"I am willing to lend it to you, Mary. Here it is."
"I knew you would let me have it."
"Why do you always come to me to borrow when you have lost anything, Mary?"
"Because you never lose your things, and always know where to find them."
"How do you suppose I always know where to find my things?"
"I am sure I cannot tell. If I knew, I might, perhaps, sometimes contrive to find my own."
"This is the secret. I have a place for everything, and after I have done using anything, it is my rule to put it away in its proper place."
"Yes, just as though your life depended upon it."
"My life does not depend upon it, Mary, but my convenience does very much."
"Well, I never can find time to put my things away."
"How much more time will it take to put a thing away in its proper place, than it will be to hunt after it, when it is lost?"
"Well, I"ll never borrow of you again, you may depend on it."
"Why? you are not offended, Mary, I hope!"
"Oh no, Sarah. But I am ashamed that I have been so careless and disorderly, and now resolve to do as you do, to have a place for everything, and everything in its place."
"Well, Mary, this is a good resolution and will be easily carried out, if you bear in mind that, "Heaven"s first law is order.""
TRUE worth is in _being_, not _seeming_-- In doing each day that goes by
Some little good--not in the dreaming Of great things to do by-and-by.
We cannot make bargains for blisses, Nor catch them, like fishes, in nets;
And sometimes the thing our life misses Helps more than the good that it gets.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "_What I can"t tell mother, is not fit for me to know_."]
TELLING MOTHER
A group of young girls stood about the door of the schoolroom one afternoon, whispering together, when a little girl joined them, and asked what they were doing.
"I am telling the girls a secret, Kate, and we will let you know, if you will promise not to tell any one as long as you live," was the reply.
"I won"t tell any one but my mother," replied Kate. "I tell her everything, for she is my best friend."
"No, not even your mother, no one in the world."
"Well, then I can"t hear it; for what I can"t tell mother, is not fit for me to know."
After speaking these words, Kate walked away slowly, and perhaps sadly, yet with a quiet conscience, while her companions went on with their secret conversation.
I am sure that if Kate continued to act on that principle, she became a virtuous, useful woman. No child of a Christian mother will be likely to take a sinful course, if Kate"s reply is taken for a rule of conduct.
As soon as a boy listens to conversations at school or on the playground, which he would fear or blush to repeat to his mother, he is in the way of temptation, and no one can tell where he will stop. Many a man dying in disgrace, in prison, or on the scaffold, has looked back with bitter remorse to the time when he first listened to a sinful companion who came between him and a pious mother.
Girls, if you would be respected and honored in this life and form characters for heaven, make Kate"s reply your rule:--
"_What I cannot tell my mother is unfit for me to know."_ No other person can have as great an interest in your welfare and prosperity as a true, Christian mother.
Every girl should always remember that a Christian mother is her best earthly friend, from whom no secret should be kept.
HIGHEST aim and true endeavor; Earnest work, with patient might; Hoping, trusting, singing ever; Battling bravely for the right; Loving G.o.d, all men forgiving; Helping weaker feet to stand,--These will make a life worth living, Make it n.o.ble, make it grand.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
A STORY OF SCHOOL LIFE
"Oh, girls! I shall just die, I know I shall!" exclaimed Belle Burnette, going off into a hysterical fit of laughter, which she vainly pretended to smother behind an elegant lace edged handkerchief.
"What is it, you provoking thing! Why don"t you tell us, so we can laugh too?"
"Well--you--see," she gasped out at last, "we"ve got a new pupil--the queerest looking thing you ever saw. I happened to be in madam"s room when she came. She came in the stage, and had a mite of an old-fashioned hair trunk, not much bigger than a band-box, and she came into madam"s room with a funny little basket in her hand, and sat down as if she had come to stay forever.
""Are you Madam Gazin?" she asked.
""Yes," replied the teacher, "that is my name."
""Well, I"ve come to stay a year at your school."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "_That is just the amount, I believe_."]
"And then she pulled a handkerchief out of her basket, and unrolled it till she found an old leather wallet, and actually took out $250 and laid it in madam"s hand, as she said:--