A BAD HABIT.



GEORGE'S father had heard something that very much distressed him. It was about his dear boy, too, and it was with difficulty that he could bring himself to believe what he was told. The unhappy fact was that George had told an untruth, and perhaps it was even a more unhappy circumstance that the lad had excused himself on the ground that it was only a little one.

His father took him aside and gave him what older folks would have called a combined lesson on natural history and moral philosophy.

"George, my boy," said his father, 

"I want you to beware of the whelks."

"The whelks, father? Why, I never heard of them. What are they?" responded George. "Well," said his father, " they are a little shell-fish found off the coasts of England, and withdrawn from their pretty spiral-shaped shell, they are prepared as an article of food by the poorer classes of people there." "Do they make people sick, then, papa," asked George, "since you say I must beware of them?"

"No, my lad; but on the coast of Brittany these little fellows are the inveterate foe of the oysters. They fasten themselves upon the oyster's hard coat and begin to bore, until, after considerable work, they reach the flesh of the oyster and devour it. Before long the oyster shell is empty."

"I shall not think much of the whelks after this, papa, for I like .the oysters too well; but I do not see why I am to beware of the whelks," continued the boy.

 His father suggested that there were bad habits that seemed at first as small as the whelk the habit of untruthfulness, for instance which by degrees fasten themselves firmly upon young people, and old people, too, and by-and-by ruin their victim. One sin leads to another, and a bad habit once fastened on its victim does its deadly work, slowly at first, but none the less surely. "Do not let the whelks get at your character as an upright, truthful boy, but avoid giving them the first chance," were the closing words of George's lesson for that day.








HALF-HOUR READING. 

IT is not in the power of everybody to command many hours a day for the study of books. But most people can spare a half-hour, and if that be given faithfully to consecutive reading, it will tell in mental discipline and acquisition at the end of three months. Many a morning which the lady in her leisure, or the young girl in her vacation, devotes to fanning herself, or to making useless articles of ornamental needlework, might be agreeably spent over a good book. Companionship with standard authors is really an introduction to the best society on earth. There would be less temptation to frivolous gossip, less danger of unkind criticism, and less indulgence in morbid and melancholy moods, if the mind were fed with good food, and stimulated by the strong thoughts of the great and wise. Try it. 




Am. Baptist Pub. Society.



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