because, as I said, the power of moving has been given to them, while plants have no such faculty. Nothing, however, can move without a cause. This boat stops, you see, directly the propelling force ceases; and the movements of animals, and even men, inexplicable as they may seem to you, can proceed only from the operation of uniform motive powers. You, of course, have never asked yourself what it is that moves men to act as they do."

"I'm sure I never gave that a thought as yet, uncle," the boy replied frankly. "But, now I come to turn it over in my mind, it seems to me as if nobody could tell as much."

"Indeed, lad; let us see. Well, Ben, innumerable as are the movements continually going on in the human frame, they all admit of being resolved into three kinds, according as they are preceded or not by some particular feeling. In the first place, our muscles may move like the machinery of a mere automaton, or, in other words, without any feeling at all. Our heart beats and our lungs expand continually, without our being even conscious of the incessant action going on within us-ay, and, what is more wonderful, without the least sense of fatigue being connected with the work."

"Isn't it strange," Benjamin exclaimed, "that our heart never gets tired of moving, like our limbs ?"

"Yes; and isn't it as kind as it is strange, my lad, that such should be the case ?" the uncle reminded his pupil; "but our muscles not only move automatically, without any preceding feeling, but they move also instinctively that is to say, in consequence of some feeling which immediately precedes and gives rise to the motion. Any sudden pain, such as a burn upon the finger,

for instance, causes you involuntarily to contract the muscles of the injured part, and to withdraw the limb directly from the object wounding you. Again, if you are surprised or startled by any unexpected circumstance, your whole body is drawn back, and your hands thrown up immediately, to ward off the fancied danger-ay, and that, too, long before you have time to think about what it is best to do, or even to obtain any knowledge as to the nature of that which has alarmed you. Such muscular movements, however, are wholly involuntary that is to say, they are not left to the slow operations of our will to conceive and carry out; but, being necessary for our preservation, in common with that of animals, they have been made matters of instinct with us as with them; or, in other words, ordained to follow immediately upon a particular feeling existing in the mind."

"Is animal instinct, then," inquired the lad, as he pondered over and repeated his uncle's words, "merely a certain kind of muscular movement made to follow immediately upon a particular feeling ?"

"That is all, my son," was the reply. "The bird builds its nest, not with any thought of the young she is destined to rear, but merely in consequence of a vague sensation that is on her at the time. The squirrel lays up a store of nuts for the winter, not because it foresees a decrease of the summer stock, but simply in obedience to the feelings and promptings of its nature."

"I see now," mused the youth, as he turned the new truths over and over in his mind.

"But the muscles of man, my child, have been made to move, not only instinctively, or, what amounts to the same thing, involuntarily, according to the dictates of mere animal nature, but

they have been made to move also voluntarilythat is to say, in obedience to the suggestions and determination of the will. Bishop Cranmer— you know who he was, Benjamin ?"

"Oh yes," cried the youth, "I know; he was one of the martyrs burnt with Ridley and Latimer opposite Baliol College at Oxford, in Old England, and he held his hand in the flames at the stake, uncle, because, as he said, 'it had of fended him in writing contrary to his heart;' and he had solemnly declared at St. Mary's Church that if he came to the fire that hand should be punished first.""

"Well said, my good little fellow," cheered the godfather; "but didn't Cranmer feel the same pain from the flames, think you, and the same animal instinct to withdraw his hand from them as we ourselves should have felt? and yet it was by the determined effort of his will that he kept it there, in defiance of the promptings of his animal instincts, as he cried aloud, This unworthy hand! this unworthy hand!' and forced it to burn and char before the rest of his limbs. Can you see now, Benjamin, what is the use of will in man ?"

"I think I can, uncle; but do you tell me, and let me hear whether I am right," he answered, for the boy was afraid to trust himself to frame his thoughts into speech.

"Well, lad," Uncle Benjamin replied, "the high and noble use of man's will is to control or guide the animal instincts of his nature."

"I thought it was so from what you said about Cranmer, uncle;" and the lad fell musing over the subject in his own simple way, while the godfather paused to watch with delight the workings of the boy's mind, that, like a newly-fledged bird, was making its first attempts to fly. "So the use of man's will," the youth repeated over and over

again to himself, in order to impress the words well on his memory, "is to control or guide the animal instincts of his nature."

"But I say, my noble captain," cried the uncle, again waking up to a sense of their position, "are we really to remain here all day? I could talk to you quite as well if we were moving on a bit, but this is sad slow work, my boy."

--

"There's a strong ebb-tide on just now, uncle, and there's no making the least headway against that; and, let me see- let me see," he mused, "it would have been high water in the harbor today at eleven, so it will be about five o'clock before the tide turns, you know," and the youngster shook his head, as much as to say he could discover no means of getting out of their difficulty.

"Five o'clock! tut, tut! and I wanted to have been at meeting at six." Then, as Uncle Benjamin gave vent to his impatience, he tugged from his fob a watch as big as the "bull's-eye" to a ship's scuttle, and cried, after looking well at the dial, and holding it up to his ear to satisfy himself it was still going, "Why, it's not three yet, I declare."

"Besides, you remember, uncle, the sun doesn't set now till long past five, and there's no chance of a breeze till then, I'm certain," was the only consolation the little captain could offer.

"But are you quite sure of one at that time, you young rascal, eh ?" inquired the old gentleman, in no little alarm at the idea of having to pass the night out at sea.

"There generally is a breeze at sundown, you know, uncle," answered young Ben, delighted to display his nautical knowledge once more.

"Well, all I can say is, I'm in your hands, captain-in your hands, bear in mind; for, Heaven

knows, I'm as ignorant as a sucking-pig of all that concerns the water;" and, so saying, the elder Benjamin abandoned himself with becoming resignation at once to the sourness of the circumstances and the cider.

CHAPTER XI.

BECALMED.

For a while Uncle Benjamin silently grieved over the untowardness which prevented him adding the discourse of that evening to the three volumes of manuscript sermons that he had written out from notes taken in chapel during their delivery by the most celebrated preachers of the day. His temper, however, was of too even and cheerful a quality to be any more ruffled than the water itself by the lack of wind; so, when he had drained the cider-bottle, he wrote in pencil on a slip of paper, "All well on board 'THE LIVELY NANCY,' off Boston, October 2d, 1719;" and corking up the playful memorandum, flung the flagon with the note inside into the sea.

"There it goes, Ben," he cried, as he watched the bottle dance up and down beside the boat, "without any more purpose to direct it than an idler. Where it will ultimately land, or what will be its end, no one can say."

The lesson was not wasted on the youth; so, stretching himself at full length on the seat opposite his uncle, he said, as he lay comfortably arranged for listening, with his cheek resting on his hand, "You were telling me, uncle, about the use of the will, you know."

"Well, lad, the function of our will," the old man resumed, "is to interfere between our feel