﻿228 PICTORIAL MISCELLANY. 



your balls and skipping-ropes put away, as the hot summer days 

 came on ; and now that these have vanished, and given place to 

 autumn, your amusements are again changed, and suited to the cool 

 bracing weather which every rolling season brings us. It is true, 

 the declining year, the dead and dying flowers, and the falling leaves, 

 suggest, particularly to those advanced in life, the end of life which 

 soon will overtake us all ; yet if they have lived good and virtuous 

 lives it will not come too soon. Some people seem to think that 

 our youthful days are our happiest, and that grown-up people 

 are always burdened with cares, and experience little or no happi- 

 ness. " Ah," says Mr. Croaker, " these boys and girls are very 

 happy noiv, but wait till they are grown-up men and women, and I 

 guess they will know what trouble is." Now, this is totally wrong, 

 I believe, if children are wise and good, and strive every day to be 

 belter, that their real enjoyments will increase as they go along, and 

 that the evening of their lives will be the happiest of all. Young 

 people generally do not realize what sin is, and hence their enjoy- 

 ments are in a measure innocent. But if, after they know what a 

 wrong action is, they love it, regardless of the laws of God, I do not 

 wonder that they feel guilty and unhappy, and have bad dreams. 

 Try Mark Forrester's advice, all you boys and girls, who are look- 

 ing for a long succession of stormy days by and by. If what he 

 says don't prove true, why you may say he is a story teller ! And 

 when you hear a person complaining of the misery of this world, and 

 speaking just as though we had been created to be made wretched, 

 run with all your might, for the fellow, in nine cases out of ten, 

 would pick your pocket if he could get a chance ! I have no doubt 

 that Mr. Croaker was a horse thief. 



Look abroad on yonder hill, and see what a variety of colors there 

 are on the trees. Red, green, yellow, white, orange, nearly every 

 hue you can imagine. And what a beautiful head-dress they make ! 

 It is related that the lady of the American minister to England once 

 attended a party given by Queen Victoria with a wreath of autumn 

 leaves around her head ; and that the persons present could not be 

 made to believe that they were of the natural colors. " Why,' 

 said the queen, "what a magnificent sight it must be to see your 

 forests, if they are as beautifully colored as your head-dress ! " True 



