you might have been afraid even of the good cow, as Lucy calls her, who showed you the way out of the woods.

'When we trust in the goodness of God, and ask for his help, and try to use our best faculties, he gives strength to our minds, so that we are able either to avoid danger and take care of ourselves, or, if it comes, he gives us the power to bear it. You see, my dear boy, that your love for your sister and your trust in God made you courageous and wise. God has enabled you to have this love to your sister and this trust in Him, and this is the way that He took care of you; thus, then, the thought of Him made you calm, and enabled you to use your own faculties. If you had not thought of Him, you would not have had this power. And when, my dear, greater dangers are around us, that our own wisdom cannot save us from, we must trust that he will give us the assistance that we need; for he never forsakes those who trust in him, and obey his will.'

DIALOGUE.

'I wonder, Susan, that you like to go Sunday school,' said Lydia, to her young companion. 'I am sure I should not, if I were you.' Susan. And why should not I like to go? Lydia. O, because you meet all sorts of children there, mother says.

Susan. What do you mean by all sorts of children?

Lydia. I mean children you do not know anything about-poor children.

Susan. That is one reason why I like to go, for I think they are often a great deal better than rich children, and I am sure that I do not know any rich man's child so good as Sally Vernon, whom mother carried me to see the other day, and I do love to see her coming to Sunday school, looking so innocent and happy, and when I know too, that she is so good.

Lydia. What does she do so very good? Susan. She helps her mother, who is very poor, and she takes care of her younger broth

ers and sisters; and when the mistress of the school where her mother sends her, told Sally that as soon as she could sew well enough she would give her money for the work she did, she took great pains and learned; and when she got the money, she carried it to her mother, and her mother told her she might do what she pleased with it, and she went and bought a gown for her little sister, who wanted one. Besides, her school-mistress says she is so kind, and gentle, and humble, that every one loves her. And Mrs Vernon told mother, that one day, when they had only a little broth and one potatoe a-piece for dinner, Sally ate her potato and saved her broth. She asked Sally why she did not eat her broth, and then she told her mother that she only wanted the potato for dinner, but that she should like to give her share of the broth to poor old Betty, who lived next door, and who was poorer than they were, if her mother would let her.

Lydia. Nothing for dinner but one potato and a little broth! Do you believe that is true, Susan?

Susan. I know it is; and I know that often they do not have anything so good.

Lydia. Why I have often seen Sally in your

mother's kitchen, and she always looks clean and comfortable.

Susan. Her mother has always kept her children clean, and taught them that cleanliness is a virtue. I heard her say to mother that she thought the covering to an immortal soul ought to be kept clean, and that she had tried to keep her children's minds and bodies clear from all stains.

Lydia. Well, perhaps she may be a good girl, and if she is clean I should not be unwilling to sit by her; but I am thankful that my father and mother are in a different rank, and that I have some one to take care of me all the time, and that I am kept away from common children and vulgar society. I heard mother say yesterday that she had always taken care that I should have none but select associates; that children's manners were easily contaminated, and that she had taken care that I should have no acquaintance except among the first families. But I should like to know if that is all you go to Sunday school for, Susan-to meet your crony, Sally Vernon.

Lydia said this with a laugh and a toss of the head, and that air of self-satisfaction, which, unhappily, even children sometimes acquire,

when an habitual self-love, joined to a desire for admiration, hardens their hearts towards what they would otherwise love; or when, from a habit of imitation, they ape the conceits and contempt for inferiors (as they are called) which they witness in their parents or friends. Susan had been under very different influences, and had very different parents from Lydia. They had a far nobler priae: they felt that the highest rank of which human beings can boast, is to be children of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ of the kingdom of heaven. They had taught their children that there is no true superiority but in virtue, no genuine dignity but in true humility; that the only truly great were the truly good. Susan, in her heart, looked up only to those whom she esteemed the most truly virtuous. This was the scale by which her mind had been taught to measure every one's worth; and in the simple rectitude of her innocent heart, she was astonished to see in Lydia an entirely different mode of judging. She was so confused that she hesitated sometime before she made any She hardly knew what Lydia meant by rank, and all that she heard was strange doctrine to Susan. At last she came in her

answer.