Useful, Scientific, &(. 
■Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker, 
TALKS ABOTJT CHEMISTRY - No. II. 
THE METALLIC ELEMENTS. 
A METAL, as known in Chemistry, is an element 
or simple body, a conductor of electricity, caloric or 
heat, and may be fused. The number of distinct 
metals is fifty, though a majority of them arc of 
little or no eousequence in the arts and sciences. 
Their names are gold, silver, platinum, mercury, 
iron, copper, zinc, tin, lead, potassium, ammonium, 
(considered by many not an element,) aluminium, so¬ 
dium, calcium, magnesium, lithium, barium, stronti¬ 
um, glucinum, zirconium, thorium, ittrium, erbium, 
terbium, cerium, lanthauium, didymium, mauganese, 
chromium, cobalt, nickel, cadmium, titanium, bis¬ 
muth, antimony, uranium, tungsten, molybdenum, 
vanadium, osmium, iridium, palladium, rhodium, 
ruthenium, arsenic, columbium, niobium, pelopi- 
uffl, tellurium and tantalium. 
Great diversity exists iu the nature of metals and 
their uses. Those denominated the noble ones are 
gold, silver, platinum and mercury —the first two 
generally called precious because used as money, and . 
of their great importance in the arts. Platinum is 
used in some countries as mouey, its value being 
about half that of gold, and, like mercury, iudis- 
pensable to the scientific. While some metals are 
flexible and ductile, others arc laminable, or may be. 
reduced to powder, or rendered a metallic liquid by 
acids, and again solidified, as in gilding, plating or 
electrotyping. Muriatic and nitric acids combined 
(aqua regia) make the most powerful dissolvent. 
Some of the metals are found in combination with 
other Bubstances, and may be reduced to a state of 
purity by beat, as, for Instance) irou, the ore of which 
is an oxide, with sulphur and other impurities. An 
intense heat drives off the foreign substances, the 
irou is melted and cast into “ pigs.” It contains now 
much carbon, extremely bard, but is deprived of this 
element and rendered soft and malleable (wrought 
irou) by further heating and the trip-hammer. The • 
eulphuvet of lead (galena) is also easily reduced by 
heat, the sulphur passing off iu vapor. Goldiaalways 
found iu a metallic shite. A fe w of the other metals 
arc sometimes found pure or nearly so—silver, mer¬ 
cury, arsenic, copper and some others. Two or more 
metals or their oxides are frequently combined in 
the same mass or ore, as silver and lead, cobalt and 
nickel, or platinum, palladium, rhodium and iron. 
The separation of such metals aud the impurities 
from them requires complex processes. 
All metals unite with oxygen; also, with each 
other iu any proportion. The oxides of most metals 
are dissolved in water or other liquids, but may be 
again solidified and mobilized. The ocean contains 
immense quantities of metals in a liquid form, among 
them sodium. Soda, procured from the ashes of 
marine plants, is carbou, oxygen and the metallic 
base, sodium. Pure soda is au oxide of the metal. 
The ocean is rich in some of the most important 
metals, among them silver takes a prominent place. 
The soil contains many oxides of metals, as iron, 
aluminium, potassium aud calcium; being dissolved 
they enter largely into the composition of vegetation; 
also of animals, among them man. Thccoloringof va¬ 
rious kiuds of soil is owing much to the oxide of iron. 
Aluminium is the metallic base of clay soil,—alumina 
is the oxide of that metal. Potash of commerce 
consists of carbon, oxygen aud the metal potassium. 
Potassais the oxide of potassium, takeu up iu a liquid 
6tate by vegetable substances,—the lye of wood ashes 
contains it in solution. Limestone—much of it—is 
carbonic acid and calcium, (lime;) as are also marble 
and chalk. Quick lime (limestone or marble burned) is 
the oxide of calcium. Gypsum or plaster is sulphuric 
acid combined with lime, aud is much more soluble in 
pure water than the carbonate — limestoue—though 
water containing carbonic acid dissolves it readily. 
