THE OLD HOVEL.

Do you see that old shattered hovel yonder? There it stands, and there it has stood ever since I can remember anything. Many a game of play have I had in the days of my boyhood behind the hay-ricks at Farmer Mitchell's, and many a time have I taken shelter from the storm in that old hovel.

You may, perhaps, think that it was new then; but no; it was much the same as it is now, except that there were not half so many cobwebs in the corners, that the boards were not quite so black, and that the thatch had only half as many holes in it.

When I returned home from school, though the old pit was filled up, and the old pound taken quite away, yet the old hovel was standing there still, with its half-thatched top, peeping over the little hedge, as ugly as ever.

After another absence of two or three years, I again returned home. "Oh," thinks I, "the old hovel has been down this many a day;" but no sooner did I pass the blacksmith's shop, and get a view of Farmer Mitchell's rick-yard, than I saw it standing just where it did, and in much the same condition. There was an old worn-out cart-horse, that I suppose the farmer did not like to have killed, standing at the entrance of the

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old hovel; one seemed just to suit the other; they looked as though they belonged to other times. The new sign, the smart front of the tanhouse, and the white painted finger-post, were too smart for them. 66 'Well,” thinks I, "though the old hovel is still standing, it must be almost done over; one of these days down it will come."

This is a changing world; and if you look at a family of a dozen people ever so happy, it is ten to one but in a few years they will be found living in half a dozen different places; that is, if they are all then alive. "For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away," James iv. 14.

Once again I left the village, for a longer time than before; and when I came back, the church spire had been new shingled, and the weathercock regilt. A grand house had been built by Squire Vernon, near the clump of firs on the hill; the thatched cottages on the bank side were now all roofed with red tiles; Farmer Mitchell's house had a new bow-window looking into the garden, and the old broken cross on the green was taken away. "Well," thinks I, observing these changes, "I suppose I shall hardly be able to point out the spot where the old hovel stood; no doubt it tumbled down shortly after I left the village." What was my surprise, on looking over

Farmer Mitchell's fold-yard gate, towards the rickyard, again to see the ugly black top of the old hovel! I scarcely believed it possible; yet, there it was; there it is now; and, for aught I know, there it will be for years to come. Trees, cottages, and houses have been pulled down; yet there still stands the old hovel, with its cobwebbed corners, broken boards, and shattered black

thatch, uglier than ever.

It is an odd thing, but, so long have I been accustomed to look upon the old hovel, that, ugly as it is, I shall regret it when it falls. Down it must come, that is certain; it will soon be a heap of ruins, for it is little better than that now. Like the old hovel, the tenements about us, and the frail bodies we inhabit, may endure a few more summers and winters; but at last they must perish in the dust. Oh may I ever be enabled to say with holy Job, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," Job xix. 25. Let us look for his mercy, that when our earthly tabernacles are dissolved, we may have "a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," 2 Cor. v. 1. Let us look, by faith, "for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God," Heb. xi. 10.

RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY: INSTITUTED 1799.