THE SILVER LINING.

“Every cloud has its silver lining.” But it seemed to Helen Livingston that there could be none to her sorrow-cloud, it was so dark and heavy.

And yet her home was a most luxurious mansion, she had everything money could buy, she was yet young and very beautiful. But there is one sorrow riches cannot avert—death. Two years ago her husband, proud, noble-hearted Edward Livingston, died. That almost crushed her, but she bore up for the sake of his son—her bright-eyed, golden-haired Eddie.

And now Eddie was gone. And since the day they laid him beside his father, all her energy was gone. All her hopes and interests in life left her, and all day long she lay upon the sofa or sat in a deep lounging-chair in her darkened chamber, scarcely eating food enough to sustain life, refusing to see any friends except her own family, and resisting all entreaties to go out for a breath of air.

And here her sister, Mrs. Maxwell, found her as she came one bright morning, bringing a breath of heaven’s fresh loveliness into the close, perfumed, and heated chamber.

“Come, Helen, do come out for a little ride,” she entreated. “I’ve brought my own carriage and ponies, and I’ll drive you myself. It is such a lovely morning. Please, Helen!”

But Helen only turned wearily on her sofa.

“No, no, Susan! How can you ask me?”

“It will do you good, Helen,” pleaded Susan.

“I don’t want to be done good. I only want to be let alone. I never want to leave this room until I am carried out as poor little Eddie was,” moaned Helen.

“And that won’t be long, I’m thinking, if you’re allowed to go on in this fashion,” muttered Susan, under her breath, while she said aloud, using a last argument, “Please, come, Helen; we’ll drive to Laurel Hill and take some flowers to Edward’s and Eddie’s grave. But still the mourner only sighed, “No, Susan, no! I send flowers out every

day. But I can’t go myself; don’t tease me, Susan.”

Poor Susan stood still, her bright eyes full of tears, looking at her sister for a little while. Then she turned abruptly, and left the room without another word. And she drove her pretty ponies straight to the house of a dear old Quaker friend—in two senses—into whose presence she carried her petition.

“Aunt Rachel, do please go and see Helen,” she begged. “I can’t do anything with her—none of us can, and if you can’t I don’t know what will become of her.”

“Thee knows I will do what I can,” softly returned Rachel Dalrymple. “Sit thee down and tell me all about Helen.”

And having heard, aunt Rachel donned her dove-colored plumage, and went in Susan’s carriage to the mourner’s home.

“The servants will not want to admit you, but don’t be denied,” said Susan as aunt Rachel got out.

The dear old lady nodded, and when the door was opened, she walked in at once.

“I have come to see Helen Livingston,” she said.

“Mrs. Livingston does not see visitors,” exclaimed the waiter.

“She will see me. I will not trouble thee to go with me,” she said, as she continued straightway up to Helen’s darkened chamber.

Entering with a soft tap, she crossed the room and took Helen’s thin, white hand.

“I have come to see thee, Helen,” she said softly. “But I cannot say I do see thee; thy chamber is too dark, dear.”

She walked at once to the window and drew aside the heavy curtains, letting in a flood of golden sunlight.

“Oh, the light!” moaned Helen, turning away her head.

“We cannot live without the light, my dear,” said aunt Rachel, turning to a seat close beside Helen. “Now, Helen,” she said gently, “I am older than thee, and I’ve been through the deep waters of tribulation. Tell me all thy troubles, and I will help thee if I can.”

The gentle words and tones went to Helen’s heart, and she burst into a torrent of such tears as she had not shed before since her bereavement.

Two or three hours aunt Rachel stayed, and continued her tender ministrations, and

when she left she had won from Helen a promise that she would no longer nurse her sorrow in selfish loneliness, but go about in the world and endeavor to do the duties still left to her.

“If thee tries to do right, thee’ll find there is some happiness left yet,” said gentle aunt Rachel. And though Helen did not quite believe she could ever be happy, she knew her wealth afforded her large means of doing good, and for that she would try to live.

A few months later the winter snow had covered the graves of Eddie and his father with a robe of spotless white, and it was near the happy Christmas-tide.

More than one humble home in the great city had been brightened by Helen’s generous Christmas gifts, and she began to take some pleasure in these pleasant duties.

Some one has beautifully said:— “Happiness is a perfume which we cannot sprinkle over others without spilling a few drops on ourselves.” And Helen, in seeing how she made others happy, was far happier herself than she had ever hoped to be again.

The day before Christmas she had word of an aged and bed-ridden relative across the

river, on the Jersey side, and she at once went over to see her.

As she stepped upon the ferry-boat to return, she found it very crowded, and with difficulty found a seat next a plain, neat-looking country-woman who had with her a little fellow of five or six years, and Helen’s heart thrilled as she looked at the little face with its bright blue eyes and golden hair, for it bore quite a resemblance to the dear face of her lost Eddie.

She could not help speaking to the child, and trying to win it to her, and presently she had him upon her knee.

“What is your little boy’s name?” she said, addressing the woman.