The incrustation on the inside of tea-kettles and 
boilers is usually carbonate of lime; sometimes it 
is a sulphate combined with other earthy matter. 
Many thousands of degrees of heat are required to 
fuse some of the metals, while others melt at a lower 
temperature than boiling water—212 deg. Potassium 
melts at 154 deg. aud sodium at 104, while platinum 
aud iridium require the most, intense heat. Cast irou 
melts at 8,479; cobult, 2,800; silver, 2,283; gold, 3,- 
010; copper, 1,990. Mercury becomes a solid at 40 
deg. below zero, called freezing. It bolls at 602 deg. 
and passes away in vapor — resolvable again into a 
metal by condensation, like steam into water. 
The specific gravity (weight) of metals varies ma¬ 
terially, Some of them swim on water, (sodium 
and potassium;) others are many times as heavy. 
Platinum, when pure, is the heaviest substance 
known—21 % times heavier than water. To find 
the specific gravity of a metal weigh it in that flnid. 
Take a piece of iron weighing 1% ounces and weigh 
it suspended in water; it will weigh one ounce less; 
its specific gravity is 1%—114 times as heavy as its 
bulk in liquid displaced. Sp. gr. of gold lOjq. l. 
--^ .» » ». »-- 
A LOCOMOTIVE FOR COMMON ROADS. 
Mr. R. W. Thomson of Edinburg, has at length to 
all appearance succeeded in making a steam locomo¬ 
tive tit for common roads. Hitherto it has been 
very difficult to use steam power ou ordiuary roads, 
for this reason, that if the wheels of the engines are 
made smooth they fail to bite the road, aud slip in¬ 
stead of rolling, while, on the other hand, if the 
wheels arc roughened by spikes or other means they 
destroy the macadam. The invention of Mr. Thom¬ 
son iu his new road steamer, is an exceedingly sim¬ 
ple one, and promises to be effective. Iu a road 
engine which he has prepared for the island of Java, 
he has made the tires of vulcanized India rubber. 
They are twelve inches broad, and five inches thick. 
The engine to which they are fixed weighs between 
four and five tons, and yet the wheels, when mov¬ 
ing over soft, bad roads, or a soft grass field, do not 
sink in the slightest degree, and scarcely leave their 
impress behind, owiug to the elastic and cushion- 
like character of the material forming the tires of 
the wheels. 
The trials that have been made with the road 
6teamer in the vicinity of Edinburg show that a 
hard rigid material is not necessary for biting power 
in the wheel tires. Also that the rubber has an 
arnouut of durability lieyoud conception. No trace 
of wear has shown itself on the surface of the rub¬ 
ber, even though the trials have been made over j 
roads laid with material of the most testing char¬ 
acter, such as broken aud angular flints. The engine 
was constructed to draw an omnibus weighing (with 
its load of say thirty passengers) about four tons, on 
a level road; but, in one of its trials, it ascended a 
hilly incline of one in twelve, with a huge steam 
■ boiler in tow, weighing, wiih its truck, between 
twelve, and thirteeu tons. Its speed is from niue 
to ten miles per hour. Messrs. Fowler & Co. of 
1 Leeds are so satisfied with what they have seen of 
\ these trials at Edinburg, that they are about to test 
Thomsou’s India rubber tire system for themselves 
on their own traction engines. 
But the most hopeful tokeu of success is this, that 
it is guaranteed by tlic name of Mr. Thomson, whose 
inventive faculty has already reached remarkable 
success. In the late exposition at Paris he showed 
a rotary engine, which is of the; most ingenious 
description, and which has gone farther than any 
similar attempt to show the possibility of producing 
such an engine—one of the chief puzzles of practical 
mechanics. He also, if I mistake not, is the inventor 
of the portable steam crane, lie made this machine, 
by a very simple expedient—that of placing the 
steam engine on the platform of the crane as the 
counterpoise of the load to be lifted. The engine 
beiDg then part and parcel of the crane, could be 
moved with it at pleasure .—Once a Week. 
