Nor was this all; for the cobbler was not allowed to sit down to his bench for a single moment till he had walked to the finger-post on the common, a distance of a mile and a half across the fields.

Neighbours, the cobbler is another man he drinks no gin, he pawns no clothes, he keeps no terrier dog nor jackdaw, but breathes freely, works blithely, while he sings a hymn or a psalm, pays his rent like a man, reads his Bible every day of his life, and looks as fresh as a daisy.

Now, what has done all this for him? nothing in the world but fresh air. This, with God's blessing, has been the making of him, and why should it not be the making of you? Rout out your cupboards and closets, sweep out your floors, whitewash your walls, and open your windows; but, above all, get into the fields, and breathe the fresh air.

Are you so fond of weakly frames and pale faces? Do you like to see pill-boxes and phials and gally-pots? Is it pleasant to swallow salts, and rhubarb, and ipecacuanha, and to pay doctors' bills? If it is, heed not what I say; but if it is not, take my advice; take my prescription-take fresh air.

Neighbours, I am no quack, but a plain-dealing man, gratefully enjoying the blessing of health,

and anxious that all of you may enjoy it too. Fresh air will not only improve the health, but the temper also, so that a man will laugh at the little troubles that before made him fume and fret like a madman. The good that is done, and the evil that is prevented by fresh air, are beyond calculation.

Doctors usually recommend fresh air, even when all their skill and all their medicines have failed, and this is a proof how highly they think of it.

Let this open your eyes, neighbours; doctors know what they are about, and you ought to know what you are about too. If you prefer to call in a doctor, and to pay him for advising you to take fresh air, I can have no possible objection, neither will the doctor blame you for this course; but whether it will be wise in you to buy that which I give you for nothing, is a point worth a moment's consideration.

Take my word for it, or rather do not take my word for it, but prove it, fresh air is the best medicine in the world. If I were called upon to write a prescription to cure three-fourths of this world's ails, it should be this-Plain food, temperance, exercise, fresh air, a clean skin, a contented mind, and a clear conscience.

There, neighbours! there is advice without quackery; take it, make the best of it, and may the blessing of good health be enjoyed by you all, and the Great Author of your mercies be ever loved, and ever praised!

ON MOUNTEBANKS.

If you happen to have a few spare minutes at your disposal, listen to the remarks of an old

man.

It was in the days of my youth,-those days have long since gone by,-that I went, for the first time, to see a mountebank.

Let me see it must be many a long year since then. I was at school, and have reason to remember it, being sent to bed supperless for venturing out of bounds; the only time in my life that I ever ate a cold potatoe.

Well, I saw the mountebank's stage, and his bottles of physic, and his full boxes, and heard him say that he could feed a man fat, or peel the flesh off his bones, which he pleased, in half an hour.

Thinks I, he had better begin with himself, for he has more flesh upon him than any three of Such a tun of a man, in a fiery red waistcoat I never had seen before; he was fit to be put into a show.

us.

All of a sudden he stript off his coat, and pulled off his red waistcoat too, but he looked almost as fine as before, for he had a yellow waistcoat under it. Off came the yellow one, and then he had a blue one, and a green one, and an orange one, and a purple one, till I almost thought that he was made of waistcoats.

He went on in this way for a quarter of an hour, pulling off waistcoats enough for twenty or thirty people, till he began to look, as we say, as thin as a herring. The folks laughed very heartily, but I hardly knew what to make of it. Well, thinks I, he has come to the last now, surely; but no, he still went on, till he seemed more like a skeleton than a fat man. Nothing was left of the fat fellow we had seen, save a shrivelled, palefaced, weasel-bodied, thread-paper of a man, with a heap of gaudy rags lying beside him.

I did not know then, though I have since found it out, that men play the mountebank, not on a stage alone, but in all situations of life, and most likely you have seen the same thing. What a mercy it is, when we are enabled to set aside our follies and our foolishnesses, and juggling of all kinds, and are content, as simple-minded men, to be guided by God's word, rather than by our own wayward will!

Perhaps you may know a proud man, thinking