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"That's a good boy," said the teacher, "for, except we forgive, we cannot expect God to forgive our sins."

Of course, the young scholar well understood that all prayer must be offered up in the name of our blessed Saviour, Jesus Christ; it is for his sake that prayer is answered. To poor James the wicked conduct of his father was a sad trial; but in his absence, he used to follow the good teacher's advice, and to go up stairs to pour out his soul in prayer to God.

Some time after the severe beating, I don't know how long, the little boy came home from the factory, as usual at the dinner hour; and not finding his father there, retired immediately to the room in which he slept, and kneeling down, began to pray aloud. The man returned unexpectedly, and going up stairs for something he wanted, thought he heard talking; and so he listened. It was his son at prayer. He stood awhile listening, and heard James earnestly imploring God to have mercy upon his father. "O Lord!" said the child, with fervour, "forgive my wicked father, as I have forgiven him!" This was too much for the father. His heart was touched-God had touched it. He rushed into the room-not as before to beat poor James, nor to drag him dowu stairs by the hair; O, no! he took the astonished boy in his arms, carried him down, and, placing him in the middle of the room, desired his wife and all his children to kneel down, and then requested the boy to pray for them.

From this happy day James always prayed in the family. His father not only believed in God, and regularly attended public worship, but deeply repented of his sins. God forgave him for Christ's sake, and changed his heart, filling it with love for his Saviour. I wish I could tell you more about this family; but I only know that the father felt it was his duty to go to the Sunday-school, and return thanks for the great benefits he owed to the instruction which had been given to his son. No doubt James' prayers and good example had been a blessing to his brothers and sisters, and perhaps to their mother; for, when speaking to the superintendent, the father said, “I

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am come to thank you for the benefit I and my family have received through my son's coming to this school."

How grateful and happy must James' teacher have been! I highly respect Sunday-school teachers. O may this article encourage them to speak faithfully to the dear children God has committed to their care!

Early Days.

FOLLY AND WICKEDNESS OF QUARRELLING.

THERE was a cottage not a great way from Mary and Alfred's home, and in that cottage lived two boys and two girls, with their father and mother.

It was not a happy family, for the chidren often quarrelled, and called each other very bad names; and too often they also fought with one another.

Sometimes, when Mary and Alfred were at play in the garden, they could hear the loud cries of these children, and they, more than once, had seen them in the road, beating and throwing each other in the dirt. It made them sad to hear and see these things. They thought, and indeed they said to their father one day, "If our little dear brother John had lived, we would not have hurt him, and been cross to him."

Once these quarrelsome children were at play, and one of the girls struck her elder brother with her hand, and then ran away. The boy then picked up a stone which was in the road, and ran after his sister. He was in a great passion; and as he ran he cried out that he would kill her. This frightened the little girl very much; for she knew that her brother was stronger than she, and she knew that he would not care what harm he did, while his passion lasted. So she ran away from him as fast as she could. But her brother ran still faster; and he would have caught her, too, if she had not run into the garden where Mary was with her father. She ran to them, and said, "O, do not let my wicked brother come near me; he will kill me."

The boy had run after his sister, quite to the garden, before he saw Mary's father; and then he stopped, and would have gone back, if Mary's father had not said, "Put down the stone, Henry, and come here."

Henry did as he was bid; he was afraid to run away ; but he walked very slowly. At length he reached the place; and Mary's father took him by one hand, and his little sister by the other, and went with them into a garden arbour, and there he talked with them. Mary and Alfred went too, and heard what their father said.

Mary and Alfred's father had always been very kind to the children in the cottage. He had often given them little books to read; sometimes he gave them money for going on errands, or for weeding his garden, and when he met them he used to speak pleasantly to them. This is why they were willing to go with him now.

He sat down in the arbour, and placed the little girl beside him, while her brother stood on the other side of his knee.

"What were you going to do with that large stone you had in your hand, Henry?" he said to the boy.

