3. "I will tell you," said the farmer, "what was my principal fault, when I was a lad; I could never be contented in doing one thing at a time. Many a scrape I got into on account of this failing; and I often think, that if I had not broken through the habit, I should not own such a farm as I have now got.

4. "I remember once going with my father to a church at some distance and a grand church it was and so after service I looked about me there was a marble monument of a great hero who had died in the defense of his country and another put up for a great writer of books at one end of the church printed in gold letters were the names of some noblemen who had left money and land to the poor and at the other the name of a church-warden who had given I know not how much towards repairing and beautifying the church.

5. "As soon as I came out, Father, said I, how I should like to be a great hero, and die for my country; and write learned books; and have a marble monument; and give money to the poor; and repair and beautify the church! Stop! stop! said my father, not so fast. Attend to one thing at a time; for

if you are to be a great hero, as you say, and die for your country, I hardly know how you will contrive to write learned books, and give money to the poor, to say nothing about repairing and making the church beautiful.

6. "The very next day I was out with my father, when, by some accident, a wagon load of hay was thrown over, and the shafta horse lay kicking and plunging on the ground. I cried out directly, Draw the wagon back! Cut the belly-band! Hold the horse's head down, and loosen theb—

7. "Hold! hold, my lad, cried my father, and do let us be satisfied in doing one thing at a time.' So I held down the horse's head, he unhooked the back chain and belly-band, and loosened the traces, and in two minutes the horse was on his legs; and presently after, all the hay was in the wagon again; and I saw the advantage of doing one thing at a time.

8. "Never shall I forget what a piece of businessd I made of it one day when I went to market. I had a good large basket of eggs to sell, and was told to order several things to be sent home. Theree was a new red waistcoat of my father's to be sent from the tailor's, a loaf of lump sugar-which was then a great luxury-from the grocer's, and other things from other places.

9. "Now it happened that I did not sell all my eggs, and as I thought it would be of no use for the tailor and the other people to send their things, when I could take them all home myself, I called for the waistcoat,e and the sugar-loaf,e and the other articles, putting the waistcoat carefully at the bottom of my basket, and the eggsf at the top, and spreading a clean cloth over them all, I mounted Dobbin to ride home.

10. "At first I walked Dobbin quietly along, but thinking it might save a journey if I rode half a mile round, to call on a neighboringe farmer, whom my father had directed me to see the next day, about some turnip-seed, I set Dobbin off in a trot, quite forgetting the eggs in my basket. When I got home, the first thing my father did was to ask if I had remembered to call about his waistcoat.

11. “I told him that I had not only called, but brought it with me; and the loaf of sugar, and the other things; and called on Farmer Reynolds into the bargain. Ah! that is just like you, said he, you must do every thing or nothing; but I hope you have no eggs in your basket. Then it was, for the first time, that my mind misgave me; but when my father went to the basket to take out his waistcoat, what a cry did he set up!

12. "As I trotted Dobbin along, the sugar-loaf had jumped up and down; the eggs had got under it, and every one of them was broken or cracked upon my father's red waistcoat. I thought I should never hear the last about it ;g for my father talked to me for an hour, and finished by saying, that he hoped this would cure me ;g that in future I should call to mind his red waistcoat, and content myself with doing one thing at a time.c

13. "Some time after, being out in the fields at work, our dog was running after some birds that were flying about and picking up the seeds. The dog chased first one and then another, but never caught any. Look there, Joe, said my father, that dog is very much like a son of mine. Why so, replied I; he is running after the birds, but he does not seem to catch any. No, Joe, said my father, and he is not likely to catch any while he plays that game; for, like some people we know, he is not contented with doing one thing at a time.

14. "At last I was thoroughly cured; for a fire broke out in the kitchen, soon after we were in bed, and up we got in a pretty bustle, as you may suppose. As soon as I saw the fire,

I called out as loud as I could, Pump some water! Run and alarm neighbor Yates! Get the goods out of the house! Cry fire! Raise the neighborhood!

15. "My father soon stopped my foolish bawling, and by attending properly to one thing at a time, put out the fire. I was terribly alarmed, and saw so clearly the advantage of my father's plan, that I was determined to adopt it; and ever since then, whatever has been the occasion, I have triedh to omit nothing that ought to be done, and have generally succeeded in my undertaking, by doing only one thing at a time."

a How many meanings? Why a bar? c Why italics? d See Dictionary. e Sound of vowel? g Why semicolon? ƒ Why not egs? h Why not tryed? Sound of vowel ?

What was

No. 1. Who were sitting round the fire? When was this? Farmer Bloomfield's principal failing? When did he ever go with his father? What did he see there? What did he ask his father? What did he tell him? What happened the next day? What did his father say? For what did he go to market? What did he carry home and how? What did his father say to him? How did the vest look? To what did he compare his Bon? What of the fire? What plan did he determine to adopt?

