath to reap, and trust to future years to mend it. Of those who doubt the sanity of my good man, Hodge, many may thoughtlessly be doing the same thing; whether they be parents, whose fondest charge is the

education of their children, and their fondest hopes its produce; or whether their one small field be the yet unsettled character of their own youthful mind.

I have seen a father encourage his boys to fight out an amateur battle, for the right of possession to the merest toy, and yield it to the victor,-and when I asked him if he intended his boys should in after life take possession, by force, of what they could not prove a right to, he said, "No, but boys must learn courage; they would know better than to fight for what does not belong to them, when they were men."

I have seen a mother take her daughters to a dancing-school, to be taught every fashionable manœuvre of the ball-room; and when I asked her if she meant her daughters should be introduced to amusements she did not herself approve, she said, "She hoped not; the principles she laboured to instil would, she trusted, prevent it; but, till they were of an age to feel their influence, she must let them do as others do: there was no harm in children's dancing."

I have seen a teacher bring tears and blushes upon the checks of a pains-taking booby, by showing him the achievements of his brother, assuring him, that, while the younger brother was sent to college, he, for his stupidity, must go behind the counter. I asked him if he wished, that, when that boy became a man, he should be pained by the superiority of others, or ashamed of the station to which Providence assigned him. He answered me, "No; but emulation is the finest thing in the world-it is impossible to make any thing of boys, without the stimulus of rivalry."

I have asked a lady, whose children I saw every evening playing at cards for halfpence, and vehe

mently contending for success, whether she was bringing them up to be gamesters, or to waste their hours in frivolous pursuits and unwholesome excitement of temper and feeling. Half laughing and half angry, as at a foolish question, she said, "Of course not; but it did not signify how children amused themselves." Of another, who was cramming her children's minds with most pernicious nonsense in the form of books, I asked if she meant that they should be weak, ill-judging, and romantic women. She, too, said, "No; but children do not understand sensible books. She was glad to get them to read at all, and should give them better books when they were older."

A few times in my life, I have seen parents take-no, not take, (for they would themselves have been ashamed to be seen there,) but sendtheir children to the theatre, and other publicplaces, which they had taught them to consider inconsistent with the spiritual requirements of the gospel, and the safe conduct of a corruptible nature through a corrupting world—alleging, that it is desirable, at a certain age, to let young people taste these pleasures, that they may better appreciate the nature and tendency of them.

Admit that the thistle may be rooted out; that the girl who is taught vanity, will not be vain when she becomes a Christian woman; and the youth who is encouraged in oppression, rivalry, and pride, will not be contentious or dissatisfied when he becomes a Christian man;-still, be it remembered, it is no magic touch of the celestial wand that converts the bond-slave of earth into the meet inheritor of heaven. It can do so-but generally, as regards the sanctification of the heart, after it has been pardoned and renewed, the process is a long, and

often very painful one. It is by fire that gold is purified. By many a painful excision the eye is made single. Sorrow after sorrow comes; draught after draught of misery is drained; and the heart has sometimes to be buried beneath the wreck of every thing it has loved and delighted in, before earth and self can be crushed out of it. Why should we be so mad, so unjust to our children, and cruel to ourselves, as to increase the difficulty of the cure, because confident it will in the issue be performed? Why do we plant our ground with thistles, because, after years of labour, they may be rooted out? MRS. FRY.

THE ROUGH DIAMOND.

A ROUGH diamond lay in the sand, among many other ordinary stones. A boy picked up some of them to play with and carried them home, together with the diamond, but he knew not what it was. The father of the boy, watching his play, observed the diamond, and said to his son: Give me that stone! The boy did so, and smiled, for he thought to himself-what will my father do with that

stone?

But he took and skilfully cut the stone into regular facets, and polished the diamond, which then sparkled gloriously.

Behold, said the father, here is the stone which thou gavest to me. Then was the boy amazed at the brilliancy of the stone, and cried: Father, how hast thou wrought this change?

I knew, said the father, the virtue and hidden properties of the crude stone, and so I cleared it from the crust in which it was enveloped, and now it shines with its natural splendour.