Yet such were life, without the ray
From our divine religion given;
'Tis this which makes our darkness day;
'Tis this that makes our earth a heaven.

Bright is the golden sun above,

And beautiful the flowers that bloom;
And all is joy, and all is love,

Reflected from a world to come.-Bowring.

ON PRESENCE OF MIND.

MRS. F. one day having occasion to be bled, sent for the surgeon. As soon as he entered the room, her young daughter, Eliza, started up, and was hastily going away, when her mother called her back.

MRS. F. Eliza, do not go; I want you to stay by me. ELIZA. Dear mamma! I can never bear to see you bled.

MRS. F. Why not? What harm will it do you?

E. Oh! dear! I cannot look at blood. Besides, I cannot bear to see you hurt, mamma.

MRS. F. Oh if I can bear to feel it, surely you may see it. But come-you must stay, and we will talk about it afterwards.

Eliza then, pale and trembling, stood by her mother, and saw the whole operation. She could not help, however, turning her head away when the incision was made, and the first flow of blood made her start and shudder. When all was over, and the surgeon gone, Mrs. F. began:Well, Eliza, what do you think of this mighty matter ? Would not it have been very foolish to have run away from it?

now

E. O mamma! how frightened I was when he took out the lancet! Did it not hurt you a great deal?

MRS. F. No, very little. And if it had, it was to do me good, you know.

E. But why should I stay to see it? I could do no good.

you

MRS. F. Perhaps not; but it will do you good, to be accustomed to such sights.

E. Why, mamma?

MRS. F. Because instances are every day happening in which it is our duty to assist fellow-creatures in circumstances of pain and distress; and if we were to indulge a reluctance to come near to them on those occasions, we should never acquire either the knowledge or the presence of mind necessary for the purpose.

E. But if I had been told how to help people in such cases, could not I do it without being used to see them?

MRS. F. No. We have all naturally a horror at every thing which is the cause of pain and danger to ourselves or others; and nothing but habit can give most of us the presence of mind necessary to enable us in such occurrences to employ our knowledge to the best advantage. E. What is presence of mind, mamma?

MRS. F. It is that steady possession of ourselves in cases of alarm, that prevents us from being flurried or frightened. You have heard the expression of having all our wits about us. That is the effect of presence of mind, and a most estimable quality it is, for without it, we are full as likely to fall into danger as to avoid it. Do you not remember hearing of your cousin Mary's cap taking fire at the candle?

E. Oh yes, very well.

MRS. F. Well, the maid, as soon as she saw it, set up a great scream, and ran out of the room; and Mary might have been burned to death for any assistance she could give her. E. How foolish that was!

MRS. F. Yes; the girl had not the least presence of mind, and the consequence was, depriving her of all recollection, and making her entirely useless. But as soon as your aunt came up, she took the right method for preventing the mischief. The cap was too much on fire to be pulled off; so she took a quilt from the bed and flung it round Mary's head, and thus stifled the flame.

E. Mary was a good deal scorched, though.

MRS. F. Yes; but it was very well that it was no worse. If the maid, however, had acted with any sense at first, no harm at all would have been done, except burning the cap. I remember a much more fatal example of the want of presence of mind. The mistress of a

family was awakened by flames bursting through the wainscot into her chamber. She flew to the staircase; and in her confusion, instead of going up stairs to call her children, who slept together in the nursery overhead, and who might have all escaped by the top of the house, she ran down, and with much danger made way through the fire into the street. When she had got thither, the thought of her poor children rushed into her mind, but it was too late. The stairs had caught fire, so that nobody could get near them, and they were burned in their beds. E. What a sad thing!

MRS. F. Sad indeed! Now I will tell you of a different conduct. A lady was awakened by the crackling of fire, and saw it shining under her chamber door. Her husband would immediately have opened the door, but she prevented him, since the smoke and flame would then have burst in upon them. The children with a maid slept in a room opening out of theirs. She went and awakened them; and tying together the sheets and blankets, she let down the maid from the window first, and then let down the children one by one to her. Last of all she descended herself. A few minutes after the floor fell in, and all the house was in flames.

