years he continued to pursue his worldly calling, and to employ his Sundays in doing good to others. After a time thus spent, his attention was turned to the ministry; and, upon careful examination, he was encouraged to quit his worldly occupations and devote himself to study. That individual is now, and has been for some years, usefully engaged in ministering to a village congregation in a dark and destitute part of England, where God is giving him both comfort and usefulness in a humble but happy sphere. The thought of doing good was crowned with success. return to me," he thought, "It is impossible." His past life and infidel ridicule of heaven forbade the hope that he should ever meet his child in that happy world. While in this state an agent of the City Mission called upon him; the man disclosed his state of mind, and the instructions, counsels, and prayers of the agent were blessed by the Holy Spirit. Man and wife became regular worshippers in the house of God, cherishing the hope that they shall meet their child in heaven. 1541. Kiss for a Blow.-In a magazine for the young we read: "A boy about seven years of age, 1540. Infidel Father.-An un- talking to his younger sister, believing father allowed his wife doubled his fist and struck her on to send their two children to a the head. She was angry in a Sunday-school. One of them not moment, and raised her hand at long after was seized with illness, once to strike him in return. The and it soon appeared from the teacher saw her, and said, Mary, nature of the disease he could not you had better kiss George.' Mary recover. The father came home dropped her hand and looked up on the last evening of the child's at the teacher, as if she did not life from an infidel meeting, under fully understand her. She had the influence of the sentiments and never been taught to return good principles usually taught in such for evil. She thought that if her societies, when his wife said to him, brother struck her, she of course "James is dying." The father had a right to strike him back went upstairs, approached the bed- again. The teacher looked kindly side of his dying child, and while at her, and said again, Mary, my the father was looking upon him dear, you had better kiss your the child said, "Father, I am very brother. See how angry and unhappy; I am going to heaven; will looks.' Mary looked at you meet me there, father ?" and He looked sullen and immediately expired. This appeal Her resentment was was too much for him. He made soon gone, and love for her brother many efforts to efface the impres- returned to her heart; she threw sion from his mind, but without both her arms about his neck and effect. He confesses that he was a kissed him. The poor boy was drunkard, a blasphemer, and to wholly unprepared for such a kind use his own language, "the vilest return for his blow, his feelings wretch living." The appeal con- were touched, and he burst into tinued to be more and more affect- tears." ing to him; and one Sabbath, having driven a party a few miles from town, he put up his horses quickly and went to church. One of the lessons for the day was 2 Sam. xiii., containing the reflections of David on the death of his child. When he heard the words, "I shall go to him, but he shall not happy he 1542. Little One's Prayer.-A little child knelt near the broken lattice. Casting a glance at the sleeping form of her father, she clasped her wan hands, and murmured, "O God, make father leave his evil ways; make him my own dear father once again! Make 66 nor mathematics, nor any of those beautiful things which you know. I only know my catechism; but since you are so learned, and say there is no God, you can easily tell me whence the egg comes ?" funny question, truly; the egg comes from the hen." "Which of them existed first, the egg or the hen?" "A mother's sad looks go away, and make her old smile come back; Thy will always be done." Just then the mother entered the room, and taking her husband by the arm, she said, "Hearken to Minnie; she is praying." "O God, make father love me as once he did, and make him forsake his bad ways!" murmured the little one again."I really do not know what you Oh, Paul-husband!" cried the mother; "by our past joys and sorrows, by our marriage vows, our wedded love, blight not the life of our little one! Oh, let us all be happy again!" The conscience-stricken don, miss, I did not take notice man bowed his head and wept, that the egg existed first." "There then clasping his hands, he said, is then an egg that did not come "With God's help, you will never from a hen." Oh, if you-beg be made to sorrow on my account pardon-that is-you seeagain." And he kept his vow. intend with this question and your 66 66 'But see, sir, that you do not know whether the egg existed before the 1543. Philosopher Shamed.-A hen, or hen before the egg." "Well, young man from the provinces, then, I say the hen." "Very well, who was sent to Paris to finish there is then a hen which did not his education, had the misfortune come from an egg. Tell me now of getting into bad company. He who made this first hen, from went so far as to wish, and finally which all other hens and eggs to say, "There is no God; God come." "With your hens and is only a word." After staying your eggs, it seems to me you several years at the capital, the take me for a poultry dealer." young man returned to his fa- " By no means, sir. I only ask you mily. One day he was invited to to tell me whence the mother of a respectable house where there all hens and eggs came?" was a numerous company. While for what object?" Well, since all were entertaining themselves you do not know, you will permit with news, pleasure, and business, me to tell you. He who created two girls, aged respectively twelve the first hen, or, as you would and thirteen, were seated in a bay rather have it, the first egg, is the window, reading together. The same