see, they are none of them in sight yet. I wish you would come. I shall have a halfpenny for my message, and I'll give you half the lollypops, if you'll come with me.'

وو

Mary did not like to be ill-natured, yet on the other hand she did not wish to go, because after Mr. Herbert had asked her himself to come to the singing lesson, she did not like the other girls to go in without her so she said, "There! get along with you. It isn't so very far to go by yourself-you'll soon be back. I shall go in." And accordingly she opened the gate, crossed the little bit of garden that lay between the gate and the hall door, and went up the steps. But Ann was not to be put off. She followed her up the steps, took her round the waist, and pulled her down, as if in joke, and said, "Come, you might as well be good-natured; we shall soon be back." She then took her by the arm, and playfully forced her off.

I will not tell you what sort of a girl Ann Marsh really was: I should not like to do it. All I shall say about her now is, that I had always thought her a simple-minded, inoffensive child, plain and honest. Whether she really was so, you will presently see for yourselves,

The two children went up the hill together to the town to do Ann's errand. They were scarcely out of sight, when three or four of the singing class came in with their books in their hands. They were in high good humour, as they almost always were on these occasions; for their blithest joy was to come to my house for a singing lesson, as their calmest, and holiest, and purest was to go to their beautiful little church, and unite their voices in the holy service.

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Well, children,” I said, as they entered with smiling faces, each making a courtesy in turn, "I am glad to see you at last. But where is Mary?"

"I don't know, sir," answered Kate Anstey; I saw her a few minutes ago coming towards the gate, when I was going to find the rest. I suppose she'll be here in a minute.”

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Very well," I replied, we can begin without her. I dare say she will be in before long. But I wonder she is not here, because I told her myself about the lesson."

When the singing lesson had proceeded for about half-an-hour, a gentle rap at the door announced the arrival of the missing child and her companion. Mary was a little flushed when she came in, but I did not notice it at the time.

"Where have you been, little maid?" I exclaimed.

"Please, sir, I've been up in town."

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into

Oh, you naughty child," I said, with mock severity, for I was really not the least displeased; "how dared you go up town, when I told you to come in to sing ?"

"Please, sir," she replied instantly, "mother sent me.”

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Very well; and I suppose Ann went with you, because she preferred walking with you to coming in here to sing. Was that it, Ann?"

Ann smiled, and said nothing.

The singing lesson in due time came to an end, as all lessons do, sooner or later; but something seemed to have damped the spirits of the children, for they all went out silently and very quietly. What passed outside the gate I do not know, but I think little Mary walked straight home with her head down, without speaking a word to anybody. As soon as she came into her own house, (it was a cottage in a garden) she sat down upon a little three-legged stool, and burst into tears. Her mother asked her what was the matter: no answer: she only cried more bitterly. "Ah, Mary," said her mother, "I'm afraid you've been a naughty maid, and Mr. Herbert has been scolding you." "No he hasn't, mother," said the child, "I wish he had."

At this moment her sister Lucy came in her mother looked at her as much as to say, what does this mean? and the poor child sorrowfully replied, yet with some indignation, to her mother's inquiring look, "Oh, mother, our Mary has been and told a story to Mr. Herbert!"

I will not attempt to describe what followed. All I will tell you is that Mary did not think of denying what Lucy had said. She hid her face and sobbed bitterly. Whoever can feel the misery which that poor child was suffering then, may imagine what it is to have the gate of heaven shut against them. The Angels, and all pure and holy spirits, with Him they adore and love, are within; and they, with all spirits of darkness, and whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie, are without. A black and heavy cloud was on her heart. Poor child! she did not know what misery was till then. And now she was more wretched than ever she need have been. Yes, my children, believe me, you never need be so wretched as little Mary Stone was at that moment. If you do not tell a lie, (which you may abstain from doing if you will) nor otherwise wilfully sin, nothing can happen to you that will make you so truly miserable as that child was by reason of the lie she had told. GOD had hid His face from her, and she felt it was so. But of all this I knew nothing at the time. I believed what she had told me, and thought no more about it.

CHAPTER III.

THE FIRST CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALSEHOOD, AND THE FIRST EXAMINATION.

It was not long before the sad tidings reached me that little

Mary Stone had spoken an untruth, so the following morning about eleven o'clock I went to Mrs. Stone's cottage to inquire further about it. There were two windows and two windowseats in the room, opposite to each other. On the window-seat nearest the door stood Mrs. Stone's washing tub, and she stood over it on the other window-seat little Lucy was perched up on a little stool, like an image in a niche, only images are very seldom seated. Poor Mary occupied a lowlier position: her stool was on the ground. She looked up for a moment as I entered, then cast her eyes down again and burst into tears. Lucy never looked up from her work one moment, but her fingers moved more quickly than usual, and the needle seemed to be angry with the button wire, as it clicked against it, passing vehemently up and down between the closely wrapped threads. Turning to their mother, I said,

"Mrs. Stone, I am very much afraid Mary told me an untruth yesterday."

“Indeed, sir,” she replied, "I'm afraid she did. I was quite frightened yesterday, when Lucy came and told me of it. She is a very naughty child, sir, and I hope she will be punished for it. I don't know, sir, how she came to say such a thing; for I never found her out in a lie before."

I should have asked Mrs. Stone some further questions, but the child's sobbings were so piteous, that I could not refrain from going up to her. I took a chair and sat down close by

her.

