THE BOY AND THE ECHO.
JAMES TELLBURN and his mother went one summer from the village where they lived to stay in another part of the country.
The morning after they reached their new home, she sent him out to play by himself in the field near the cottage, and he took with him' a long tin whistle, on which he was fond of piping tunes.
There were some curious high rocks near; and at one corner of the field, where there was a rude stile leading to a rough and stony pathway, it had been found that there was a very clear echo, but little James knew nothing about this. He did not even know what an echo is, and how it repeats what is said to it.
James thought the stile a capital place for his practice, so he rested his arm on the top bar, and began to whistle. He was very much surprised when he had finished his first tune, and stopped for breath, to hear the same tune just finishing up among the rocks, and he supposed that there must be another boy piping there out of sight. 'He thought that it would be very pleasant to have a companion to play with and to whistle with, so he shouted, "Ho! Ho!" as loud as he could, and soon he heard a voice say again, "Ho! Ho!" He did not know what to make of this, so he shouted, "Who are you?" and the words came back to him, "Who are you?" James now felt sure that some one was mocking him, so he called out, "You are a fool!" in very surly tone, and the voice on the hill said again, and in just the same tone,
"You are a fool!"
This made little James very angry, and he began to say many unkind words, and the echo said them all back to him. At last he could bear it no longer, and he ran home to his mother, and said, "O mother, there is such a bad wicked boy hidden up among the rocks! He has been calling me names, and saying such bad words."
"Ah, my boy," the mother said sadly, "you are accusing yourself. The echo has said nothing to you that you did not say to it first. And let me tell you that as you grow up, you will find many people very like that echo. If you speak kindly to them, they will speak kindly to you. If you say rude, rough words, you may expect to hear the same from them." And then the good mother took her Bible from the shelf, and found two verses, which she read to little James, and said that she hoped he would learn them quite by heart, and try to remember them. They are these-
"Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice; and be ye kind one to another,
tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Eph. 4:31, 32.
Selected.