WALTER WESTON was a sharp clever lad; that is, he was sharp enough and clever enough at play, but he was very dull and stupid at school. There he made no progress.

His father, who was a shrewd man, saw this, and as Walter was twelve years old on his last birth-day, he resolved that at midsummer, Walter should go from home to a school twenty miles off as a boarder. This he wisely thought would break him off from his present companions and pursuits, and put him into a new way of doing things.

So one day he took Walter into the parlour alone and said to him, "Now, Walter my boy, you have had your own way long enough. You are twelve years old; you will soon be

in your teens; and in a few years you will have to begin to do something. You cannot, you know, always be a boy; you must grow up like every body else to be a man, and then you cannot play with little boys such as you play with now. You must then do as men do, and not as boys do; and you will do what you have to do very awkwardly if you are not a better scholar. You must, therefore, now make up your mind to learn how to do the work of a man; and that you may learn better I have determined that you shall go from home to a boarding school."

Walter looked very thoughtful when his father told him all this. "What," thought he, "must I leave home, and all the old places where I have played, and all my companions -leave my old dog 'Cuffey' and my sister Jane, and above all my own dear mother." He felt very dull and seemed as if he never could go away and leave all these. He saw his father was resolute, so he said but little to him; but he whispered his fears to his mother, and begged she would persuade father not to send him away. He would be more diligent at school, that he would, if he might only stay at home. His mother felt very much when her dear boy told her his troubles, but she prudently did not let him know what she felt. All she said was that his father had made up his mind to send him, and he must go. And at the time appointed his father took him and left him at the new school. Walter wept when he saw his father go away; and his father did too when he got out of sight of his son.

For a few weeks Walter was not happy at all. It was such a great change from his own home, where he could do almost

as he pleased. For the first few nights he could not go to sleep for thinking about his mother and his home; and at last he wrote and begged his father would come and fetch him back, promising what a good boy he would be, and how diligent he would be with his lessons at home, if his father would only let him return.

In reply to his letters, his father wrote to him kindly, and his mother did too, telling him he must bear up against the feeling about wanting to come home, and it would soon wear off; that all the other boys had left home as well as himself, and that he was only like all the rest; they advised him to be cheerful and happy, and fall to work like a little man, and make all the progress he could, and then they should be glad to see him at home again when the next holidays came round.

And so Walter thought to himself, "Well, I wont be a coward any longer, that I wont. The other boys will laugh at me if they see me whimpering and fretting about going home. I will set to work in good earnest and see if I cannot get a good prize at the holidays."

And so he did, for by the time the midsummer holidays arrived, he had risen nearly to the top of his class, and at the examination he secured the second prize. On the day for breaking up his father came to fetch him home, and on the way Walter told him how much more he knew now, and how glad he was that father had not let him come home again as he wanted at first.

When they arrived at home, were they not all glad to see him? Mother folded him in his arms, and almost smothered

him with kisses; Jane hung, round his neck and kissed him him twenty times; and old "Cuffey" came bouncing into the parlour and leaping up, put his paws on his shoulder and looked at him as much as to say, 66 Ah, is it you, master Walter, how glad I am to see you!" There they all are, as you see them in the picture.

During the weeks of the holidays, Walter enjoyed everything at home more thad ever he had done before he left it. And when the time came for him to return, though he felt a little uneasiness when he parted with mother and Jane, he soon mustered up fortitude when his father said a few cheering words of encouragement to him.

The next half year Walter made more rapid progress, and when he had completed his fourteenth year, there were but two or three boys in the school, and they were older than himself, who were above him. For Walter, as I told you at first, was a clever boy, but his abilities would never have been brought out in the right way if his father had allowed him to stay at home doing little but play. Now, however, he had become a good scholar, and his father had the pleasure of seeing him grow up to be a smart and active youth, able to help him in his business, a comfort to his mother, and respected by all who knew him.

Yes: so it is, that boys and girls too, should be taught in this way that when they are old enough they must leave off childish ways, and learn how to be men and women. All of them require such discipline; and though they may not like it at first, it is sure to do them good afterwards. And as it is in schooling, so it is in religion. If young

people would have the favour of God, and they never can be happy without it, they must leave off playing, and take that good book in their hands, and listen to what the Son of God says, and learn of him to be wise, and good, and happy. In doing this they will have to leave off all sinful pleasures, and, if needs be, take up their cross to follow the Holy Saviour. But they will have a rich reward in the favour of God as long as they live, and glory, honour, immortality, in the eternal life which is yet to come.

THE SUMMER'S RETURN.

BENEATH an overspreading oak
I sat to muse one day;

The glorious sun, so matchless bright,
Was shining on his way;

The birds sung sweet, the soaring lark
Was carolling on high;

All nature smil'd in summer's pride,
Beneath a summer's sky.

Six months before I pass'd that way,
No flow'ret strew'd the ground;

The oak was bare, the winds were bleak,
Hard frost the streamlet bound;

I could not stay, but hurried on,

For home was better far,

Than standing midst the doleful wreck

Of winter's stormy war.

But now I linger'd, for the scene

Of winter drear was o'er,

And summer, with its liberal hand,

Had lavish'd forth its store:

Nought barren now, nor bleak, nor drear,
But beautiful and fair;