Sickness came upon him just in the depth of winter. The sparks flew from his anvil never again, and the ringing music of his heavy hammer was still as death. Fever worked like madness in his brain; the tough sinews of his brawny arm were like untwisted cords, and all his strength was wasted by the burning disease. And then his mind became a prey to all terrible thoughts and forebodings; and destitution, suffering and starvation for his invalid wife and darling boy, seemed to stand in gaunt nakedness before him, to mock at his fears, to infuriate his reason, and to hasten his dissolution. Thus, speedily, did his life burn away at its altar, and not many days elapsed before John Watson was in his grave, and all the woful presages of his darkest hours were made real.

Esther Watson did not long survive her husband. The footsteps of consumption are ever sure, though they delay their approach to the tomb, sometimes, for many a long, weary day, until the victim is glad to exchange the bed of unceasing suffering, for the cold couch where the weary are at rest. The sudden and melancholy end of him upon whom she had ever leaned for support, and in whose bosom she had rested her head in sorrow and in joy, for many long years, was too severe a blow for her already wasted strength to bear up against, and from that hour she never lifted herself from her pillow.

It was mournful to see her dark eyes follow her devoted boy, as he moved about the house in deep sadness and melancholy moaning; for she knew that he would soon be left to the hard lot of a penniless orphan, and to the too often cruel neglect of an unfeeling world. With all his self-sacrificing toil, the blacksmith had never been able to put by anything for a rainy day, and the little place at Woodend was covered by a mortgage, that, with his other small debts, would more than consume what few dues were his. But the good woman was full of trust in her heavenly Father, and she was willing to leave her

spirited boy in his hands, confident that he would order all things well. Still, more than one painful thought for her orphan child, came across her departing spirit, and James already felt how dreadful it must be to have no father nor mother in the world, no friends, no cheerful home, and no house of shelter, except among a host of the sick, the halt, the lame, the maimed, the blind, the vicious and the deserted, in a poor-house!

He hardly heard, amid his great grief, his mother's dying blessing; and her words of comfort and advice fell upon his unwilling ear as though they had not been uttered. But his impassioned caresses, and his fervent prayers to heaven, could not delay the departure of a spirit to the land of shadows; and he scarcely knew she was dead, until her cold lips gave back no answer to his warm kisses. And then it seemed that his poor heart must break, from the intensity of his sorrow. But there is no permanent misery that does not flow from guilt; and as James knew nothing of this, he began, after a few days, to be cheerful, and even happy. It is true he shed many bitter tears alone; and he dreamed many a time of the cold, damp graves of his departed parents, and saw them in the mournful death-robes in which they were placed in the narrow house. And he never forgot the pleasant scenes of his childhood-the earnest degotion of his mother's affection, or the sterner strength of his father's love, both exhibited in a thousand nameless ways. But he ever thought of them as angels of God; and it seemed to him that their cheering faces were looking down upon him from every fleecy cloud, and from every radiant star: for they were children of the covenant, and had taught him of that home where all are holy, and by their excellent example had led the way for him; and he began to believe it to be even better to have friends in heaven, than upon this fleeting earth.

In the poor-house to which he was taken, there was food enough to eat, and he did not want for clothing; but the inmates were treated as though the poor were not as good in the sight of heaven as those who possessed wealth. Would that this were the fault of public establishments for paupers alone; but it is too generally the characteristic of every day life. How frequently have we seen the eloquent tear stand trembling in the eye of injured indigence, while the tongue made no complaint, and a smile of content has forced itself upon the placid countenance ! By far too much of the professed christianity in the world is only canting formalism, while there is scarcely a spark of true benevolence in the soul-a lifeless, hypocritical pretence, that gives us virtue in words, but vice in deeds.

The pauper-lad felt this, in the treatment of the overseers of the town's poor; and then he began to feel how hard it was to want the watchful care of devoted love, and even the home of poverty. No one taught him the principles of knowledge; no one unfolded to him the sublime lore of the Book of Inspiration; no one knelt with him at the altar of devotion; no one spoke kindly to him :—and in the deep bitterness of his lonely destitution, he determined to leave a place that to him was only gloom and misery. The manly strength of his father's nature came over him, and he felt that he could knock at the great door of the world, and, if necessary, force an entrance, and build a temple for himself. Thought to the young heart is but resolution; and this is half the battle of life— for a strong heart makes a strong arm. The next day found James Watson in the streets of a New England city, without a penny in his pocket, or a friend within its precincts; and yet, with only twelve years upon his brow, his heart beat with a confidence that would have been creditable to ripened manhood.

"Sir, can you tell me of a man who wants a boy to work for him, and will let him study in the evenings?"

This question was addressed to a benevolent gentleman in the street, by the poor boy, who came running up to him, just as if he felt sure that the well-dressed stranger could and would give the information desired. The lad was clothed in the garb of the workhouse, and his thick, heavy shoes were covered with the dust of travel; but his fine, mantling brow, and quick, intelligent eye, no less than his honest simplicity, attracted the gentleman's notice.

"What is your name, my lad?"

"James Watson, sir?

"Whose boy are you-and where do you live, my little fellow?"

"I have no parents, and have just run away from the workhouse, because they do not treat me kindly, and will not teach me."

He had met with a true disciple of Him who went about doing good; and there was something so confiding, artless and genuine in the boy's whole manner, bespeaking him to be no ordinary lad, that the stranger took him to his home. Upon conference with the town authorities from whence he came, he learned the whole of his short history, and then took him into his family as an inmate. Mr. Newton was at the head of a benevolent institution, and while he could make James useful, he could also afford him time for study, and aid in the acquisition of knowledge. He had found just the home he wanted; and then he remembered his fond mother's injunction, given to him again and again, and repeated upon her dying bed, "Be faithful, honest, and diligent, and friends will always be found, and the Lord will protect you." Faithfulness and diligence became the characteristics of his life, and every day won for him a warmer regard, and a wider field for the exercise of his growing powers.

Under the direction of his benefactor, the boy applied himself in his leisure hours to the acquisition of scientific

knowledge; and he kept ever in his mind, as a motive power, the maxim, "Attempt great things-expect great things." With an enthusiastic temperament, and a heart all faith, he knew nothing impossible; and with characteristic self-reliance he put himself to every pursuit with an end in view, and he never rested till he saw that end accomplished. He mastered all the common studies of the schools with surprising alacrity. He entered the vast field of language with a keen zest, learned to read Latin and Greek with critical accuracy, spoke French with the most accomplished of scholars, and became deeply versed in mathematical truths. The latter was his favorite study, and finally it became to him little more than a pastime to search through and elucidate the most profound and difficult problems. And all this was the result of the faithful improvement of leisure hours, and the faithful application of common talents; for James Watson was not a genius, according to the common notion of that character, and gained no harvest that was not reaped by determined, patient, thorough labor.

Man is, doubtless, as a general fact, in respect to character and intellectual greatness, just what he wishes to be. The primary principles of mental developement are the same in all ages and in all climates. They are unalterably fixed in the physical and moral constitution of mankind. They are to be found in our affections and passions, and are developed for good or evil, for impotence or for power, just in proportion as we restrain or cherish and give them right or wrong direction. Character is but the congregated unity of multifarious habits; and these are to be referred to the aspect, influence and teachings of every thing about us, assimilating with and sinking into the mind, until they become, as it were, a part of it; and they never cease to sway the entire soul. The desires that predominate in our hearts, says Dr. Johnson, are instilled by imperceptible communications, at the