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Mary," I said, "how could you say your mother sent you up to town yesterday evening? Did she send you?"

"No, sir."

"Then how came you to go?"

"Please sir, I went with Ann Marsh. She asked me to go." "What was she going for? Did any one send her?”

"Yes, sir, she was going of an errand for James Atkins, to fetch some barm; and she asked me to go with her."

"But why did you go, when I had told you to come in and sing?"

"Please, sir, I didn't want to go; but she wouldn't let me bide. I told her a great many times I didn't want to go; and when I went into the gate, she came and pulled me down the steps, and she pulled me all up the road till we were past Betty Bethel's, and then I went on with her."

"Well, Mary," I replied, "I do not find much fault with you for going with her. I never oblige any of you to come in to sing; and I should not have been displeased if you had told me

you wished to go somewhere else; yet I wondered you did not rather choose to sing than to go elsewhere, whilst I was teaching the rest. But how did you ever come to tell a lie about it, and say that your mother had sent you u?"

"Please, sir, I didn't know I was going to say it. I never thought what to say till you asked me, and then it came out in an instant."

"But you knew it was not true."

"Yes, sir."

"And after you had said it, I suppose you did not like to confess it was a lie."

"But Mary, what ever made you think of it? What ever put it into your head to say anything about your mother, when you knew it was Ann's message, and not yours? There was no harm in her going a message."

"Please sir, she told me to say so."

"She told you? Why?"

"Because I was frightened, when we were coming back, and I said, 'Ann, Mr. Herbert will be angry with us for not going in directly.' 'Oh, never mind,' she said, 'you say mother sent you, and he'll say nothing.'

"Then you meant," I inquired, "to follow her advice, and tell me what was not true?"

"No, sir, I didn't. I said I wouldn't say so, because mother hadn't sent me but she said, 'it doesn't matter; nobody will ever know.'"

"Then you really did not mean to say it until I asked you?" No, sir, indeed I didn't. I didn't know what I was saying." And here she sobbed more bitterly than ever. I have repeated this conversation straight forward; but her answers were very much interrupted by her tears and sobs, and all the while she spoke in a very humble and gentle voice. I then added, as I really felt very sorry for the child,

suppose you were frightened and thought I was very angry with you?"

"Yes, sir."

"I was not angry," I answered, "not at all. I remember what I said. But I did not say it in earnest. I am very sorry that it frightened you: I only meant to play with you."

I have sometimes thought since then that those who have authority over children ought to be very careful how they frighten them in a case of that sort; as a child may be urged to deceit by sudden terror, who otherwise would not think of it.

After meditating for a few moments upon what I had just heard, I turned again to the child, and said,

Well, Mary, either you or Ann must be very wicked. Only think what you have brought upon yourself. You have told me a lie, and now you acknowledge it: but you say that Ann almost compelled you to go with her, and afterwards put the lie into your mouth, and begged you to tell it. Unhappy little child, how am I to believe you? How am I to know that you are not trying to excuse yourself, and lay the blame on another? But I will not think so. I think you are telling the truth now. But then, unhappily, I must find another guilty."

Poor Mary's grief was now redoubled. It seemed to break her heart almost that I should have any doubt as to the truth of what she was now saying. Nor did I really doubt her. There was something in her manner that made it almost impossible to disbelieve her.

Before I left I added that I would see Ann Marsh, and hear what she had to say for herself; and that Mary must expect to see me again.

The Cabinet.

THIS LIFE. We lodge in a moveable tent, and are travellers and strangers in a foreign land; but we are free denizens of heaven, and our home and all our privileges and properties are there.-S. AUGUSTINE.

ANECDOTE OF THE POET WALLER. -As the disease increased upon him, he composed himself for his departure; and calling upon Dr. Birch to give him the Sacrament, he desired his children to take it with him, and made an earnest declaration of his faith in Christianity. It now appeared what part of his conversation with the great could be remembered with delight. He related, that being present when the Duke of Buckingham talked profanely before King Charles, he said to him, "My Lord, I am a great deal older than your Grace, and have, I believe, heard more arguments for Atheism than ever your Grace did; but I have lived long enough to see that there is nothing in them, and so I hope your Grace will."-CLISSOLD.

DIVINE LOVE.-Of all the subjects fit to excite our admiration, there is none equal to the love of God manifested in CHRIST. Isaias, prophesy. ing of the Messias, says, "He shall be called, Wonderful." And so He was most eminently. His descent

from heaven, by which the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, His birth from a virgin, and the won.. ders which attended it; His ministry, His beneficial miracles, His patient and laborious life, His affability and condescension, His pure and holy doctrine, His extreme humiliation and sufferings, under which He practised all the difficult and self-denying virtues; His resurrection, His ascension into heaven, and His protecting His Church ever since, all this is wonderful. But it is the effect of Divine Love, which must needs be wonderful in all its operations.-DR. JORTIN.

DR. JOHNSON." From what I can gather from him," says the Hon. J. Byng in a letter to Mr. Malone, "it would seem that Dr. Johnson was perfectly composed, steady in faith, and resigned to death. At the interval of each hour, they assisted him to sit up in his bed and move his legs, which were in much pain; when he regularly addressed himself to fervent prayer, and though sometimes his voice failed him, his sense never did, during that time." He often said to his faithful servant, "Attend, Francis, to the salvation of your soul, which is the object of the greatest importance." He also explained to