-- 
ELECTRICAL PHENOMENON. 
The Rochester Union recently said:—One of 
the most beautiful electrical phenomena imaginable 
was witnessed last evening in the office of the 
Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Line. Wire No. 1 of 
this line was down between this city and Syracuse. 
Suddenly it was discovered that neither wire would 
work. A continuous enrreut of electricity was then 
observed to be passing over the wires through the 
several instruments, and this while the batteries 
were detached. The current seemed to be of the 
volume of a medium-sized pipe-stem, and it gave 
the several colors of the rainbow, beautiful to be¬ 
hold. With the key open, the eurreut flowed in 
waves or undulations, aud from the surcharged wire 
it would leap over the insulated portions of the key 
aud flow along the wires beyond. The same phe- 
uomeuou was observed at Buffalo and Cleveland. 
The gas in the office here was lighted without diffi¬ 
culty by holding the end of a wire within an inch or 
two of the gas burner. The current was intense 
enough to shock one holding the wires or instru¬ 
ments—indeed, one of the employes of the office had 
his fingers scorched by the current. With closed 
keys the current was continuous, as before, stated. 
The explanation given by an experienced electri¬ 
cian is that the air being cold in extreme, the equi¬ 
librium of the electricity had become disturbed, and 
the current had left the ground, where it travels in 
warm weather, and had followed the air Upon 
this theory tire Aurora Borealis is accounted for. 
Iu noticing this fact the Uniou says :—A portion of 
the Irrepressible Conflict Speech of Win, H. Seward, 
in this city, a few years since, was telegraphed to 
New York and from Boston to Portland by the 
electrical influence of the Aurora Borealis—all the 
batteries on the line being detached. This feat, it 
is said, has never been repeated. 
Itowns Injrics. 
A BEAUTIFUL HOME-PICTURE. 
Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker. 
FREEDOM OF THE NECK. 
This was the cry which rang through the land in 
revolutionary times, after the heroes of that day had 
incurred the displeasure of the British Crown by 
making a declaration of independence. It was a 
bold step, involving great risk of life by signing the 
same, so that our forefathers were not only fighting 
for freedom from tyranny and oppression, but of their 
necks from the halter. 
But we design to speak of another kind of free¬ 
dom, not only of the neck, but also of the throat aud 
lungs from coughs, colds aud bronchial diseases that 
lead to pulmonary complaints. Many remedies have 
been invented and tried, for the relief of those thus 
affected, aun by tins time tue reader has perhaps 
begun to think we are about to introduce some new 
medical patent. In this, however, he is mistaken; 
for though some of these may be valuable, yet more 
patients have been relieved by them of their cash 
than of disease. We would offer a little advice 
from our own experience, which consists not in 
internal but external remedies; not in putting on 
outward applications but in taking them off. Those 
who are the most careful in keeping ou mufflers and 
neck-ties to avoid exposure to the air defeat the end 
they are tryiug to gain, especially if in usual health. 
Now, it is quite impossible to entirely exclude cool 
air from the throat, and by trying to do so that part 
of the body becomes tender and sensitive, and by 
exercise moist with perspiration, being in the right 
condition to take cold by every new change of 
weather in this variable climate. Mufflers are com¬ 
fortable but should be worn loosely arouud the 
neck. The furs of the present day are a wise im¬ 
provement over those close-fitting elastic woolen 
mufflers of a few years ago. We are strongly of the 
opiuion that sweating the neck should be wholly 
avoided In cool weather. Paper collars with light 
neck-ties we regard as a comfortable, convenient and 
healthful fashion. May it long continue. Keep the 
neck cool as comfort will allow. By so doing you 
may sutler less from unavoidable exposure than to 
be constantly fearful of feeling the cool air. x>. 
McDonough, N. Y., 1868. 
