“The Snake and the Spider.” A black snake, about a foot long, lay sunning itself on a garden-bed one summer’s day. A spider had hung out his web on the branches of a bush, above where the snake lay. He saw the huge monster lying there, for huge indeed he was compared to the little spider, and he concluded to take him prisoner. But, you ask, is not the snake a thousand times stronger than the spider? Certainly he is. Then how can he take him prisoner? Well, let us see how he did it. The spider spun out a fine, slender thread. He slipped down, and touched the snake with it. It stuck. He took another, and touched him with that, and that stuck too. He went on industriously. The snake lay quiet. Another, and another thread, was fastened to him, till there were hundreds and thousands of them. And, by and by, those feeble threads, not one of which was strong enough to hold the smallest fly, when greatly multiplied, were strong enough to make the snake a prisoner. The spider webbed him round and round, till, at last, when the snake tried to move, he found it was impossible. The web had grown strong out of its weakness. By putting one strand here, and another there, and drawing, first on one, and then on another, the spider had the snake bound fast, from head to tail, to be a supply of food for himself and family for a long while. And so, if we give way even to little sins, they may make us their prisoner as the spider did the snake, and before we are aware of it, we may be bound hand and foot and unable to help ourselves.