already, through your choice of a commander with independent power, you have the bit in your mouth; but, if you assign him a body-guard, and permit him to mount into the saddle, you will become from that moment the slaves of Phalaris."

The Latin poet Horace introduces this fable into one of his Satires, and deducts from it a caution against a state intrusting to its rulers, in a moment of emergency, powers which may be used to wound and destroy the liberties of the people. The fable teaches alike to statesmen and to people a lesson which is confirmed by the history of our own and of many other nations, viz. that an escape from present troubles may be too dearly purchased, if our allies and deliverers, when the occasion of need is past, prove to be our worst enemies, and yet more severe oppressors.

Too noble for revenge, which still we find
The weakest frailty of a feeble mind.

All is not good for all; though all would be
Alike possessors of something they see.

THE FLYING FISH AND THE DOLPHIN.

A FLYING FISH being pursued by a Dolphin, in his eagerness to escape, took too long a flight, and fell upon a rock, where his death was inevitable. The Dolphin, in his keenness of pursuit, ran himself on the shore at the foot of the same rock, and was left gasping by the waves in the same condition. "Well," said the Flying Fish, "I must die, it is true; but I die with pleasure when I behold him who is the cause of my death involved in the same fate."

APPLICATION. The thirst for revenge, the desire of hurting one from whom hurt has been received, is so natural to man, that it has formed an integral part of the law of various well-regulated communities. Under the Jewish ordinances, an eye was demanded for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. The old Roman law sanctioned, by the authority of solemn statutes, the principle of retaliation, by which he who had received an injury was entitled to an equivalent injury being inflicted on the offender. The higher sanctions of an extended revelation alone have taught a purer morality-the return of good for evil, the forgiveness of enemies, the expulsion from the heart of all sentiments of revenge against those who hurt

us.

Here lay a wretch, prepar'd t' exchange
His soul's reversion for revenge.

A YOUNG Prodigal, who had wasted his whole patrimony, was taking a melancholy walk near a brook. It was in the month of January, on one of those warm, sunshiny days which sometimes smile upon us even in that wintry season of the year; and to make it the more like summer, a Swallow, which had made its appearance too soon, flew skimmingly along upon the surface of the stream. The thoughtless Youth observing this, without any further consideration, concluded that summer was now come, and that he should have little or no occasion for his upper clothes; so he went and sold them, and spent the money

among his idle companions. When this sum was gone, he took another solitary walk in the same place as before. But the weather having changed, and become again severe and frosty, every thing bore an aspect very different from what it did before; the brook was now quite frozen over, and the poor Swallow lay dead upon its bank. The sight restored the Young Man to himself; and, coming to a sense of his misery, he reproached himself as the author of all his misfortunes. Ah, wretch," says he, "thou hast undone thyself in being so credulous as to think that one swallow could make a summer."

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MORAL. In fair weather be prepared for foul.

APPLICATION. The Prodigal in this fable is a true character. How many, after his example, live only in the present hour, and, availing themselves to the utmost of every passing enjoyment, think nothing about the future! Yet the law of moral consequences is imposed on man as the condition of his being. As he sows, he must reap. The misspent youth is the precursor of remorse and self-indignation in later years. No one can tell what a day may bring forth. Many a bright morning is succeeded by clouds and tempest before night. A prudent young man will endeavour to turn his time-the best talent that he has to advantage. Warned by the example of this