kin-ned, or kind. When he fails to recognize this kinship we say he is unkind.

A person who is light, trifling, and without an earnest purpose, is sometimes called "trivial.” There is strong satire in that word trivial. Tri means three; vial is from via, meaning a road. The trivial person is one who stands where three ways meet, unable to decide on any one of them.

Do you see in the word companion any allusion to bread? Panis is the Latin word for bread. Com, from cum, means with. So a companion is one who eats bread with another. So a company among the hospitable Romans was a number of people who ate bread together.

We call a person candid when he is frank and honest. The word comes from the Latin word

candidus, meaning white. The candid person's nature is white, pure, unstained by falsehood. Those who sought office among the Romans were obliged to wear a white robe. Hence they were

called candidates.

These are only a few of the many interesting words whose origins might be traced:

19. WHAT IS TIME?

I asked an aged Man, a man of cares,
Wrinkled, and curved, and white with hoary hairs:
"Time is the warp of life," he said, “Oh, tell
The young, the fair, the gay, to weave it well!"

I asked the aged venerable Dead,

Sages who wrote, and warriors who have bled: From the cold grave a hollow murmur flowed, "Time sowed the seed-we reap in this abode."

I asked a dying Sinner, ere the tide

Of life had left his veins: "Time," he replied
"I've lost it! Ah, the treasure!"-and he died.

I asked the golden Sun and silver Spheres,
Those bright Chronometers of days and years;
They answered, "Time is but a meteor glare,
And bids us for Eternity prepare."

I asked the Seasons in their annual round,
Which beautify and desolate the ground;
And they replied (no oracle more wise),
"'Tis folly's loss, and virtue's highest prize."

I asked my Bible, and methinks it said,
"Time is the present hour, the past is fled:
Live! live to-day! To-morrow never yet
any human being rose or set."

On

I asked old Father Time himself at last;
But in a moment he flew quickly past;

His chariot was a cloud; the viewless wind,
His noiseless steeds, which left no trace behind.

I asked the mighty Angel, who shall stand
One foot on sea, and one on solid land:

'By heaven," he cried, "I swear the mystery o'er, Time was!" he cried; "but Time shall be no more."

- MARSDEN.

That great mystery of Time, were there no other; the illimitable, silent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift, silent, like an all-embracing ocean-tide, on which we and all the Universe swim like exhalations, like apparitions which are, and then are not: this is forever very literally a miracle; a thing to strike us dumb, for we have no word to speak about it.

Would you gather some idea of the eternity past of God's existence, go to the astronomer, and bid him lead you in one of his walks through space; and, as he sweeps outward from object to object, from universe to universe, remember that the light from those filmy stains on the deep pure blue of heaven, now falling on your eye, has been traversing space for a million of years.

-MITCHELL

20. IMAGINARY EVILS.

Let to-morrow take care of to-morrow;
Leave things of the future to fate;
What's the use to anticipate sorrow?
Life's troubles come never too late.
If to hope overmuch be an error,

'Tis one that the wise have preferred; And how often have hearts been in terror Of evils that never occurred!

Have faith, and thy faith shall sustain thee;
Permit not suspicion and care

With invisible bonds to enchain thee,
But bear what God gives thee to bear.
By His Spirit supported and gladdened,
Be ne'er by forebodings deterred;

But think how oft hearts have been saddened
By fears of what never occurred!

Let to-morrow take care of to-morrow;
Short and dark as our life may appear,
We may make it still darker by sorrow,
Still shorter by folly and fear;
Half our troubles are half our invention,
And often from blessings conferred,
Have we shrunk in the wild apprehension

Of evils that never occurred!

CHARLES SWAIN.

Who has not heard of the rattlesnake or copperhead? An unexpected sight of either of these reptiles will make even the lords of creation recoil; but there is a species of worm, found in various parts of the country, which conveys a poison of a nature so deadly that, compared with it, even the venom of the rattlesnake is harmless. To guard our readers against this foe of human kind, is the object of this lesson.

This worm varies much in size. It is frequently an inch in diameter, but, as it is rarely seen except when coiled, its length can hardly be conjectured. It is of a dull leaden color, and generally lives near a spring or small stream of water, and bites the unfortunate people who are in the habit of going there to drink. The brute creation it never molests. They avoid it with the same instinct that teaches the animals of Peru to shun the deadly coya.

Many of these reptiles have long infested our land, to the misery and destruction of many of our fellow citizens. I have, therefore, had frequent opportunities of being the melancholy spectator of the effects produced by the subtle poison which this worm infuses.