THE Wolves and the Sheep had been a long time in a state of war together. At last a cessation of arms was proposed, in order to a treaty of peace, and hostages were to be delivered on both sides for security. The Wolves proposed that the Sheep should give up their dogs, on the one side, and that they would deliver up their young ones, on the other. This proposal was agreed to, but no sooner executed, than the young Wolves began to howl for want of their dams. The old ones took this opportunity to cry out that the treaty was broken; and so falling upon the Sheep, who were destitute of their faithful guard

C

ians the dogs, they worried and devoured them at their pleasure.

MORAL. Good watch prevents harm.

APPLICATION. The statement of an historical fact will best illustrate the meaning of this fable. When Philip King of Macedon applied to the Athenians to deliver up to him Demosthenes, as the enemy to his ambitious designs, the orator obtained the refusal of his countrymen to the demand by relating to them, in their public assembly, this fable. He thus warned them that, in giving up the public orators, they surrendered the watch-dogs of the state. The vigilance, example, and public spirit of the chief citizens, willing alike to resist the encroachments of the crown and to restrain the madness of the people, are necessary to the well-being of a nation. The fable teaches the expediency of maintaining those laws and securities which the wisdom of former ages has constructed for the preservation and good government of society.

Example is a living law, whose sway
Men more than all written laws obey.

AN Eagle that had young ones, looking out for something to feed them with, happened to spy a Fox's cub that lay basking itself abroad in the sun. She made a swoop, and seized it; but before she had carried it quite off, the old Fox, coming home, implored her, with tears in her eyes, to spare her cub, and pity the distress of a poor fond mother, to whom no affliction could be so great as that of losing her child. The Eagle, whose nest was up in a very high tree, thought herself secure enough from all projects of revenge, and so bore away the cub to her young ones, without showing any regard to the supplications of the Fox.

But that subtle creature, highly incensed at this outrage, ran to an altar, where some country-people had been sacrificing a kid in the open fields, and catching up a firebrand in her mouth, made towards the tree. where the Eagle's nest was, with a resolution of revenge. She had scarce ascended the first branches, when the Eagle, terrified with the approaching ruin of herself and family, begged of the Fox to desist, and, with much submission, returned her the cub again safe and sound.

MORAL. Measure for measure.

APPLICATION. "The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on." The most quiet and timid natures may, by continued oppression and ill-treatment, be goaded and exasperated into efforts at retaliation and revenge. It is a truth universally acknowledged, and confirmed by innumerable examples, that sooner or later punishment overtakes the wrong-doer. oppressors, when, like the Eagle in the fable, they think themselves quite safe, may be at that moment most near to their shame, discovery, and retribution.

Trample not on the meanest, since e'en they
May that assault with just revenge repay.

The

A WOLF, clothing himself in the skin of a Sheep, and by this means getting in among the flock, took the opportunity to devour many of them. At last the shepherd discovered him, and, fastening a rope about his neck, tied him up to a tree which stood hard by. Some other shepherds happening to pass that way, and observing what he was about, drew near, and expressed their surprise at it. "What," says one of them, "brother, do you hang Sheep?"-"No," replies the other, "but I hang a Wolf whenever I catch him, though he be in Sheep's clothing." Then he showed