A STITCH IN TIME SAVES NINE.
BY THE REV. CHARLES COURTENAY.

N little Tommy's coat there is
ever so small a hole. It is
so small that it's really not
worth fussing about. There's
the needle to find, first of all.
Then there's the bother of
threading it. Then Tommy
has to be caught and made to
stand still; and then there's
the snipping of the cotton.
No; it is not worth it-that
little hole.

Tommy goes out nutting; climbs tall trees; forces his way through briars and brambles, and comes home with an ugly three-cornered rent, the rent piece flapping as he moved.

Dear me! if it isn't exactly in the same place. Oh you naughty boy! What a pity I didn't put the stitch

in time!

Now it was really too bad of Tommy's mother. She ought to have known better. If there was one lesson she ought to have learnt by this time, it was just this very one, that "a stitch in time saves nine."

Why, it was only a day or two ago that, after all the rest had gone to bed, she had been obliged to stay up to mend a hole, big enough to put your head through, in her own dress. The little hole had been neglected, because it was a little one, and, of course, was found out by some angular bit of furniture, and considerably enlarged. Why won't people learn that "a stitch in time saves nine!"

Now I have long held that there are other things besides stitches that ought to be taken in time. That, in fact, "stitches" have no right to take up the whole room, and ought sometimes to give place to other words.

Does not "a nail in time save nine" too?

Why ever didn't Tommy's father nail up that fence in his back garden? If one nail was all it wanted, what a deal of bother it would have saved! Nobody likes to have his tenderest choicest vegetables, especially his prize ones that were coming on so nicely, gobbled up by a neighbour's hungry pig. Besides, who doesn't know that when one plank gets displaced others speedily follow! If you could have seen the owner, hot and tired, hammering away, consuming I don't know how many nails and how much time, I think you would have felt strongly tempted to whisper in his ear, "Friend! a nail in time saves nine."

Why should we stop at nails, either?

There's that little bit of paper on the wall that has somehow got unfastened. One little brush, with ever so little paste, will cure that speedily. "A brush in time saves nine."

There's that untidy drawer. How mixed-up the things have got! No wonder, when everything is

poked in without thought or order. What a fuss there will be by-and-by when something is wanted in a great hurry. "A thought in time saves nine."

There's that creaking lock. It only wants a drop of oil. "A drop in time saves nine."

Now, in making thus free with our proverb, I not only feel no compunctions of conscience, but positive approval. So much so, indeed, that I am seriously intending to offend still more by making freer with it than ever.

"A stitch in time saves nine," does it? But why "nine" of all numbers in the world? Why not eight, or five, or nineteen? Why, because "nine" is supposed to rhyme with "time," to be sure.

Now when truth is concerned, I am not going to let rhyme interfere with me; and I don't hesitate to say, that although a stitch in time may sometimes save nine exactly, it saves, as a rule, many more. It would be much nearer the mark to say, 66 a stitch in time saves nineteen, or ninety-nine, and even nine hundred and ninety-nine." And I am inclined to believe that in not a few cases you may go on adding as many "nines" as you please, and yet be on the side of strict truth. That one solitary little nine of the proverb decidedly needs others to keep it company.

I am afraid if I amend the proverb much more, there will not be much of it left. Never mind. Here goes.

A stitch in time not only saves all these nines, but it also saves temper.

Now I hold that the more fiercely a man can get into a temper with himself when he has been doing wrong, the better for him. But, unfortunately, temper doesn't stay at home, but walks abroad. Too often it extends to other people, and strikes out right and left where it has no business to be.

Look at Tommy's father driving in the nails in that broken fence. How he does hammer away, to be sure! Each little nail seems for the moment to have become a mortal enemy. His thoughts are very angry ones, depend upon it. How flushed his face is! How tight his lips are! How pettishly he is throwing his tools about, as though they had been to blame, and had had something to do with the hungry pig and the spoilt prize vegetables. Steady, I say, steady! There, if you haven't gone and knocked that nail sideways. Now you will have to take it out again, and it won't come out very easily, either, by the look of it. It's no good getting angry over it, man; you will only lose your time and nails by such furious blows as that. Gently! Gently! And there, if you haven't sent little Tommy howling to his mother by that sharp temper of yours. What if he did knock over your paper of nails? It was only his kind little heart which prompted him to do it. "A nail in time" would have saved all this.

