INSIDE THE BONES.
A YOUNG New Englander, whose knowledge was more showy than deep, went, many years ago, to teach a school in Virginia. Among his pupils was a small, rather dull and insignificant-looking boy, who annoyed him by his questions. No matter what was the subject under discussion, this lad apparently never could get near enough to the bottom of it to be content.
One very warm August morning, the teacher, with no little vanity in a knowledge universal in those days, began to lecture to the boys on the habits and characteristics of a fish which one of them had caught during recess. He finished, and was about to dismiss the school, when his inquisitive pupil asked some questions about the gills and their use.
The question answered, others followed, concerning the scales, skin, and flesh. The poor teacher struggled to reply with all the information at his command; but that was small, and the day grew warmer, and the Saturday afternoon holiday was rapidly slipping away. "The school will now be dismissed," he said, at last. "But the bones! You have told us nothing about the bones!" said the anxious boy. Mr. Dash smothered his annoyance, and gave all the information he could command on the shape, structure, and use of the bones. "And now the school-" he began.
"What is inside of the bones?" stolidly came from the corner where the quiet boy was sitting. Mr. Dash never remembered what answer he gave, but the question and his despair fixed themselves in his memory.
Thirty-five years afterward he visited Washington, and entered the room where the Justices of the Supreme Court were sitting. The Chief-Justice, the most learned and venerated jurist of his day, was a man like St. Paul, whose bodily presence was contemptible. The stranger regarded him first with awe, then with amazement.
"It is the boy who went inside of the fish's bones!"
he exclaimed.
If he had not tried to go inside of every "fish's bones," he would never have reached the lofty position which he held.
It is the boy who penetrates to the heart of the matter, who is the successful scholar, and afterward lawyer, physician, philosopher, or statesman.
It is the man whose ax is laid to the root, not the outer branches, whose religion is a solid foundation for his life, here and beyond.
Selected.