Oh, Robert! how happy I shall be to see you come home with the medal on!'-I thought then that I would try to ob tain it. So I sat down cheerfully to my task.

9. "I recollect the scene as though it were but yesterday. My mother read the six lines to me a number of tinies over, and then she explained the meaning of the words. She told me of Demosthenes, and the efforts he made to overcome his natural defects. I remember asking her if I should get some pebbles to hold in my mouth-whether it would do re any good:--and how happy her laugh rang Pat my witticis. Jume of Cicero, and of s country by his oratory ng-thus endeavoring to awaken my mind to

Tha

ervices he re.

Come effort of imitation.

4

19. like to listen to stories, and it was in this manner that I had been taught what little I knew; for I could not comprehend words. I wanted images, and these my mother, by her manner, and the comparisons she would draw from familiar things, could succeed in picturing to my imagination. In books I found nothing but words, and those I could not remember. But I am growing tedious, I fear, as that evening was to my mother and myself.

11. " For two long hours she patiently taught me. I read over the lines a hundred times; I recited them after her; sometimes I would repeat two or three consecutive words; and I could see her face brighten with hope; but when she took the book for the last recitation, and after I had been studying most intently for some minutes, I could not repeat a single word. I can recollect now my sensations at that time. It seemed to me that I knew all my mother wished me to say; but a kind of wavering shadow would come between me and my lesson, and make all the words indistinct, and my will had no power to control these fancies.

12. When my mother had vainly tried every possible method to make me recollect the two first lines, she was quite overcome. I believe her hope of my intellect was extinguished, and that she felt, for the first time, what all who knew me had predicted, that I would be a dunce. It must be a terrible trial for a sensible mother to think that her only child is a fool. She burst into a passion of tears; covered her face with her hands, and sunk on her knees beside the sofa where we were sitting.

13. "I started up in amazement at her grief, for I had nev

5. Though round my heart, all, all beside,
The voice of Friendship, Love, had died,
That voice would linger there;

As when, soft pillowed on her breast,
Its tones first lulled my infant rest,
Or rose in prayer.

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LESSON LXXVII.

Honesty.

1. "I AM going to buy some marbles, Sam; will you go with me?" said Robert Ellis to the boy who occupied the desk next his, as they left the school-room together.

2. The two boys were soon standing at Mr. Moore's counter, discussing with great animation the merits and prices of the marbles offered for their inspection. The important selection was at length made, and the marbles paid for.

3. "I gave you a ten cent piece," said Robert to the shopman, as he looked at his change," and you have given me back four cents."

4. "Was it ten cents?" said the man, looking at it again. "I thought it was twelve and a half."

5. As he said this, he swept the two cents which Robert handed back to him into the drawer, and the two boys left the shop.

honest

6. "That's an honest little fellow," said a man who sat behind the counter, reading the newspaper,little fellow; who is he?"

66 a very

7. Robert's companion, however, expressed a different opinion. As soon as they left the shop, he called outWhy, Robert, what a fool you were, to tell that man you only gave him ten cents!

66

8. Robert stared. " Why, you would not have had me cheat him, would you?" said he.

9. "Cheat! no, but you did not cheat him; he cheated himself."

10. "Don't you think it would have been cheating if I had taken four cents when he only owed me two? I don't see what you call cheating, if that is not.”

11. "I don't see why you should trouble yourself to cor

rect his mistakes. If he chooses to be so careless, it is his own lookout."

12. They had by this time joined the group of boys who were playing marbles on the meeting-house steps, and the conversation was dropped; but Robert did not forget it. He was a boy of good sense and sound principles, and Samuel's arguments did not convince him. Samuel was a new acquaintance. His father and mother had lately moved into the village, and as Samuel was very lively and entertaining, he soon became a favorite among the boys.

13. Robert had liked him as well as others; but now his confidence in him sensibly diminished. The new doctrine he had advanced this evening appeared to Robert nothing less than downright dishonesty; and he began to look upon his new friend somewhat suspiciously. Unwilling, however, to think ill of him, he endeavored to persuade himself that it was only his odd way of talking; and, when he took his seat in school the next morning, he felt almost as cordially towards him as ever.

14. "I have not done my sums," said Samuel, in recess; "I couldn't do them last night, and I have not time now ;what shall I do?"

15. "Do as many of them as you can," replied Robert, "and perhaps Mr. French will excuse your not doing the rest."

