THE TWO BROTHERS.

THE TWO BROTHERS.

ONE was named Harry, the other Fred. Harry was a good boy, and every one who knew him thought that he would grow up a true man. Fred was very wild, and would not obey his father, and did things that grieved his friends. One day he had been very naughty, and had been sent to his bed room. His father would neither see him nor speak to him, and Harry, sorry to see him in such disgrace, went into Tears of pity were in his eyes as he said

his room.

to his brother:

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'O, Fred, Fred! why will you be so very foolish ?" Fred looked at him with a sullen look upon his face and said, "I dont care!"

Harry talked kindly to him, and after a little while Fred said, "It's no use: father will never forgive me!" "Ask him," said Harry.

"I dare not," was the reply.

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Do now; go and tell him you are sorry for what you have done, and beg him to forgive you," said Harry. "No," said Fred, in a sad, hopeless tone. "I am sorry, but I could not find words to say so to father; and besides, I do not think he would forgive me now, whatever I might say."

THE TWO BROTHERS.

"Well then, let me ask him," said Harry.

"Ah! if you would! Father will listen to you !" So the two boys went to their father's room, Harry opening the door and stepping in first cheerful and happy.

Fred was afraid and hung back,

in," said he.

"I dare not go

"O, come along!" said his brother, in a cheery tone of voice, and stepping up to his father, who was writing, he said, "Father, I have come to tell you that Fred is very sorry for what he has done, and asks you to forgive him."

The father looked up and said, "Could you not come yourself, Fred?"

"O, no," said Harry, "He was so sorry and ashamed that he dare not, and I tried to persuade him to let me ask you to forgive him for my sake."

The father opened his loving arms, and the guilty boy fell sobbing upon his breast.

"Now, for your brother's sake, be a good boy in time to come."

Dear children, Jesus is called our " elder brother," you know; and if we go to him he will go with us and pray to God for us, as this boy did for his brother. Do you see?

THE PORCUPINE AND ITS QUILLS.

THE PORCUPINE AND ITS QUILLS. We have none of these curious creatures in England, but we have a few hedgehogs, which are not unlike them, though much smaller. They are found mostly in Africa and other hot countries; are about two feet long, and sixteen inches high; their backs are covered with long black and white hollow spines or spikes, almost like goose quills, but very sharp; the lower part of the body is covered with short prickles; the head is like that of a hare, and the feet are short; they make deep holes at the foot of a rock, where they sleep during the winter months, coming out at night in summer to seek for food, such as roots and the bark of trees.

You know that a hedgehog will roll itself up into a prickly ball, so that a dog cannot get at it to bite. The Porcupine does something like that; for if a dog or jackal or hyena should come near to lay hold of it, the cunning creature will not run away or meet its enemy face to face, but setting up its strong quills, which mostly lie flat over its body, it will run back and push their sharp points into the nose and eyes of the foe, and make him glad to scamper off and let him alone. Even a lion, it is said, will not attack

THE PORCUPINE AND ITS QUILLS.

him. As for serpents he will make short work with them, for doubling himself up like a ball, he will roll over them, stabbing them all over until he kills them. And so he teaches them to let him alone; and they ought, for he never meddles with them; all he wants is to eat his own meat in peace and quietness.

But he has one greater enemy than wild beasts or serpents, whom he cannot escape except by getting so deep down among narrow holes in the rocks where he cannot be got at. This enemy is man. For there are men who are fond of what they call the sport of hunting the porcupine. The way these men do is this. First they set dogs to smell at the holes at the foot of the rock, and when they begin to bark at one of these holes, the men know that is the right place. They then set on the dogs to go down and fetch out their prey if they can; but this they can seldom do, the holes in the rock being too narrow to admit them-and for this reason they cannot dig them out. So they always take with them a very little boy, a cunning fellow, whom they cover with the skin of some animal, and send him as far as he can go down the hole; and when he gets to the narrow place in the rock he pushes down into it a long spear with teeth like a saw, which sticking fast in the