THE SCOTCH THISTLE.
Why the Scots chose the thistle for a national insignia is told in this legend. It was at the time of an invasion, when the destinies of Scotland hung upon the result of a battle soon to come. The invaders knew that the Scots were desperate, and availed themselves of a dark, stormy night, and planned to fall upon the Scottish army on every side at the same moment. Had they been suffered to execute their plan undetected, they would certainly have succeeded in destroying the Scots; but a simple accident betrayed them. When near the Scottish camp, the foremost of the invaders removed the heavy shoes from their feet, so that their steps might not be heard, and thus stealthily advancing barefooted, a heavy, quick-tempered soldier trod squarely upon a huge thistle, the sharp point of which gave such sudden and exquisite pain that he cried out with a bitter curse. His cry aroused the outlying Scots, and apprized them of their danger, and meeting the foe widely divided for the purpose of encompassing the camp, they were enabled easily to overcome them with great slaughter. When the Scots discovered that it was to a thistle that they owed their victory, they adopted the prickly plant as their national emblem.
COUSIN SUSAN'S NOTE-BOOK JOTTINGS ON THE LIFE AND WORK OF FATHER CHINIQUY.
"BELOVED, BELIEVE NOT EVERY SPIRIT."
We have often wondered why any one should believe that a bit of consecrated bread was the true body and soul of the Lord Jesus, and that, as such, it should be reverenced and adored. But our surprise abates, though our sorrow increases, when we trace the steps by which a Roman Catholic reaches that point of folly and superstition, as the interesting narrative of Father Chiniquy brings them to our view.
When he was eleven or twelve years old, he met with a class of lads about the same age, to be prepared for his first communion; and there he was taught that, just as his mother punished him more seldom and less severely than his father for his faults, and just as his mother often interceded for him and saved him from punishment altogether, so Mary was more pitiful, more tender, than Jesus, and when He was righteously angry, His mother—the mother of all who pray to her—turned away His anger, and averted the strokes He was about to inflict on the sinner.
The thought of this Christ—terrible, angry, unapproachable—was dark and chilling in the extreme. He seemed a Being to be feared, but not beloved.