66

It was the same, too, with Tommy's mother when mending his rent coat. Cotton and needles and scissors, all seemed to have entered into a conspiracy against her. The cotton would snap; the needle would lose itself; and the scissors wouldn't cut properly. And

why? Because in Tommy's mother's mind there was a very sore feeling, and much self-reproach, and a conviction that "a stitch in time would have saved nine;" and, flowing from all these feelings and thoughts, a little "out of sorts" feeling-shall I say, temper? That was the reason,

I think, too, it ought to be mentioned that when you have made your nine stitches, and so remedied your past neglect, the whole nine will never come up to the one either in excellence or lasting power. I think people are apt to forget this. The one stitch, depend upon it, is worth far more than the rest. Why? Because what is done in this way is often done in a temper, and what is done in a temper is done in a hurry, and what is done in a hurry is therefore done badly, and will probably, before long, give way, and have to be done over again. That is why! And even if the nine stitches were as carefully made as the one, a mended part is never so strong, and never lasts so long, as an untorn place. A multitude of nails will never make a fence as strong as it was before. A patch is a constant source of weakness.

And this brings me to the saddest thought of all; that if you don't take your stitch in time, the chances are you will never, by any number of stitches, be able to make up for it. There are times when a neglect is utterly beyond remedy. You have lost your chance for ever. 1

When poor little Willie Tripp fell into the winter stream that ran hard by his father's house, and was drowned, Willie's father was well-nigh broken-hearted. He was his only boy. He loved him with the strength of his soul. What would he have been willing to give to have called him back again to life? To have put words into those cold silent lips; to have put meaning into those glassy, stony eyes; to have restored the colour to those pale cheeks, he would gladly have rendered himself a beggar. And when he went forth to mend the broken bridge, for the sake of other little Willies who might pass over it, although he made it so strong that none need ever fear again to cross it, what availed it for his dead Willie? It was too late for his darling's safety. All the hammering, and the sawing, and the planing would not undo the deadly mischief. A stitch in time in this case would have saved nine; but not nine thousand would remedy the neglected one.

And, to give another instance, when big Bill Trotter, who had lived such a loose life, met with an accident, and was carried home to die, it was too late for him to undo the mischief. They picked him up in an unconscious state, and he never rallied from it. In the days of his strength he might have thought about his soul, and have taken Jesus for his Saviour. He would then have been ready for death whenever and in whatever shape it came. But he did not. And when death really came to him, he not only was not ready, but could not get ready. He had his chance, and neglecting that, had never another.

And, dear reader, you have your time now. Jesus, who died on the cross for your sins, is waiting to save

you. He says: "Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out," "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found. Call ye upon Him while He is near." "Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation."

QUEEN ANNE BOLEYN.

N the Tower of London, there is a small church, called St. Peter ad Vincula, in which lie buried the remains of a former Queen of England, the second wife of King Henry VIII. Her melancholy history is a striking comment on the inspired text that "Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain."

Anne Boleyn, when a child, was appointed maid of honour to Henry's sister-then just married to Louis XII. of France. She was taken to reside at the French court, where, as she grew up, she attracted attention by her loveliness of person. When twenty she returned from France, and became one years of age, of the maids of honour to Queen Catherine. She was not only more beautiful and graceful, but more witty, gay, and clever than any other young lady of the English court.

The young maid of honour soon attracted the notice of the king, who became deeply enamoured with her. Flattered by his attentions, she exerted all her arts still further to please him. After six years of delay, the monarch succeeded in divorcing his lawful and muchenduring wife Catherine, and married Anne Boleyn. Shortly afterwards a public and magnificent coronation raised her to the summit of her ambition: she was an English queen. Her accomplishments and her loveliness, her pride and ambition, had won for her this high promotion; while Catherine, her predecessor, was languishing in obscurity. Surely the maxim was contradicted, that "Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain!" But the end was yet to come.

Two or three short years of triumph and prosperity passed away, and then another change took place in the king's affections. He began to loathe what he had once admired; and a new and younger rival drew away Henry's heart from Queen Anne, whose ruin was now fast approaching.

Plausible grievances against the unhappy lady were readily found. Her fondness for admiration during her short career of prosperity had betrayed her into imprudences; and she had many enemies, who were ready to turn upon her when they saw that she had lost her husband's love. She was committed to the Tower of London as a traitress.

See her now, as she passes under the gloomy archway of the Traitor's Gate, no longer a happy queen, but lower sunk in wretchedness than the meanest of her former servants. Hear her wild and bitter cry, as, falling on her knees before her gaoler, when told of the crime for which she was to be imprisoned: "O Lord, help me, as I am guiltless of that whereof I am charged!"