- - 
REGARDING WORK AND REST. 
Now and then, when 1 atn tired, when I have work¬ 
ed long and wearily, have had some experience of the 
attritions of man with man, and have gained some 
new light respecting the moral condition of imperfect 
and unsauctified men, I say to myself' 11 Well, you 
have worked more than the ordiuary allotted period 
of man’s life, and would it not be better for you 
now to withdraw and give place to younger men, 
and spend iu an elegant leisure the declining period 
of your life ?” 
It is a temptation of the devil. Aud when 1 get 
rested, when I get one night’s sound sleep, and my 
nervous energy is restored again, and my system is 
reinvigorated, I am amazed at myself, and in the 
morning I flagellate the man that I knew last night. 
Retire from life? I observe that trees keep all their 
beauty to the closing periods. How beautiful is the 
tree when it comes out of winter, and pats ou all its 
delicate tints and shades of green 1 We then look 
upon the tree as though it was a new creation, and 
we saySurely, God never made anything so 
beautiful as these trees;” and yet when summer 
deepens their hues, aud they have become more 
robust, and we see what vigor aud freshness and 
succulouey there is iu them, we say;—“Afterall, 
give me the 6Uimner tints. They are far better than 
the spring delicacies.” And yet, when the October 
days have come, and the last part of the tree life for 
the year is enacted, and we see the gorgeous yellows, 
the rich browns aud the magnificent, scarlets, we say: 
“ There, the last is the best.” And might we not 
take pattern from the trees? Might we not follow 
up our youth and manhood with fair colors and 
delicate tints to the end of life? 
1 do not think a man ought to want to rest in 
this world. He may desire to achieve the means 
of setting himself from physical taxation. He may 
say “I will relinquish, hi a measure, this, that I 
“Nestling round the hearth together 
We defy the growling weather.” 
Winter isn’t all dreariuess. There is something 
wondrously cheery iu a good blazing fire : it is sug¬ 
gestive, indeed is the dispenser, of real comfort. 
Summer evenings are very pleasant, when we can 
sit out upon the veranda, in the warm moonlight, 
and listeu to the insects hummiug their low melo¬ 
dies; but they lack a certain rich glow and color 
which winter evenings possess, aud which seem to 
add peculiar depth and tenderness to life. Half our 
sunniest memories are of days when winter clouds 
hung low, aud winter’s cold kept us indoors by the 
roaring tire. What a witching song the sparkling 
Haines sing I How many fancies they picture, with 
their wizard-like lingers,— fancies bright, beautiful, 
aud fleeting as are all bright and beautiful things! 
Here in our snug sanctum, of a mid-winter even¬ 
ing, we picture to ourselves many home-sceues like j 
that portrayed above, — little family groups where 
love keeps out coldness, aud childish hearts repeat 
to wedded ones the blessings of youth. We follow 
the Rural — an old and welcome friend, we trust — 
fJUflfliiMj fov the 
A BEAUTIFUL HYMN. v 
Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, 
Look upon a little child; 
Pity my simplicity; 
Sutler me to come to Thee. 
Fain would L to Thee be brought; 
Gracious God. forbid it not; 
In the kingdom of Thy grace, 
Give a littlo child a place. 
Oh, supply my every want, 
Feed the young aud tender plant; 
Day and night my Keeper be; 
Every moment, watch o’er me. 
-- 
THE EYE THAT LOOKS UPON US. 
A painter, very well known and very much be¬ 
loved, died last year iu Eugland. His principal 
work was to prepare the illustrations for the maga¬ 
zines aud newspapers which are adorned with pic¬ 
tures. His name was Leach. When a boy, he 
attended a largo public school. It was a boarding 
school; and here he would remain duriug the long 
terms away from his parents. The little fellow 
when he first left bis home would be homesick; 
but after awhile, iu the company of his companions, 
this would wear away. But his mother, having 
none to take his place, pined to see her boy. It 
was not customary for the parents to visit their 
children at school; but the loving mother felt such 
a strong desire to see her son, that she arranged 
this plan: 
All around the play ground of the school were 
high blocks of bulldiugs. So Mrs. Leech hired an 
upper room in one of these houses, from the win¬ 
dows of which the whole play-ground could be seen. 
