And now, should we, as a mirror, place
This story out for the world to face,
How many, think you, would there perceive
Likeness to children of Adam and Eve?

=Idle Jack.=

See mischievous and idle Jack! 
How fast he flies, nor dares look back! 
He seized Horatio’s pretty cart,
And broke and threw it part from part;
The body here, and there the wheels;
And now, by taking to his heels,
He makes the Scripture proverb true,—­
The wicked flee when none pursue..

Oh!  Jack’s a worthless, wicked boy,
Who seems but evil to enjoy. 
He often racks his naughty brain
Inventing ways of giving pain. 
He loves to torture butterflies—­
To dust the kitten’s tender eyes—­
To break the cricket’s slender limb;
And pain to them is sport to him.

He sometimes to your garden comes,
To crush the flowers and steal the plums—­
The melons tries with thievish gripe,
To find the one that’s nearest ripe—­
His pocket fills with grapes or pears,
No matter how their owner fares;
When, by its lawless, robber track,
You trace the foot of idle Jack.

Whenever Jack is sent to school,
He, playing truant, plays the fool: 
Or else he goes, with sloven looks
And hands unclean, to spoil the books—­
To spill the ink, or make a noise,
Disturbing good and studious boys;
Till all who find what Jack’s about
Within the school, must wish him out.

If ever Jack at church appears,
He knows not, cares not, what he hears. 
While others to the word attend,
He has a pencil-point to mend—­
An apple, or his nails to pare,
Or cracks a nut in time of prayer,
Till many wish that Jack would come,
A better boy, or stay at home.

In short, he shows, beyond a doubt,
That, if he does not turn about,
And mend his morals and his ways,
He yet must come to evil days;
And of a life of wasted time—­
Of idleness, and vice, and crime,
To meet, perhaps, a felon’s end,
With neither man, nor God his friend.

=David and Goliath=.

Young David was a ruddy lad
  With silken, sunny locks,
The youngest son that Jesse had: 
  He kept his father’s flocks.

Goliath was a Philistine,
  A giant, huge and high;
He lifted, like a towering pine,
  His head towards the sky.

He was the foe of Israel’s race. 
  A mighty warrior, too;
And on he strode from place to place,
  And many a man he slew.

So Saul, the king of Israel then,
  Proclaimed it to and fro,
That most he’d favor of his men
  The one, who’d kill the foe.

Yet all, who saw this foe draw near,
  Would feel their courage fail;
For not an arrow, sword, or spear,
  Could pierce the giant’s mail.

But Jesse’s son conceived a way,
  That would deliverance bring;
Whereby he might Goliath slay,
  And thus relieve the king.