who created the world, and young man approached them and this being we call God. You, who asked, "What beautiful romance cannot explain the existence of a are you reading so attentively, hen or an egg without God, still young ladies ?" "We are reading wish to maintain and to be able to no romance, sir; we are reading explain the existence of this world the history of God's chosen people." without God." The young philo"You believe, then, that there is a sopher was silent; he quietly took God?" Astonished at such a ques- his hat, and, full of shame, detion, the girls looked at each other, parted, if not convinced of his folly, the blood mounting to their cheeks. at least confounded by the simple "And you, sir, you do not believe questioning of a child. it ?" "Once I believed, but after living in Paris, and studying philosophy, mathematics, and politics, I am convinced that God is an empty word." "I, sir, was never in Paris; I have never studied philosophy, 1544. Prayerful Child.-When the deceased Rev. T. Reader, of Taunton, was but a child of eight years old, he felt the importance of religion, and could not be happy without private prayer. One evening, his father's house being full of company, he had not a convenient place for his secret devotions; but, unwilling to omit what he knew to be his duty, he went into his father's wool-loft to enjoy the pleasure of communion with God. At first he felt some childish fears, on account of his lonely situation, but afterwards his mind was so filled with God and the joys of religion that he forgot the gloominess of the place. During his childhood, a person being on a visit at his father's, Thomas was appointed to sleep with him. After the gentleman had retired to his chamber, the pious little boy knocked at the door, requesting him to let him go through his room to an inner closet, which he used to frequent for the exercise of prayer. The conscience of the visitor severely smote him. "What!" thought he; "is this little child so anxious to obtain a place for devout retirement, while I have never prayed in my life?" It led him to serious reflections, which, through the Divine blessing, were the happy means of his conversion. 66 "Well," said the woman, “if you will pay me what I gave for it, you shall have it." "Thank you," replied the boy; "I will go home and ask my mother for some money." Away he went, and said, "Mother, mother, please to give me some money." "What for?" said the mother. "To buy a Bible," he replied; "for the woman at the shop was tearing up the Bible, and I told her she should not do it; then she said she would sell it to me. Oh, mother, do give me some money to buy it, that it may not be torn up!" His mother said, "I cannot, my dear boy; I have none." The child cried, still begged for some.money, but in vain. Then sobbing, he went back to the shop, and said, "My mother is poor, and cannot give me any money; but, O mistress, don't tear up the Bible, for my teachers have told me that it is the Word of God !” The woman, perceiving the boy greatly concerned, said, "Well, don't cry, for you shall have the Bible, if you will go and get its weight in waste-paper." At this unexpected but joyful proposal, the boy dried up his tears, saying, "That I will, mistress, and thank you too." Away he ran to his mother, and asked her for some paper. She gave him all she had, and then he went to the neighbours and begged more; and having, as he hoped, collected enough, he hastened with the bundle under his arm to the shop, and on entering it exclaimed, "Now, mistress, I have got the paper!" "Very well," said the woman, "let me weigh it.” The scale turned in the boy's favour, and he cried out, with tears of joy sparkling in his eyes, "The Bible is mine!" and seizing it, exclaimed, "I have got it! I have got it!" and away he ran home to his mother, crying, as he went, "I have got the Bible! I have got the Bible!" 1545. Sunday-Scholar's Veneration for the Bible. A little Sunday-scholar was one day sent by his mother to a shop for some soap, when the shop-woman, having weighed it, took a leaf from a Bible that was placed on the counter for waste-paper; at which the boy was greatly astonished, and eagerly exclaimed," Why, mistress, that is the Bible!" "Well, and what if it be?" replied the woman. "It is the Bible!" repeated the boy; "and what are you going to do with it?" "To wrap up the soap," was the answer. But, mistress, you should not tear up that book, for it is the Bible!" cried the boy, with peculiar emphasis. "What does that signify?" said the woman, sharply. "I bought it for waste-paper to use in the shop." The boy still, with in- 1546. Things of Cæsar's.-A creasing energy, exclaimed, "What, lad, about nine years of age, who the Bible! I wish it was mine. I frequented a Sunday-school at would not tear it up like that." Sunderland, requested his mother 66 not to allow his brother to bring (who was a pious woman), and home anything, when he went to their little girl lived alone, amidst sea, that was smuggled. "Why the howlings of the great wide do you wish that, child?" He sea. One day the keeper went answered, “Because my catechism ashore, and when there was seized says it is wrong." The mother and kept prisoner by a band of replied, "But that is only the word wreckers, who thought if they of a man." He asked, "Mother, could only keep him prisoner, the is it the word of a man that says, lighthouse would be unlighted at 'Render unto Cæsar the things night, and vessels would be wrecked, that are Cæsar's '?" This reply en- of which they would get the spoils. tirely silenced the mother; but But his little daughter was left in his father still attempting to de- their watery home; and when no fend the practice of smuggling, the father came home at night, though boy said to him, "Father, which her heart sank within her at his is worse to rob one, or to rob absence, she thought of the poor many ?" sailors