SOMETHING TO BE GLAD FOR.
I AM very glad about one thing today," said little Harriet, thoughtfully, as she sat by her mother's side in the evening, rocking her kitten to sleep, in her low rocking chair.
"What is that?" asked her mother, with a smile; "some good thing you have done"
"No, mother, but a bad one I didn't do."
Harriet had a way of telling her mother her thoughts; and I cannot tell you what a blessing that was to the little girl; how many good lessons she learned which she would otherwise have missed; how many wrong things were set right; and how many little tender vines of goodness were trained and encouraged by her dear mother's loving words, which without them might have drooped and withered.
"What was the wrong thing you were tempted to do, Hattie?"
"Well mother: Laura Powers spoke very unkindly to me because she lost her place in the class, and I was at the head; she tried hard to make me angry, and I did get very angry. Then I thought of some hard speeches I wished to make to her. But I didn't, mother. I am so glad I didn't. I was ashamed about it afterward, when I thought it over, and I prayed God to forgive me, just as you taught me to."
There was a gentle arm slipped around the little girl's shoulders, and mother's cheek bent down
over the shining, golden head.
"I am glad, too, my darling. If there is anything we are ever glad for, it is that we left unsaid bitter words that rose up in our hearts. Always think, when you are tempted to say them,
How glad I shall be, by and by, if I do not.'
Jesus bore all his evil treatment meekly. He could pray for the forgiveness of his worst enemies. Try always to be like him, my darling; then you will be really happy, and will be fitting yourself for a home where all is happiness, because all is love."
Selected.
"SOMEBODY ELSE."
A LADY was walking quietly along the city street, when the door of a house flew open, and a boy shot out with a whoop like a wild Indian. Once on the pavement, he danced around a curb-stone, and then raced down the street in great haste, for it was evident, by the books under his arm, that he was going to school. The lady was thinking to herself what thoughtless, noisy creatures healthy boys always are, when just a few yards before her she saw something yellow lying on the stones. Coming nearer, she fancied it was a pine shaving, and looked after the boy again. She saw him suddenly stop short in a crowd of people at a crossing, coming back as fast as he had gone. He reached the shaving just before she did, and picked up, not a shaving at all, but a long, slimy banana-skin. Flinging it into a refuse barrel, he waited only long enough to say,
"Somebody might have slipped on it," and was off again.
It was a little thing to do; but that one glance of the boy's clear, gray eyes, and that simple, ear-nest sentence, made the lady's heart very warm to-ward the noisy fellow. He had not slipped him-self; he was far past the danger, and when one is in a hurry, it is a great bother to go twice over the
same ground. But the "somebody else" might slip; and so for the sake of this unknown somebody,
the hurrying boy came back, and it may be, saved the life or limbs of a feeble old man, or a little child. He might have said, "I can't wait to go back—it's none of my doing, and so it's none of my business;" but he made it his business, and in this showed a trait of character which promised well for the future. There is nothing nobler on earth than this taking care that "somebody else" shall not suffer needlessly. The child who grows up with such a spirit always active in him, will do much to make his home happy, and will be likely to win many friends.
Selected.
UPRIGHTNESS IS STRENGTH.
A LITTLE boy was once playing in the library of Frederick the Great, his grand-uncle. Frederick opened a book of French fables, and asked the boy to translate one. He did it in splendid style, and the king praised him warmly. The honest little fellow at once confessed, "Your Majesty, I had that fable for my lesson with the tutor the other day." The king was more delighted with the prince's honesty than with his cleverness, laid aside his work, took the boy out for a walk in the gardens, feelingly advised him to be true and upright in all his dealings as he had been in the •library, and showed him how easily he might yield to lies, and so darken his whole life. They had just reached the lofty obelisk that still stands at the palace gate at Potsdam, when the king, pointing to it, said,
Bible Children.