Into this room went the tender mother every time 
she came to the city, and there from the window 
she would look dowu upon the happy little fellows 
(flaying below. One, atnoug them all, her fond eye 
would seek out. He did not know that any oue was 
looking down upon him. He did not think that his 
best friend on earlli was so near that if he had 
spoken her name she would have answered at once. 
But du he went with his play, while that tear-dim¬ 
med eye followed him wherever he moved. 
A mother’s eye cannot always be on us. Our 
voice may not reach a parent’s ear. There is one, 
however, always looking down upon us. That Eye 
is as tender as a mothcr’6. By day aud by night, 
when we wake and when we sleep, he is looking 
upon us. If we whisper to him, he will hear us. It 
is our Father in heaven. “ When father and mother 
forsake us, then the Lord will take us up.” 
How a kind and generous act of her little boy 
would please that, unseen mother above him! How 
a selfish and wicked act would grieve her! 
Our Heavenly Father smiles from above down 
upon onr hearts when we do right; and we grieve 
the Holy Spirit when wo do wrong. 
Let os not forget that Eye. Let us not forget 
into thousands of homes, and grasp the hands of how lovin K ta heart that looks down through 
- 1 I 1 • . TS t I r* - _1 _ 1 ~ .1 LL .. inAul.) A 1 > 1-1.. ,V>A ffn 
may transfer my activity to other spheres.” That I 
is proper for a man to do. But for a man to retire 
from life and society after he has been au active 
force therein and filled his sphere with usefulness, 
and seen the fruits of his labor multiplied at his 
hand, and known the satisfaction of a well-6pent 
year—nature itself rebukes it. But, many a man, 
at the age of forty-five years, says to himself:—“ I 
am worth $500,000, and what a fool I am to work 
any longer ! 1 am going to buy me an estate iu the 
country, aud be a geutleman.” He buys him an 
estate, and undertakes to be a gentleman, but a 
man who has nothing to do is uo gentleman. He 
goes into the country, and loams how to gape, and 
learns how to wish he knew what to do. He goes I 
into the country in order to take the ears every 
morning, and come to the city every day to see | 
what is going on. And he soon discovers that he 
lias made a mistake, and says:—“ What a fool I 
was! I thought I was unhappy, but l see I was 
not.” And he becomes discontented, aud before 
two years have gone he sells his country place for i 
fifty per cent, less than he gave, and goes back to 
the city and enters into u new partnership, and 
says;—1 have learned that a man had better not 
give up his business so long as he is able to attend 
to it.” He could, I think, have learned it, without 
going through that practice. A man ought not to 
be obliged to stumble upon every evil of life in 
order to find it out. Something ought to be learn¬ 
ed from other people’s blunders. There are enough 
of them.— LI. W. Beecher. 
-»- . « • »» ♦» - 
ITEMIZING. 
Who that regularly reads the newspapers has not 
been struck with those mauy-uamed columns into 
which the news of all the world i3 compressed? 
Variously styled in various newspapers, they aim to 
grasp aud focalize the news of everything and every 
body, everywhere, aud to present it In as small and 
telling a space as possible. They carry the reader 
in a breath from Indus to the pole, and hurry him 
along from sentence to sentence, to conduct him in 
a trice to antipodes of thought. The reader never 
thinks, as his eyes take their rapid journey dowu 
the columns, of the care, the pains, the taste, the 
skill, the patience necessary to reduce those items 
to attractive shape, 
The scissors and the paste do a good deal of the 
work, it is true; but the brain helps more than it is 
given credit for. Fancy and imagination and judg¬ 
ment have to play their part. The scissors dart 
instinctively at a “good” item, and the brains step 
in and decide whether its publication would be 
judicious. Is the item old? Has it ever appeared 
before? Is it uice and fresh and crisp and spark¬ 
ling ? What position shall it hold with regard to 
the other items? Has another one on the same 
subject been already clipped out? Might not the 
phraseology be changed, so as to bestow point and 
pith? Could a piquant joke be tagged ou? Again, 
when the work of selection is done, and the items 
—personal, miscellaneous, religious, theatrical and 
what uot—are all arranged iu order, will they make 
a glittering and symmetric whole, over which the eye 
will delight to rove, like a bird from flower co fiovrer? 
