d
selecting places where to build their pretty nests.

But the wind blows chill again. The sky is clouded, and people begin
to say, "I think we shall have another snow-storm." It is not long
before the feathery flakes begin to descend. The earth is so warm that
they scarce touch it before they are melted and absorbed. The snow
continues to fall, the earth grows colder and colder, and soon it
cannot melt the snow, but is itself chilled, and accepts it as a
mantle. For three days the storm rages. The ground is as white as in
mid-winter.

What is to become of the birds? They can find neither food nor
shelter. It is painful to see them flying distractedly through the
storm, not knowing where to go; but too cold and too hungry to remain
in the trees, and too fearful to seek comfort in the many warm houses,
that would have opened their windows, if they would have entered under
their protecting roof.

Mrs. Dudley's children are all watching them from the windows, and
throwing out hominy and bread-crumbs for them to eat. How cold the
little sparrows look, as they pick up their food! Children's hearts
are generally tender, and always so unless they have been hardened by
the practice of cruelty, and Mrs. Dudley's were full of sympathy for
the little sufferers. "Oh! mother!" said Eddie, the youngest, "if the
birds knew how we loved them, they would come into the house;" but the
birds did not know, and they stayed out in the snow, and many of them
perished.

The children were sadly grieved, when, after the storm, they found
many of their feathered friends dead. How much they regretted they
could not have saved their lives! If the birds had only known, as
Eddie said, how much the children loved them, they would have flown
into the house, and been warmed and fed.

There are many dear children who do not know how much Jesus loves
them; how much he wishes them to enter the "ark of safety," and escape
the dangers there are in the world. There are many who have not even
heard of him; and many of those who have, do not know he is their best
friend.

Do _you_ know how much he loves you, and have you sought his
protection amid all the dangers that surround you? If you have not
found refuge in that "high tower," of which David speaks in the
Psalms, you are no safer than were the birds flying through the cold
snow, and you surely will be lost if you do not fly to that kind
Saviour, who has prepared a way of escape for you.

[Illust