who might be lost, and, brave girl that she was! she went 1547. Wreckers and the Child. up to the top of the lighthouse -A little girl lived with her father and lighted all the lamps, till the in a lighthouse on the coast of whole sent forth the clear and welCornwall. The father, mother! come blaze. Psalm lx. 4; ZEAL. Isa. lix. 17; Matthew v. 16; 1 Cor. ii. 1-4, 13; Gal. iv. 18; 1548. Athens Rebuilt by Zeal. -The Athenians began to rebuild their city, which had been almost entirely destroyed by the Persians, after the war of Media; and further, proposed to surround it with strong walls, in order to secure it from future violence. The Lacedæmonians, having intelligence of this, became apprehensive that if Athens, which was already very powerful by sea, should go on to increase in strength by land also, it might presume in time to give laws to Sparta, and deprive her of that authority and pre-eminence which she had hitherto exercised over the rest of Greece. They therefore sent an embassy to the Athenians, to represent to them that the common interest and safety required that there should be no fortified city out of the Peloponnesus, lest, in case of a second invasion, it should serve for a place of arms for the Persians, who would be sure to settle themselves in it, as they had done before at Thebes; and who, from thence, would be able to invest the whole country, and make themselves masters of it speedily. Themistocles, who, since the battle of Salamis was held in great respect at Athens, easily penetrated into the true design of the Lacedæmonians, though it was gilded over with the specious pretext of public good; but as they were able, with the assistance of their allies, to hinder the Athenians, by force, from carrying on the work, in case they should positively and absolutely refuse to comply with their demand, he advised the Senate to make use of cunning and dissimuiation, to evade their opposition. The answer, therefore, which they gave to the envoys was, that they would send an embassy to Sparta, to satisfy the commonwealth concerning their jealousies and apprehensions. Themistocles got himself to be nominated one of the ambassadors, and persuaded the Senate not to let his colleagues set out at the same time, that after the along with him, but to send them one after another. The matter was executed agreeably to his advice, and he accordingly went alone to Lacedæmon, where he allowed a great many days to pass without waiting upon the magistrates or applying to the Senate. On their at last pressing him to have his audience, and asking him the reason why he deferred it so long, he made answer that he waited for the arrival of his colleagues, that they might all have their audience of the Senate together, and seemed to be very much surprised that they were so long in coming. When some time had elapsed, his colleagues at last arrived; but all came singly, and at some distance of time from one another. During all this time the work was carried on at Athens with the utmost zeal, industry, and vigour. The women, children, strangers, and slaves, were all employed on it; nor was it interrupted night or day. The Spartans were not ignorant of the matter, and made great complaints on the subject. Themistocles, how-sembled their resentment; and ever, positively denied the truth of the information they had received, and pressed them to send other deputies to Athens, in order to inform themselves better of the fact, 1549. Benevolent Zeal.-The desiring them not to give credit footway from Hampton Wick, to loose and flying reports without through Bushey Park, to Kingstonfoundation. At the same time he upon-Thames, had been for many secretly advised the Athenians to years shut up to the public. An detain the Spartan envoys as so honest shoemaker, Timothy Benmany hostages, until he and his nett, of the former place, " unwillcolleagues were returned from their ing" (it was a favourite expression) embassy; fearing, not without good "to leave the world worse than he reason, that they themselves might found it," consulted an attorney be served in the same manner at upon the practicability of recoverSparta. At last, when all his fellow ing this road for the public good, ambassadors were arrived, he de- and the probable expense of a legal sired an audience, and declared process for that purpose. "I do in full Senate that it was really not mean to cobble the job," said true the Athenians had resolved Timothy, "for I have seven hunto fortify their city with strong dred pounds, and I should be willwalls; that the work was almost ing to give up the awl, that great completed; that they had judged folks might not keep the upper it absolutely necessary for their leather wrongfully." The lawyer own security, and for the public informed him that no such sum good of the allies; telling them would be necessary to try the great experience they had had of the Athenian people's behaviour, they could not well suspect them of being wanting in their zeal for the common interest of their country; that, as the condition and privileges of all the allies ought to be equal, it was just the Athenians should provide for their own safety by all the methods they judged necessary, as well as the other confederates; that they had thought of this expedient, and were in. a condition to defend their city against whoever should presume to attack it; and that, as for the Lacedæmonians, it was not much to their honour that they should desire to establish their power and superiority rather upon the weak and defenceless condition of their allies, than upon their own strength and valour. The Lacedæmonians were extremely displeased with this discourse; but, either out of a sense of esteem and gratitude for the Athenians, or from a conviction that they were not able to oppose their enterprise, they dis the ambassadors, after all suitable honours had been paid them, returned home rejoicing. |