RUBY'S COBWEBS.
"LOOK up! Ruby, look up!" said Aunt Katie gently, as Ruby plied the broom in her cozy little sitting-room. "I like to see you digging out the corners and sweeping so nicely along the edges, but don't be like the man with the muck-rake, always turning your eyes downward. Look up, and you'll see some hideous cobwebs festooning the otherwise clean, pleasant room." Ruby's eyes went up to the ceiling at Aunt Katie's words, while her broom quickly followed.
"I never thought much about cobwebs, auntie," she said, as she ran her broom around the room, taking down the ugly festooning. "I don't call them hideous, though."
"I do," said auntie, "for I am always certain, when I see cobwebs in a house, that somebody in that house is not neat; and of course it must be either the mistress or the maid who sweeps." Ruby blushed a little at auntie's plain words; but she was her truest, best-loved friend since her mamma died, so she only laughed and said,—
"Well, auntie, as I am both mistress and maid, I shall certainly have to plead guilty this time, but we'll see if I do it again." Auntie smiled as she continued,—
"There is another thing. Cobwebs make me think of some of our sins, besetting sins they are, too, sometimes, like pride and selfishness. They don't come to the front and get right before us all the time, like our naughty tempers, and so get swept out of the way. They hang up in the corners and dark places of our hearts, where we don't mind them, but where they make our whole lives unclean and unlovely. If we would but look up more toward the light that cometh down from above, we should see these cobwebs of our pride' and selfishness, and, by God's grace, work away at them, till they should no more make our lives unclean and hateful."
"Thank you, Auntie," said Ruby; "it is a very good text and a good little sermon, and I'll try to remember."
Child's Paper.
WHILE I sought Happiness, she fled
Before me constantly;
Weary I turned to Duty's path,
And Happiness sought me,
Saying, "I walk this way today,
I'll bear thee company."