16. "That plan won't do," replied Samuel. "I tried it yesterday; but I'll tell you what will. If you will only do part of them while I do the rest, we shall get them all done in time, and then I can copy them off."

17. "Oh! that would be cheating," cried Robert; "I can't do that; I shouldn't think you'd want to have me, Sam."

18. "Cheating! you are

ways talking about cheating. Pray, what cheating is there in that?"

19. "Why, wouldn't it be deceiving Mr. French, to make him think you had done all?”

20. "Well, don't stand here preaching," interrupted Samuel; "I might have finished half of them while we have been talking. Say at once, yes or no."

21. "No," said Robert, firmly.

22. Samuel walked off in high indignation, and Robert, too, was not a little angry. After school, he did not join Samuel as usual, but walked home alone. His thoughts were still occupied with Samuel's conduct, and he felt more

unhappy than he had done before for a long time. Finally he concluded to tell his father the whole affair, and ask him if he did not think it would have been dishonest for him to perform another person's task, for the purpose of deceiving his teacher.

23. "But, then, I was angry with Sam," thought he, "when he told all the boys that I was cross; and father will say that was very wrong. But I know it was wrong myself; and I will tell him the whole, if I tell any." This resolution taken, he again felt easy; and in the evening he related ́ to his father the circumstances we have mentioned.

24. "I am glad, Robert," said Mr. Ellis, "that you have told me all this: I should be sorry to have you led away by a bad boy, or puzzled by his arguments. You see, in the first instance, that it is no less dishonesty to retain what does not belong to you when given to you by mistake, than to take it yourself.

25. "I am glad that you had principle enough to refuse to do Samuel's sums, for you were right in thinking it dishonest to abuse Mr. French's confidence in this way. Some people think, Robert, that those only ought to be called dishonest, who deceive others in regard to property; but it is the same spirit which leads a boy to present the compositions and sums of another to his teacher, as his own, which would lead him to pass a five cent piece for a six cent piece."

26. "So I thought, father, only I did not know exactly how to say it; but I ought to tell you that I did wrong too, for I was angry when Sam told me not to stand preaching to him; and I can't help feeling a little angry now, when I

think of it."

27. "And why should you feel angry with him, Robert? Do you never do wrong?"

28. "Yes, father, but not like Sam."

29. "

Think, my son, of all the wrong feelings and actions which you have indulged to-day, and which are all known to your heavenly Father; and do you find such a wide difference between your sins and Samuel's?"

30. Robert said nothing; and, after a pause, his father continued, "I do not wish you to make a friend of Samuel, Decause I think, from what I hear, that his influence will be a bad one; but I do wish you to treat him kindly wherever you meet him, and let your influence and your example be good."

LESSON LXXVIII.

Effects of Universal Falsehood.

1. LET us consider, for a little, some of the effects which would inevitably follow were the law of truth universally violated. In this case, a scene of horror and confusion would ensue, of which it is difficult for the mind to form any distinct conception.

ne

2. It is obvious, in the first place, that rational beings could never improve in knowledge, beyond the range of the sensitive objects that happened to be placed within sphere of their personal observation; for by far the greater part of our knowledge is derived from the communications of others, and from the stimulus to intellectual exertica which such communications produce.

3. Let us suppose a human being trained up, from infancy, in a wilderness, by a bear or a wolf,-as history records to have been the case of several individuals in the forests of France, Germany, and Lithuania,—what knowledge could such a being acquire beyond that of a brute? 1 might distinguish a horse from a cow, and a man from a dog, and know that such objects as trees, shrubs, gras, flowers, and water, existed around him; but knowledge. strictly so called, and the proper exercise of his ratio 1 faculties, he could not acquire, so long as he remained de tached from other rational beings.

4. Such would be our situation, were falsehood universal among men. We could acquire a knowledge of nothing but what was obvious to our senses, in the objects with which we were surrounded. We could not know whether the earth were twenty miles, or twenty thousand miles, extent, and whether oceans, seas, rivers, and ranges of mountains, existed on its surface, unless we had made the tour of it in person, and, with our own eyes, surveyed the various objects it contains.

5. Of course, we should remain in absolute ignorance of the existence and the attributes of God, of the moral rela tions of intelligent beings to their Creator, and to one another, and of the realities of a future state. For it is only, chiefly, through the medium of testimony, combined with the evidence of our senses, that we acquire a knowledge of such truths and objects.