All these things have to be considered iu attend¬ 
ing to the “ item ” department of a newspaper. 
The tastes of every possible reader must be antici¬ 
pated. Since it takes all sorts of people to make a 
world — a truism of profounder meaning than is 
generally appreciated—it takes all sorts of items to 
fathers and mothers, aud romp with t,lie children, 
and grow young again in the air of content that 
makes home and happiness. Let the rude “north¬ 
ers” blow keen as they will, here they cannot enter; 
here it is the glad summer-time, with a something 
indefinable and better besides. “Nestling round 
the hearth! ” Finish up the picture yourselves, 
good friends! 
make a newspaper. The newspaper for the time is 
the world, and the items are the people iu it, tilliug 
the columns with life and variety, furnishing infinite 
material for thought, aud bringing close beside one 
another all the characters aud events in this teem¬ 
ing world.— Mail. 
-*« «■ » ♦. ♦- 
WALL PAPER SUPERSEDED. 
According to the Boston Transcript a man in 
Cambridge, Mass., has made a new invention, by 
which wood hangings will take the place of paper. 
The Transcript says; 
“ A very delicate, simple and beautiful machine 
has been constructed, which will take a portion of a 
tree after it has been cut the right length and width, 
and shave it up into thin ribbons as wide as a roll of 
house paper, making one hundred or one hundred 
and fifty to the inch. These rolls of wood are 
placed on the walls by paper hangers with paste 
and brush, precisely in the same manner as paper. 
The wood is wet when used, and really works easier 
than paper, because it is much more tough and plia¬ 
ble. Iu these days when variety is sought for, one 
can finish the walls of his house in different woods 
to suit bis taste. Oue room can be finished in birds- 
eyc maple, another iu chestnut, another in cherry, 
another iu white wood, and so on. Thus he has uo 
imitation, but the real, genuine article upon his 
walls.” 
-- 
EFFECTS OF TEA ON THE SYSTEM. 
The Boston Journal of Chemistry publishes a 
lengthy article ou the properties of tea, in the course 
of which the writer says that the brain-workers, in 
all the years since tea was introduced, have regarded 
it with the highest favor. It has a power to subdue 
irritability, refresh the spirits, and renew the energies 
such as is possessed by no other agent. When the 
system of man is exhausted by labor or study, a cup 
of tea reiuvigorates and restores as no other form of 
food or beverage can. He thinks it promotive ol 
longevity, and adds:—“ Tea saves food by lessening 
the waste of the body, soothes the vascular system, 
aud affords stimulus to the brain. The young do 
not need it, and it is worthy of note that they do not 
crave or like it. Children will frequently ask for 
coffee, but seldom for tea. To aged people whose 
powers of digestion aud whose bodily substance have 
to fail together, it is almost a necessity.” 
- »« » • - 
Habits of* Observation.— The practice of noting 
things and events iu their simple existence will grad¬ 
ually accumulate a store of knowledge, from which 
we may derive help in every turn of life. It is the 
observant man that is the man of resource. The 
happiest inventions are the result of much silent 
observation. It is indispensable to all whose busi¬ 
ness it Is to guide or rule their fellows. In the fam¬ 
ily it supplies what is most needed to prevent jars, 
to ease discomforts, to remedy mischiefs, to make 
up for deficiencies. Iu society it obviates blun¬ 
ders, suggests felicitous improvisations, steers oue’s 
course clear of sunken rocks, explains things which 
might otherwise appear anomalous, and nips silly 
suspicious in the bud. To the statesmen it is inval¬ 
uable, for though there may be brilliant oratorical 
power without it, it is impossible that there can be 
wise administration. 
