THE BEE AND THE WASP.

133

There is another kind of wanton mischief, which consists in playing off cruel jokes upon one another, or upon harmless animals. Some boys, for instance, will conspire to give one of their companions a fright in a dark place: this they consider fun; but it is very wicked fun, because it is sure to be very painful and distressing to the boy who is the subject of the joke. Boys, thus frightened, have in some instances been deprived of their reason. Sometimes, too, it is considered good fun to deceive a simple boy, by telling him gross falsehoods; but this is also a bad kind of amusement. If we would not like to be so frightened or deceived ourselves, it cannot be right to frighten or deceive others. To tie tin canisters to the tails of dogs, or to cause dogs to worry cats, or to throw stones at birds, are all of them bad kinds of fun, for they give pain to harmless creatures, and do no real good to ourselves.

There is still a worse kind of wanton mischief, but very few are so wicked as to practise it. It generally happens when one man has conceived a great spite at another: he goes by night to woods belonging to that person, and cuts down his young trees; or to his fields, and maims his cattle or horses, or turns up his pasture-land. All good people loathe and hate the wretches who commit such malignant acts.

THE BEE AND THE WASP: A FABLE.

A wasp met a bee, and said to him, "Pray, can you tell me the reason that men are so ill-natured to me, while they are so fond of you? We are both very much alike, only that the broad golden rings about my body make me much handsomer than you are; we are both winged insects, we both love honey, and we both sting people when we are angry; yet men always hate me, and try to kill me, though I am much more familiar with them than you are, and pay them visits in their houses, and at their tea-table, and at all their meals: while you are very shy, and hardly ever come near them: yet they build you curious houses, thatched with straw, and take care of, and feed you, very often in the winter:-I wonder what is the reason!"

The bee said, "Because you never do them any good.

but, on the contrary, are very troublesome and mischievous; therefore they do not like to see you; but they know that I am busy all day long in making them honey. You had better spend less time in paying unwelcome visits, and more in endeavouring to make yourself useful."

THE ELEPHANT AND THE TAILOR.

An East Indian tailor, who carried on his business in a small booth having an open window to the street, was one day busy making some very fine clothes. An elephant, passing along to the water, put in his trunk at the tailor's window, not meaning to do any harm. The tailor, from mere wantonness, pricked the trunk with his needle, whereupon the elephant hastily withdrew, and jogged on its way to the water-side. The act of the tailor was cruel and unprovoked, and you will see how it was punished. The elephant, taking up a great quantity of water into its trunk and mouth, soon after reappeared at the tailor's window, and discharging the whole at him, wet him all over, spoilt the fine clothes he was making, and made him a laughing-stock to all his neighbours.

THE INCHCAPE BELL.

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The ship was still as a ship might be :
Her sails from heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.

Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flow'd over the Inchcape rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape bell.
(The worthy abbot of Aberbrothock
Had floated that bell on the Inchcape rock;
On the waves of the storm it floated and swung,
And louder and louder it warning rung.

When the rock was hid by the tempest's swell,
The mariners heard the warning bell;
And then they knew the perilous rock,
And bless'd the priest of Aberbrothock.)

THE INCHCAPE BELL.

The float of the Inchcape bell was seen,
A darker speck on the ocean green:
Sir Ralph the Rover walk'd his deck,
And he fix'd his eye on the darker speck.
His eye was on the bell and float:
Quoth he, "My men put out the boat,
And row me to the Inchcape rock,
And I'll plague the priest of Aberbrothock."

The boat is lower'd, the boatmen row,
And to the Inchcape rock they go:
Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,
And cut the warning bell from the float.

Down sank the bell with a gurgling sound,
The bubbles arose, and burst around;

Quoth Sir Ralph, "The next who comes to this rock,
Will not bless the priest of Aberbrothock."

Sir Ralph the Rover sail'd

away,

He scour'd the seas for many a day;

And now grown rich with plunder'd store,
He steers his course to Scotland's shore.

So thick a haze o'erspreads the sky,
They cannot see the sun on high:
The wind had blown a gale all day,
At evening it had died away.

"Canst hear," said one, "the breakers roar?
For yonder, methinks, should be the shore;
Now where we are I cannot tell,

But I wish we could hear the Inchcape bell!"
They hear no sound, the swell is strong,
Though the wind hath fallen, they drift along,
Till the vessel strikes with a shiv'ring shock-
Oh, Heavens! it is the Inchcape rock!

Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair,
He curst himself in his despair;
But the waves rush in on every side,
And the vessel sinks beneath the tide.

135

He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made. His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.-Psalm, vii. 15, 16.

It is as sport to a fool to do mischief; but a man of understanding hath wisdom.-Proverbs, x. 23.

He that diligently seeketh good procureth favour: but he that secketh mischief, it shall come unto him.-Proverbs, xi. 27.

TRUTH.

It is of great importance that the truth should be observed and adhered to on all occasions and on all subjects.

If a man, walking along a road, weary with his day's journey, were to meet a boy in a village, and to ask him how far it was to the next town; and if the boy were to say it was two miles, when it was six; and if the man, encouraged by the intelligence, were to walk on, when otherwise he would have stopped and lodged in the village; it is evident that a great injury would be done to him by the boy. Perhaps the poor traveller might be like to sink with fatigue before he could reach the town; perhaps the great additional exertion might throw him into a sickness from which he would with difficulty recover. The boy, by saying what was false, would be the sole cause of this mischief.

Suppose two boys, John and James, had two balls like each other, but John's a little better than James's. Suppose that James were to pretend that John's ball was his, and were to appeal for the truth of what he said to a lesser boy Henry, whom he sometimes beat. If Henry, knowing well the ball to be John's, were, from dread of a beating, to say it was James's, he would be doing what was grievously injurious to John, the real owner of the ball. It is very likely that John, in such circumstances, would endeavour to retain his ball, and that James would try to take it

from him by force; James might even strike John, and then they would fall a-fighting. If at this moment the

master came out, and asked who began the fray; if Henry, still from dread of James, were to say that John began it, he would be saying something also very wicked, for the master would probably visit John with his severe displeasure, or inflict some actual punishment upon him. Thus Henry, by telling two lies to save himself from the threat of a bully, would be the cause of a great deal of mischief.

Amongst men, in the affairs of the world, far greater evils arise from lying. Many a one has lost his life in consequence of a neighbour giving false evidence against him. This is not now very common; but many are still injured in their good name, and their property, and their various other interests, through the falsehoods told of them by deceitful and ill-designing persons. We can thus easily see how important it is that every one who wishes to do good in the world instead of evil, should accustom himself, from his earliest years, to speak only the truth.

False speaking is of several kinds, not all alike wicked or injurious, but all of them to be condemned and avoided. Generally, when a young person has done any wrong, or any thing which he fears will be unpleasing to his parents, he denies it when he is accused. This is because he thinks of nothing but how he may escape blame or punishment. If he could reason, he would see that it is better for him to tell the truth, even at some little hazard, for one lie leads to another-many make a habit-and a habit of lying makes any person utterly detestable, and no one then believes a word that he says.

To tell a lie for the purpose of obtaining any thing, is as bad as to tell one to escape blame. If a little boy, for instance, after getting from his mamma the penny which she usually gives him every Saturday, were to come to his father and pretend that she had no halfpence, and had not been able to give him his penny, this being with the view of getting a second penny from his papa, he would be telling a shameful lie, and his second penny would be a mere theft.

To tell a falsehood respecting a neighbour, either to save