birds, the skins of animals, the products of insects; even dust and pebbles contribute to adorn them. How absurd is pride in dress!

Think, too, that no clothes, however fine, can improve the mind or heart of the wearer. Put a purple robe on an ignorant youth, place a diamond necklace on an illtempered girl, and they will remain just what they were.

Think, also, of the solemn fact of which all dress is a memorial: but for sin, it would never have covered the limbs, or occupied for a moment the attention of the mind; and sin is our shame.

TRY!

Little folks may have troubles, and great they may seem To those who will only recount them;

But the greatest may vanish away like a dream,

If only you try to surmount them.

Put forth your whole mind, and you'll quickly perceive,
While youth yet exults in its prime,

That what you call wonders e'en you may achieve,
By trying one thing at a time.

ONE day a little boy was learning to write; he had surmounted the difficulty of straight strokes-for difficult they are at first-and a harder copy was set. The child looked at it again and again, but at the sight he was greatly disheartened; it seemed impossible that he could form such lines, and

bursting into tears, he said, "I cannot do it."

His judicious and kind friend and tutor did not chide him, but taking him by the hand, soothed his troubled spirit, and said: "The wise and active conquer difficulties by daring to attempt them. Sloth and folly shiver and shrink at the sight of toil and danger, and make the impossibilities they fear:-TRY!" The pupil returned to his task with new confidence; the trifling difficulty he felt was soon overcome; but the lesson he had received was a lesson for life. Often did he relate this incident with interest. "Try," was constantly his motto, and he urged others also to make it theirs.

To show what regard to it will do, let us look at Mr. Moffat, the African missionary. A long journey was determined on as very desirable, but, alas! there was only one wagon, and that he says, "was a cripple;" what was to be done? No smiths nor carpenters were to be found in that desert, and the missionary had not been used to work at the bench or the anvil;-but I will let him tell his own tale. "After ruminating for a day or two on what I had seen in smiths'

shops in Cape Town, I resolved on making a trial, and got a native bellows, made of goat's skin, to the neck end of which was attached the horn of an elk, and at the other end two parallel sticks were fastened, which were opened by the hand in drawing it back, and closed when pressed forward, but making a puffing like something broken-winded. The iron was only red-hot after a good perspiration, when I found I must give it up as a bad job, observing to the chief, if I must accompany him, it must be on the back of an ox. Reflecting again on the importance of having a wagon for the purpose of carrying food, when game happened to be killed, (for our sole dependance was on the success of hunting,) and Africaner evidently not liking, on my account, to go without a wagon, I set my brains again to work, to try and improve on the bellows-for it was wind I wanted; though I had never welded a bit of iron in my life, there was nothing like 'Try.' I engaged the chief to have two goats killed, the largest on the station, and their skins prepared entire, in the native way, till they were as soft as cloth. These skins now resembled bags, the open ends of which I nailed to the

edge of a circular piece of board, in which was a valve; one end of the machine was connected with the fire, and had a weight on it to force out the wind, when the other end was drawn out to supply more air. This apparatus was no sooner completed than it was put to the test, and the result answered satisfactorily, in a steady current of air; and soon I had all the people around me, to witness my operations with the new-fangled bellows. Here I sat receiving their praises, but heartily wishing their departure, lest they should laugh at my burning the first bit of iron I took in my hands to weld. A blue granite stone was my anvil; a clumsy pair of tongs, indicative of Vulcan's first efforts; and a hammer never intended for the work of a forge. My first essay was with some trepidation, for I did not like so many lookers-on; success, however, crowned my efforts, to the no small delight of the spectators."

John Hunter obtained great celebrity, and was the means of doing great good to multitudes, by adopting the same motto, "Try!" He often told his friends that for thirty years, summer and winter, the sun