his adopted country during the war which finally resulted1 in detaching the Colonies from Great Britain and the establishment of the American Republic, the only successful example, on a large scale, that the world has ever seen, of a government maintained by the people and for the people."

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11. John Barry, an Irishman and a Catholic, the first in this country who bōre the title of Commodore, was the founder 4 of the American navy, at the head of which he continued until his death. He did not long survive the termination of his public services, but died at Philadelphia in the year 1803. All his life he had shown his fidělity to his religion by a strict observance 5 of its precepts, with which neither the perils nor the duties of a sea-faring life were ever allowed to interfere.

12. Just and kindly in all his dealings, he never failed to secure the good will of those under his command, although he was strict in enforcing due obedience. No one who had sailed with him as a seaman was ever known to speak of him but with affection and gratitude.

13. He was generous and charitable during his life, and at his death bequeathed the principal part of his wealth to the Catholic Orphan Asylum of Philadelphia. Our boys should learn from his example, that there is no station in life wherein a person may not serve God if he only has the will to do so.

II.

2. WILLIAM WORLEY.

ILLIAM WORLEY, the mōst useful and agreeable old man in our village, was a never failing resource when

I wanted something to do, and somebody to help and ǎmūse

1 Re sult'ed, terminated; ended; concluded.

2 De tăch'ing, separating; parting.

3 Main tained', kept up; not suffered to fail or decline.

4 Found'er, one from whom any. thing originates or begins.

5 Ob serv'ance, faithful or strict performance.

6 Be queathed', given or left by will to another.

"Rē source', that from which anything springs forth; hence, that to which one resorts. or on which one depends for supply or support.

me. Where he came from, I eän't1 tell, for he was not a native of the place, though he had been in it more years than I had lived.

2. He was a little man, with remarkably white hair and pink complexion; dressed in a blue coat and waistcoat; a hat of a broadish rim that regularly took a turn up behind. He invariably wore white lambs'-wool stockings and buckled shoes, and walked with a cane. It was evident that the old man was not a worker-Sundays and week-days, he was always dressed the same.

4

3. He lived in a small cottage in a retired gärden; and his wife was employed in nûrsing, so that he generally had the place all to himself, and was as glad of a companion as I was. He was a flōrist:3 his garden displayed showy beds of the most splendid auriculås, tulips, and polyanthuses;5 and it was a great delight to me to help him to weed his beds of a pleasant sunny morning, to arrange his glasses, and to listen to him while he praised his favorite flowers. I věrily believe that no such flowers were to be found elsewhere in the country.

4. But the place into which I should have desired to penetrate more than all was his bedroom. This seemed to be a perfect treasury of all sorts of good and curious things. Nuts and apples, walnuts, stuffed birds, walking-sticks, fishing-rods, flower-seeds of curious sorts, and various other desirable things from time to time came forth from thence in a manner which ōnly made me desire to see how many others were left behind. But into that sanctum honèst William never took anybody.

5. If my father wanted a walking-stick, he had only to give the slightest hint to William, and presently he would be seen coming in with one, varnished as bright as the flower of the meadow crowfoot. Indeed, his chief delights were to wander through the wood with his eyes on the watch for good sticks, or for curious birds, or to säunter along the meadows by the stream--angling and gossiping in a quiet way to some village listener, like myself, about a hundred country things.

6. People called him an idle man, because he never was at

1 Can't (känt), can not. 2 Been (bin).

3 Flō'rist, one skilled in the cultivation or câre of flowers.

1 Au rĭc'ū la, a kind of primrose,

called also, from the shape of its leaves, beâr's ear.

5 Pol'y ǎn'thus, a kind of flowering plant whose flower-stalks produce flowers in clusters.

work on anything that brought him in a penny. But he had no family to provide for, and his wife got enough, and they might have something besides, for aught I know; and why should he work for what he did not want? In my eyes he seemed, and seems still, one of the wisèst sort of men-always so occupied as to prevent the entry of an evil spirit.

