Story of the infant school.

The new scholar.

willing to confess your sins, you may confess them now, and from this moment be calm, and peaceful, and happy.

My readers will recollect that I mentioned in the early part of this chapter two points connected with confession, viz. reparation and punishment. In confessing sins to God, we have no reparation to make to him, and no punishment to suffer. We have a Savior, and we fly to him. He makes reparation, and he has already suffered for us. We must come trusting in him. I hope very many of my readers will see that both duty and happiness urge them to take the simple course I have endeavored to describe and illustrate, and that they will now take it, and follow me through the remaining chapters of this book with hearts bent on loving and serving God.

CHAPTER II.

THE FRIEND.

"To whom shall we go?"

There is a very excellent infant school in one of the chief towns of Switzerland, where many young children are collected under the care of a most kind and faithful superintendent and assistant, to receive moral and intellectual instruction. Whenever a new pupil is admitted, she looks with fear and trembling upon the strange scene before her. A large open room is filled with the children standing in rows or collected in busy groups, and in the pleasant play-ground, verdant with grass and trees, many others are seen full of activity and happiness.

It is the custom whenever a new scholar enters the school, for the teacher to collect all the children in the great room, extending them in a line around it; and then he walks into the midst, leading the little stranger by the

The protector appointed.

Power and sympathy.

hand, and something like the following conversation

ensues.

Teacher.

“Here is a little girl who has come to join our school. She is a stranger, and is afraid. Will you all promise to treat her kindly?"

Pupils. (All answering together.) "Yes, Sir, we will."

Teacher. "She has told me that she will try to be a good girl and to do her duty, but sometimes she will forget, I am afraid, and sometimes she will yield to temptation and do wrong. Now which of the older children will be her little friend, to be with her for a few days till she becomes acquainted with the school, and tell her what she ought to do, and help her to watch herself, that she may avoid doing wrong?

Several voices at once.

“I will, I will, Sir."

The teacher then selects from those who thus volunteer, one of the best and oldest children, and constitutes her the friend and protector of the stranger. They are together wherever they go. A strong mutual attachment springs up between them. If the stranger is injured in any way, the protector feels aggrieved: kindness shown to one touches almost as effectually the other, and thus the trembling stranger is guided and encouraged, and led on to duty and to strength by the influence of her protector, though that protector is only another child.

We all need a protector, especially in our moral interests. The human heart seems to be formed to lean upon something stronger than itself for support. We are so surrounded with difficulties and temptations, and dangers here, that we need a refuge in which we can trust. Children find such a protector and such a refuge in their parents. How much safer you feel in sickness if your father or your mother is by your bedside. How often, in a summer evening, when a dark heavy cloud is thundering in the sky, and the window glitters with the brightness

Power and sympathy.

A sure protector.

of the lightning, do the children of a family sigh for their father's return, and feel relieved and almost safe when he comes among them. But when man is mature he can find no earthly protector. He must go alone unless he has a friend above.

A protector and friend ought to possess two distinct qualifications, which it is very difficult to find united. He ought to be our superior both in knowledge and power, so that we can confide in his protection, and yet he ought to be in the same circumstances with ourselves, that he may understand and appreciate our trials and difficulties.

Now my object in this chapter is to endeavor to show my readers that they need, and that they can have just such a protector and friend-one that has power to save to the uttermost, and yet one that knows by his own experience all your trials and cares. I know that if any of you go and confess your sins to God, and begin a life of piety now, you will, without aid from above, wander away into sin, forget your resolutions, displease God more than ever, and more than ever destroy your own peace of mind. I wish, therefore, to persuade all those who desire henceforth to do their duty, to come now and unite themselves in indissoluble bonds with the moral protector and friend, whose character I am about to describe.

In the Epistle to the Hebrews, 2nd chapter and 16th verse, there occurs the following remarkable passage :— "For verily he," i. e. Christ, "took not on him the na. ture of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God." Here you see how the two qualifications named above were united in our Savior. He might have come from heaven and died upon the cross to make atonement for our sins, without suffering, as he did, so long a pilgrimage below, as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." But he

66

Story of the sailor boy.

`The captain's want of sympathy.

came and lived here thirty years, tasted of every bitter cup which we have to drink, in order that he might know by experience all our trials and troubles, and be able more effectually to sympathize with us and help us. He took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham, i. e. the nature of man.

I wish my readers would pause and reflect a moment upon these two elements in the character of a valuable protector,-viz. power and sympathy, and consider how seldom they are united. I will give one or two examples which may help to illustrate the subject.

A mother with a large family, and but slender means to provide for their wants, concluded to send her eldest son to sea. She knew that though the toils and labors of

sea-faring life were extreme, they could be borne, and they brought with them many pleasures and many useful results. She agreed, therefore, with a Sea Captain, a distant relative of hers, to admit her boy on board his ship. The Captain became really interested in his new friend said he would take good care of him, teach him his duty on ship board, and help him on in the world, if he was diligent and faithful.

The boy looked with some dread upon the prospect of bidding farewell to his mother, to his brothers and sisters, and his quiet home, to explore unknown and untried scenes, and to encounter the dangers of a stormy ocean. He, however, bade all farewell, and was soon tossing upon the waters, feeling safe under his new protector. He soon found, however, that the Captain had power, but that he had not sympathy. He would sometimes, in a stormy night, when the masts were reeling to and fro, and the bleak wind was whistling through the frozen rigging, make him go aloft, though the poor boy, unaccustomed to the giddy height, was in an agony of terror, and in real danger of falling headlong to the deck. The Captain had forgotten what were his own feelings when

Sailor boy continued.

The little ship.

he was himself a boy, or he would probably have taught this necessary part of seamanship in a more gentle and gradual manner. He thought the boy ought to learn, and his want of sympathy with his feelings led him to a course which was severe, and in fact cruel, though not intentionally so.

concerns.

The captain never spoke to his young charge, excepting to command him. He took no interest in his little Once the boy spent all his leisure time industriously in rigging out a little ship complete. "This,” thought he, "will please the captain. He wants me to learn, and this will show him that I have been learning." As he went on, however, from day to day, the captain took no notice of his work. A word or a look of satisfaction from his protector would have gratified him exceedingly. But no;-the stern, weather-beaten officer could not sympathize with a child or appreciate his feelings at all, and one day when the boy had been sent away from his work for a moment, the captain came upon deck, and after looking around a moment, he said to a rough-looking man standing there, "I say, Jack, I wish you would clear away a little here-coil those lines-and that boy's bauble there, you may as well throw it overboard, he never will make anything of it."

Commands on board ship must ve obeyed; and the poor cabin boy came up from below just in time to catch the captain's words, and to see his little ship fly from the sailor's hands into the waves. It fell upon its side-its sails were drenched with the water, and it fast receded from view. The boy went to his hammock and wept bitterly. His heart was wounded deeply, but the stern captain did not know it. How could he sympathize with the feelings of a child?

And yet this captain was the real friend of the boy. He protected him in all great dangers, took great care of him when in foreign ports, that he should not be exposed to