-—- 
He who thinks he has enough of the Holy Spirit 
will quickly find himself vanquished by the evil spirit. 
that Eye. “God so loved the world that he gave 
his only begotten Sou.” 
- «♦ »- 
ARTHUR’S GENEROSITY. 
BY ELIZABETH GREENLEAF. 
Arthur Pierce is oae of my little neighbors, 
who is three years old. He has black eyes, rosy 
cheeks, and i6 bo pleasant as to win him many 
friends. He is very generous, too, aud always likes 
to share with others whatever is given him. 
Oue morning in Winter the 6now was falling fast, 
I and his brother Willie had gone to school, drawing 
sister Mary on his new sled. Arthur had looked 
wistfully after them till they were out of eight, 
wishing he was old enough to go too. But the 
brave little fellow did not cry, but catoe back to his 
toys in the dining-room, and played with them till 
weary; then he followed his mamma about her 
work till he grew sleepy, when she took him on her 
I lap to rock him to sleep with the “Chickadee Song” 
I that so many chilclreu love to hear. When she came 
to the verse commencing, 
“O, mother! do give him some stockings aud shoes,” 
Arthur was wide awake in a moment, and began to 
untie his shoe-strings, pointing eagerly to the snow 
birds that flitted past the window. 
After that, his little heart was so full of pity for 
l the bare feet of the birds, that he couldn’t sleep at 
all, but begged his mamma all day to carry out his 
shoes to them. 
Dear, geuerous Arthur! God has provided the 
“fowls of the air” with warm clothing for their 
bodies iu giving them nice dowuy feathers; and has 
made the skin that covers their little feet tough and 
strong, that they may endure the cold Winter with¬ 
out discomfort; hut he has placed many needy 
children in the world, whom we ought to assist 
both in food and clothing, remembering Christ’s 
words, “ luasmuch as ye have done it unto one of 
the least of these, ye have done it unto me .”—Child 
at Home. 
ON THE TRACK. 
The other day I heard a mother ask her little son 
to do something. “In a minute,” he said. She 
spoke again. But It was one, two, three, four, five 
minutes before he minded her. 
It makes me thiuk of the switch-tender's boy. 
What if hi bad waited a minute before minding his 
father ? A switch-tender in Prussia was just going 
to move the rail, in order to put a coming train of 
cars on a side track, when he caught sight of his 
little son playing on the track. The engine was in 
sight, and he had aot a moment to spare. He might 
jump and 9ave his child; but he could not do that 
and turn the switch In time; and if it were not 
done, the on-coming train would meet another train, 
and a terrible crash and smash take place. The 
safety of hundreds of lives depended upon his fidel¬ 
ity. What could he do? What did he do? “Lie 
down! lie down! ” he called, with a loud, quick 
voice to the child; and seizing the switch, the train 
passed safely on its proper track. 
Did the heavy train run over the little boy? Was 
he killed? Was he crushed to pieces? No, for he 
did just as his father told him, and did it instantly. 
He fell flat between the rails, and the cars went high 
over his head, aud wheu the anxious father sprang 
to the spot, there he was alive and well; not a hair 
was touched. It was his quick obedience, you see, 
that saved his life. He did not stop a minute. Even 
a moment’s hesitation would have been too late. 
- .«.»♦«■». - 
“ Why do you show favor to your enemies instead 
of destroying them?” said a chieftain to the Empe¬ 
ror Sigismund. “Do I not destroy my enemies by 
inakiug them my friends ? ” was the Emperor’s noble 
reply. Kindness is the best weapon with which to 
I beat an adversary. 