E. What a happy escape!

MRS. F. Yes; and with what cool recollection of mind it was managed! For mothers to love their children, and be willing to run any hazards for them, is common; but in weak minds that very love is apt to prevent exertions in the time of danger. I knew a lady who had a fine little boy sitting in her lap. He put a whole plum into his mouth, which slipped into his throat, and choked him. The poor fellow turned black and struggled violently, and the mother was so frightened, that instead of putting her finger into his throat and pulling out the plum, which might easily have been done, she laid him on the floor, and ran to call assistance. But the maids, who came up were as much flurried as she; and the child died before any thing effectual was done to relieve him.

E. How unhappy she must have been about it.

MRS. F. Yes; it threw her into an illness which had like to have cost her her life.

Another lady, seeing her little boy climb up a high ladder, set up a violent scream that frightened the child, so that he fell down and was much hurt; whereas if she had possessed command enough over herself to speak to him gently, he might have got down safely.

E. Dear mamma! what is that running down your arm? Oh, it is blood!

MRS. F. Yes; my arm bleeds again—I have stirred it too soon.

E. Dear! what shall I do?

MRS. F. Don't frighten yourself. I shall stop the blood by pressing on the orifice with my finger. In the mean time do you ring the bell. [Eliza rings-a servant comes. MRS. F. Betty, my arm bleeds; can you tie it up again? BETTY. I believe I can, madam.

[She takes off the bandage and puts on another. E. I hope it is stopped now.

MRS. F. It is. Betty has done it very well. You see she went about it with composure. This accident puts me in mind of another story which is very well worth hearing. A man once reaping in the field cut his arm dreadfully with his sickle, and divided an artery.

E. What is that mamma?

MRS. F. It is one of the canals or pipes through which the blood from the heart runs, like water in a pipe brought from a reservoir. When one of these is cut, it bleeds very violently, and the only way to stop it is to make a pressure between the wounded place and the heart, in order to intercept the course of the blood towards it.

Well

-this poor man bled profusely; and the people about him, both men and women, were so stupified with fright, that some ran one way, some another, and some stood stock still. In short, he would have soon bled to death, had not a brisk stout-hearted wench, who came up, slipped off her garter, and bound it tight above the wound, by which means the bleeding was stopped till proper help could be procured. E. What a clever wench! But how did she know what to do?

MRS. F. She had perhaps heard it, as you have done now; and so probably had some of the others. Suppose a furious bull was to come upon you in the midst of a

field, you could not possibly escape him by running, and attempting it would destroy your only chance of safety. E. What would that be?

MRS. F. I have a story for that too. The mother of that Mr. Day who wrote Sandford and Merton, was distinguished, as he also was, for courage and presence of mind. When a young woman, she was one day walking in the fields with a companion, when they perceived a bull coming to them roaring and tossing about with its horns in the most tremendous manner.

E. Oh, how I should have screamed!

MRS. F. I dare say you would, and so did her companion. But she bid her walk away behind her as gently as she could, whilst she herself stopped short, and faced the bull, eyeing him with a determined countenance. The bull, when he had come near, stopped also, pawing the ground and roaring. Few animals will attack a man who steadily waits for them. For a while she drew back some steps, still facing the bull. The bull followed. She stopped, and then he stopped. In this manner she made good her retreat to the stile, over which her companion had before got. She then turned and sprang over it, and got clear out of danger.

E. That was bravely done indeed! But I think very few women could have done so much.

MRS. F. Such a degree of cool resolution, to be sure, is not common. But I have read of a lady in the East Indies, who showed at least as much. She was sitting out of doors with a party of pleasure, when they were aware of a huge tiger that had crept through a hedge near them, and was just ready to make his fatal spring. They were struck with the utmost consternation; but she, with an umbrella in her hand, turned to the tiger and suddenly spread it full in his face. This unusual assault so terrified the beast, that taking a prodigious leap he sprang over the fence, and plunged out of sight into the neighbouring thicket.

E. Well; that was the boldest thing I ever heard of. But is it possible, mamma, to make oneself courageous?

MRS. F. Courage, my dear, is of two kinds, one the gift of nature, the other of reason and habit. Men have naturally more courage than women; that is, they are less