“Why not ?”

"Because you have always a stitch in your side," remarked the pin.

"You are a poor crooked creature said the needle.

"And you are so proud that you cannot bend without breaking your back. ?

While they were thus conversing, a little girl entered, and beginning to sew, soon broke off the needle at the eye. Then she tied the thread around the neck of the pin and attempting to sew with it soon pulled its head off, and threw it away beside the broken needle.

66

Well here we are!" said the needle, after a brief pause. "We have nothing to fight about now," said the pin, “it seems that misfortune has brought us to our senses."

66.

A pity we had not come to them sooner" said the needle. “How much we resemble human beings who quarrel about their blessings till they lose them, and never find out that they are brothers, till they lie down together in the dust as we do!"

Youth's Magazine.

FATHER IS COMING.

THE clock is on the stroke of six,

The father's work is done;

Sweep up the hearth, and mend the fire,

And put the kettle on :

The night-wind now is blowing cold,

"Tis dreary crossing o'er the wold.

Would they were more! that every hour
Some wish of his I knew!

I'm sure it makes a happy day,
When I can please him any way!

I know he's coming by this sign,
That baby's almost wild;

See how he laughs, and crows and stares!
Heaven bless the merry child!

His father's self in face and limb,

And father's heart is strong in him.

Hark! hark! I hear his footsteps now :→→ He's through the garden gate;

Run, little Bess, and ope the door,

And do not let him wait.

Shout, baby, shout, and clasp thy hands,

For father on the threshold stands.

MARY HOWITT.

SACRED GEOGRAPHY.

IN THIS and following numbers we shall give an outline of Sacred Geography, which we are quite sure will be interesting and instructive to our readers. At present we shall confine our notice to the extent of Palestine, and its population.

The extent of Palestine, or Land of Canaan, varied at different periods of its history. The Land of Canaan, properly so called, which lay between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, was not more than 150 miles in length, and 50 miles in breadth. The kingdom of David and Solomon appears to have been much more extensive, and to have included great part of Syria and all the northern parts of Arabia to the borders of Egypt.

When the Israelites took possession of Canaan, their numbers were 601,730 men, from "twenty years old and upward, able to go to war;" besides 23,000 Levites from a month old and upward; from which it has been computed that the whole population, including women and children, could not be less than 2 millions! When Joab numbered the people, by the command of David, there were in Israel 800,000 valient men, and in Judah 500,000; besides 153,600 tributaries and slaves, making the whole Hebrew population, at the average rate of four persons to each family, to amount to 5,200,000!

YE VENERABLE piles, ye antique towers,
Ye mouldering columns of antiquity!
Who that with admiration doth not gaze
Upon thy ruins, Netley ?-who unmoved
Can view the desolating scenes that mark
The prostrate palace fane,-as Holyrood,
Or Kenilworth ?-for princes' banquet fam'd,
Fair relics of what once ye were, Kirkstall
And Glastonbury,-crumbling to decay.

What death-like silence reigns with awe profound!

How lone the scene, with rank grass overspread!
The creeping ivy o'er the fabric clings
Tenacious, still adoring clings around
The rude vestibule-sole worshipper.
Ye fair remains of ages long since fled,
Of glory pass'd away;-here would I sit
In abstract meditative mood ;-here muse

On some fallen shaft, which time hath rudely scath'd;
At the still hour, when twilight-evening gray—
Steals on the sleeping sense ;-oh! then to gaze
With fond reflective eye intent to gaze
Upon thy ruin'd greatness; here, behold
Contemplative, the dread destroyer, Time!
Here musing, dwell upon the hallowed scene;
Lo! thro' th' embow'ring trees, that mantling shade
Yon venerable pile, the pale moon peering,
Throws her sickly beam,—that through the windows'
Gothic archway-aslanting casts around

A dim religious light :-a ghastly glare

Of spectral brightness shows th' interior, fraught
With proud design of architectural

Beauty;-while through the broken porch, in dim
Perspective seen, the long drawn aisle. No sound
Of human footsteps, or the tread of lone
Recluse, by meditation led, is heard

O wake again thine echoes ;-all is still,
Save when is heard (ill omen'd bird of night)
The Owl; loud screeching from her ivy'd tow'r;
Or wheeling Bat, that takes her dusky flight.