7. He passed his time in innocent and agreeable occupations. His flowers, and his bees, and his birds-for he had always two or three that used to hang by the side of his cottage on fine days, and sing with all their might-were his constant delight. He knew whêre a fish was to be caught, or râre bird to be seen; and if you wanted a fishing-rod or a stick, he was happier to give it than you were to receive it.

8. There were a hundred little things that he was ever and

anon1 manufacturing, and giving to just the people that they would most please. A screw nut-cracker-was it not the věry thing to delight a lad like me? A bone apple-scoop-why, it was a treasure to some old person. A mouse-trap, or a mole-trap, or a fly-cage-he was the man that came quietly walking in with it just as you were lamenting the want of it. Nay, he was the man to set them, and come regularly to look åfter them, till they had done what they were wished to do.

9. If you wanted a person to carry a message, or go on some important little matter to the next village, you thought directly of William Worley, and he was sure to be in the way, and ready to take his stick and be off about it as seriously and earnestly as if he were to have ample reward for it. And ample reward he had the belief that he was of service to his neighbors. Honèst old William! he was one of a simple and true-hearted generation, and of that generation himself the simplest and truèst. Peace to his memory!

M

III.

3. CHINESE KITES.

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OST läughable are the contrasts presented in many of the habits of the Japanese and Chinese to those of Western nations. They mount their horses on the opposite side; their carpenters plane toward the person instead of from it; the men fly kites and spin tops, while the boys look on; their books read from top to bottom, and so on. Perhaps of all the odd practices thus indulged in, the one mōst easily to be accounted for, is the practice of kite-flying by grown-up men.

2. In Chinȧ, people say, and there is some truth in it, that the swaddled babe appears almost as solemn and as staid as a mandarin, 10 and that thêre, more than anywhere else, the child

is father of the man. The mǎndarïn looks like a giant child, the child a dwarf mandarin. The sobriety1 of age is combined with the plastic 2 nature of youth, and the ămusemènts of the little child are shared by the father, the grandfather, and the great-grandfather—all are kite-flyers. This may be still better understood, when it is explained that the kites of China and Japan are not the simple articles we usually know by that name, but are toys that vary greatly in sort, size, and shape, and are often high in price.

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3. Let us trănsport the reader to the suburbs of some Chinese city, whêre a whole group of boys are gathered together to see the wonders worked by thêir elders in the kite-flying art. There is a whiz, a buzz, a whirring music in the air; all sorts of grotesque objects are floating about, rising and falling and dancing to and fro; there are broad-winged birds, and manycolored dragons, lizards, bees, and butterflies, and painted circles and squares, and radiated 5 suns and moons and stars.

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4. Most of the kites have pendent tails, and strings in their centers, the linking line which connects these aërial monsters with the earth. Up these strings you see messengers ascending, and věry pretty and clever ones they are too. The butterfly messenger, which is about the best, is so made that it flutters open-winged right up to the kite, whence it instantly and quickly descends, having been collapsed and closed, on coming in contact with the kite, by means of a little spring which forms part of its mechanism.8

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5. The form of the ancient French kite was probably that of a beast, and not of a bird, as they call it a cerf-volant, a flying stag. The English kite took its name, no doubt, from the bird,

1 Sō'bri'e ty, the habit of soberness or temperance, as to the use of spirituous liquors; eälmnèss.

2 Plastic, having power to give fashion or form to a mass of matter; capable of being molded or formed.

3 Suburbs, places near to a city or large town.

4 Grotesque (grō těsk'), like the figures found in grottoes or caves; wildly formed; droll; läughable.

'Ra'di a'ted, formed of rays of

light diverging or påssing out from

a center.

6 Pěnd'ent, supported from above; suspended; hanging.

7 Col lǎpsed', closed by falling or sinking together.

8 Mechanism (měk'an ĭzm), the parts, taken together, by the action of which a machine produces its effects.

9 Ancient (an'shent), old; that happened or lived many years ago.