UNCLE JOHN'S PROPHECY.

Those were glad moments when I took my seat on our village coach for the purpose of paying a visit to uncle John. The beams of the sun seemed to shine with twofold brightness, and the carollings of the feathered songsters seemed doubly sweet. There was even a sort of melody for my ears in the braying of an ass which greeted us from his shed on the way-side. My feelings of joy were heightened by the consideration that where I was going, there I should receive a good old English welcome. Uncle John's greeting and parting words invariably flowed in this strain, “ Come when thou likest, Ned: I am always glad to see thee."

Uncle John was one of that class whom the world, looking upon the glitter of human

life, calls happy. He possessed sufficient to enable him to live without care for the morrow, and to keep those about him who would not only attend to his commands, but anticipate his wishes. All within and without bespoke an air of plenty and prosperity; but notwithstanding all this, uncle John was not a happy man. He was deeply afflicted for many years, sometimes not being able to walk across his parlour without enduring agonizing pain. Yet he suffered this with patience. I have seen him repress the risings of impatience when his pains seized him, and lift up his heart with gratitude to God when they ceased. But he had another affliction which bowed down his stout heart -that affliction was a graceless and undutiful son.

Oh! if my youthful readers had seen uncle John weep as I have seen him weep, they would never forget it; and they would be careful not to wound the hearts of their parents. They would reverence them, and be as storks to them, tending them with care in their old age. From morning till night this was his great complaint, and he poured it into the ears of every friend who called

to see him : all his wailings were about his “poor lost boy!"

One day when I was visiting him-I was then about twelve years of age-uncle John was especially bowed down with this heartbreaking sorrow. I was sitting on an ottoman before him, watching the big tears as they rolled down his cheeks; and, young as I was, he began to relate to me his griefs. “ That poor boy,” said he, “ will break my heart, and bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. Although he sees me thus afflicted, yet he cares for nothing but his pleasure and his wild companions. I scarcely see him during the day. Ah! Ned, thou little knowest what it is to have an undutiful son; thou little knowest what pangs it causes the heart of a fond parent. And may you never know that sorrow: it is heartbreaking; it mars all the comforts that God has poured around me. My poor unhappy boy!"

Uncle John ceased; and whether it was the pathos with which he clothed his every sentence, or pity at seeing his aged frame convulsed with grief, I cannot say, but his address drew from me these lispings of phi