No. 1. Beautifying, beautiful, suppose, accident, advantage, foolish, attending, thoroughly, principal.

No. 6. Punctuate fourth verse.

No. 12. Let the teacher put a whole line at a time, and require one pupil to spell one word, the next pupil the second, and so on through each pupil, pronouncing from the beginning of the sentence.

LESSON XLV.

CRUELTY.

1. NOTHING can be more contrary to nature, to reason, to religion, than cruelty. Hence an inhuman man is generally considered as a monster. Such monsters, however, have existed; and the heart almost bleeds at the recital of the cruel acts such have been guilty of. It teaches us, however, what human nature is, when left to itself; not only treacherous above all things, but desperately wicked.

2. Commodus, the Roman emperor, when but twelve years old, gave a shocking instance of his cruelty, when, finding the water in which he bathed somewhat too warm, he commanded the person who attended the bath to be thrown into the furnace,

nor was he satisfied till those who were about him pretended to put his order in exectuion. After his succession to the empire, he equalled, if he did not exceed in cruelty, Caligula, Domitian, and even Nero himself; playing, we may say, with the blood of his subjects and fellow creatures, of whom he caused great numbers to be racked and butchered in his presence, merely for his diversion. Historians relate many instances of his cruelty. He caused one to be thrown to the wild beasts for reading the life of Caligula, written by Suetonius; because that tyrant and he had been born on the same day of the month, and in many bad qualities resembled each other. Seeing one day a corpulent man pass by, he immediately cut him asunder; partly to try his strength, in which he excelled all men, and partly out of curiosity, as himself owned, to see his entrails drop out at once. He took pleasure in cutting off the feet and putting out the eyes of such as he met in his rambles through the city. Some he murdered because they were negligently dressed; others because they seemed trimmed with too much nicety. He assumed the name and habit of Hercules, appearing publicly in a lion's skin with a huge club in his hand, and ordering several persons, though not guilty of any crime, to be disguised like monsters, that, by knocking out their brains, he might have a better claim to the title, the great destroyer of monsters. He however was destroyed in his turn: Martia, one of his concubines, whose death he had prepared, poisoned him; but as the poison did not quickly operate, he was strangled by a wrestler in the 31st year of his age.

3. In Italy, during the greater part of the sixteenth century, assassinations, murders, and even murders under trust, seem to have been almost familiar among the superior ranks of people. Cæsar Borgia invited four of the little princes in his neighborhood, who all possessed sovereignties, and commanded armies of their own, to a friendly conference at Senigaglia, where as soon as he arrived he put them all to death.

4. History records but few characters more cruel than Charles IX. It is said, that when he observed several fugitive Huguenots about his palace, in the morning after the dreadful massacre of 30,000 of their friends, he took a fowling piece, and repeatedly fired at them. That this prince was naturally barbarous we may learn from the following anecdote: One day, when he amused himself with rabbit hunting, "Make them all come out," said he, "that I may have the pleasure of killing them all."

5. This sanguinary monarch died very wretched, for he expired bathed in his own blood, which burst from his own veins, and in his last moments he exclaimed-" What blood!-what murders!-I know not where I am!-how will all this end?what shall I do ?-I am lost forever!-I know it!"

ter.

6. The late celebrated king of Prussia, intending to make in the night, an important movement in his camp, which was in sight of the enemy, gave orders that by eight o'clock all the lights in the camp should be put out on pain of death. The moment that the time was past, he walked out to see whether all were dark. He found a light in the tent of a Captain Zietern, which he entered just as the officer was folding up a letZietern knew him, and instantly fell on his knees to entreat his mercy. The king asked to whom he had been writing he said it was a letter to his wife, which he had retained the candle these few minutes beyond the time in order to finish. The king coolly ordered him to rise, and write one line more which he should dictate. This line was, to inform his wife, without any explanation, that by such an hour the next day he should be a dead man. The letter was then sealed and dispatched as it had been intended, and the next day the captain was executed.

The cruel Parent.

The honorable Commodore Byron was an eye witness to the following shocking scene of brutal rage on the coast of Patagonia. I shall present the reader with it in his own words. "Here I must relate a little anecdote of our Christian cacique. He and his wife had gone off at some distance from the shore, in their canoe, when she dived for sea eggs; but not meeting with great success, they returned a good deal out of humor. A little boy of theirs, about three years old, whom they appeared to be dotingly fond of, watching for his father and mother's return, ran into the surf to meet them. The father handed a basket of sea eggs to the child, which being too heavy for him to carry, he let it fall; upon which the father jumped out of the canoe, and catching the boy up in his arms, dashed him with the utmost violence against the stones! The poor little creature lay motionless and bleeding, and in that condition was taken up by the mother, but died soon after. She appeared inconsolable for some time, but the brute, his father, showed little concern about it."