"Lucy hit me," he said; "she is always hitting me." "Yes, but what were you going to do with the stone?" "He said he would kill me," said Lucy.

"I see how it is; you have been quarrelling again.” Then Henry and Lucy both of them began to lay the blame upon each other. Mary's father heard what they had to say, and then he talked to them. He told them what a sad thing it is sisters to disagree and fight each other. mind of Cain, who was so wicked as to Abel. And he also told them of a little boy, whom he once knew, who struck his younger brother in anger, and killed him.

for brothers and He put them in kill his brother

Then he said this to Henry: "Now, suppose you had caught your sister while you were so angry with her, do you think you would really have struck her with that stone ?"

Henry did not answer.

"I am afraid you would have done," said Mary's father; "and one blow of your angry arm with such a heavy thing in your hands might indeed have killed her. Now, instead of being here safe, your sister might be lying on the road, with blood streaming from her head, not able to speak or to move. Is this a sight you would like to see Henry?"

The boy burst into tears; he did not like to think of what he might have done; and he said he was very sorry.

Then he spoke to Lucy. He told her how very wrong it is to do any thing to provoke another; and that he was sorry she should lift her little hand to strike a brother, even though she did not mean to hurt him much.

She also said that she was sorry; and she began to cry. Then he told them that they ought to confess their sin to God, and ask pardon of him; and to ask his help to keep them from being so naughty in future. He told them that if they were to live in peace with each other, they would be much more happy than they ever had been; and that the great God who sees all things, takes notice of children who live in love, and is pleased with them. But he is angry every day with the quarrelsome, and says that where He is they cannot come.

"Let us hear," said he, "what the Bible says to you. These are the words of God, 'Little children love one another.' 'He that loveth not his brother, abideth in death.' Whoso hateth his brother is a murderer.' 'My little children let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.""

He then led Henry and Lucy out of the garden, and they went home together in peace.

Great Truths for Little Children.

SOME POOR CHILD'S FATHER.

THE omnibus was slowly pursuing its way up one of the long hills that lead to the outskirts of Cincinnati, in America, when the attention of its various inmates was directed to a man lying on the road side, with flushed and swollen

face and trembling limbs, who vainly strove to raise himself from the earth, muttering broken and incoherent sentences, and ever and anon falling back into the dust, which had already plentifully begrimed his face and clothes. Some of the passengers gazed on him with a contemptuous smile of pity, some with an expression of loathing and disgust, while a few of a coarser sort on the top. burst forth into an expression of vulgar derision.

"Go it, old chap,” said one. "Try it again,” shouted another, as he made a fruitless attempt to rise.

A little boy, about five years old, was stretching his neck to watch the sight, and joined, unhesitatingly, in the laugh set up on the outside.

"Hush, hush, my dear!" said a gentlewoman by his side, "don't laugh, Henry; that man is some poor child's father, I suppose."

The boy seemed to feel at once the force of this appeal, for he looked with astonishment and sorrow into his mother's face, and several of the passengers appeared by their thoughtful air, to have felt the force of the gentle appeal, and looked more as Christians should look on the fallen creature they were leaving behind.

And there, indeed, was some poor child's father, as the gentle voice had said. Look with us inside of this low and shattered room, and there you will see a pale and faded woman sitting up, sick and feeble, by a decaying fire, striving, with trembling hand and failing eye, to finish a piece of sewing; her head is weary and giddy-the room often seems turning round and round with sickening motion, and her hand often stops and trembles as she still urges her needle, but the only reliance of those helpless ones around her. On the floor sits the baby, often pulling at her dress and raising his hands in dumb show to try to make her feel that he is weary of apparent neglect, and wants to find a warmer seat on her lap; while two pale wistful-looking children are gazing from the door, as if expecting something and weary of delay.

"O, Mary, do take up Benny," said the mother, after vainly striving to raise him, "and try to keep him a little

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