“Eddie Hamilton,” said the stranger, with a sigh, and Helen’s heart thrilled again at the familiar name.

“But he’s not my child, he’s an orphan,” continued the woman.

“Ah?” commented Helen, interested at once.

“No ma’ma, he’s not mine. His mother was a widow, and came to Brookville, where I live, a year ago come next March. She was very poor, and she had a little house

right next to us, and tried to make her living with her needle. But she made her death ma’am, that’s what she made—and we couldn’t bear to see the little fellow suffer, and not a friend in the world, as we knew of, so we took him, me and my John, and we’ve kept him ever since.”

“Do you still intend to keep him?” asked Helen.

“We can’t, ma’am. We’re poor, hard-working folks, and we’ve got five children of our own. John had a bad fall last week—he can get about the house, but the doctors say he won’t be able to work this winter. It don’t stand to reason that we could keep an extra one, and be just to the rest, does it, ma’am?”

“No, indeed,” returned Helen, politely,

“That’s what’s taking me to the city today,” returned the woman.

“We hated to do it, me and John did, awful bad, but we didn’t see any other way to do, so I’m a-taking him to the Orphan Asylum. Do you think they’ll be good to him, ma’am?”

A thought which had struggled in Helen’s heart for the last few minutes found expression now.

“I don’t know,” she said, eagerly. “But I do know some one who would! You say you are poor—I am rich, and I am widowed and childless. I have lately lost my husband and my little Eddie, and I am alone and lonely. Give me your little Eddie, and I will love him, and be good to him, and bring him up as my own child!”

“Are you in earnest, ma’am?” asked the country-woman.

“Indeed I am! He looks like my lost Eddie—that is what made me first notice him—and it seems to me as if Heaven had sent him to me. He is my Christmas present! Oh, do let me have him!”

“I can’t say no, ma’am. I am sure he will have a happy home with you,” replied the woman, earnestly.

“Go with me and see!” cried Helen. “Your John would approve, I am sure. Please tell me your name.”

“Reynolds is my name.”

“Mine is Livingston. Now, Mrs. Reynolds you shall go home with me. It is not near the distance it is out to the Orphan Asylum, and you shall see how I will do for little Eddie. Oh, I am so happy to have

him!” And as Helen hugged the child to her bosom, she did, indeed, feel that he was, in some measure, her lost Eddie, restored.

So when Mrs. Livingston’s elegant carriage met her on the city side of the ferry, she took Mrs. Reynolds and little Eddie to her handsome home. And over a dainty dinner, which Helen ordered, they made all arrangements and plans for little Eddie’s transfer to his new mamma.

For Helen proposed to adopt and educate him as her own son, with her own name, taking pride in the thought, that after all, an Edward Livingston might bear the name and wear the wealth and honors of the family.

When Mrs. Reynolds returned home, Helen sent her to the ferry in her carriage again, to save her the long walk.

“Come to see Eddie whenever you like,” she said, as they parted, for Helen had no false pride about her—she was too true a lady for that—“and I will bring him to see you. I don’t want him to forget his first kind benefactors. And here,” slipping a tiny roll into Mrs. Reynolds’ hands, “is a little Christmas present for John and the children.”

And when Mrs. Reynolds looked at the “little Christmas present” she found it was a crisp, new hundred-dollar bill.

And so that Christmas Eve a golden curly head rested on the empty crib pillow in Helen Livingston’s room. And the next morning two little stuffed stockings hung over the table, loaded with Christmas toys.

While Helen, herself, was so bright and happy, that, when sister Susan and aunt Rachel came in to see the little stranger, of whose arrival Helen had sent them word, they stood astonished at the transformation.

“Thee sees, Helen,” said aunt Rachel, “that I was not wrong when I told thee if thee tried to do right thee would be sure to be happy!”

LIFE-WORK.

LITTLE by little our work is done, From night till morning, from sun to sun, Thoughts and deeds, Fruit and weeds.

Silently, slowly, they work within Fierce struggles with Satan and with sin, Leaving scars, Iron bars.

Mortal; your acts are measured above, By acts of purity and of love, Short of this, Wretchedness.

Music and dancing; frolic and mirth; All the illusive pleasures of earth, Cannot stay Judgment day.

Work is a failure unless it tends To give us a life that never ends, Joy and bliss, Happiness.

A CHANGE OF PLACE

Alfred Rogers was a skillful young mechanic in the city of Hartford more than thirty years ago, but like many a young man of that day and this, he had fallen into evil habits. Not all the endearments of a loving home circle could win him from the enchantment of the occasional glass and when the first was taken another and another were sure to follow, until a week was very likely lost in a “drunken spree.”

An old writer used to give us a very good reason for not drinking, that it consumed too much time. It took “one day of sinning, one of suffering and one of repenting,” every time he indulged in his cups.

Alfred had an excellent friend in a lady who had received him into her family when a boy and had always taken the deepest interest in his welfare. Not long after his marriage she had interceded with a gentleman

who employed many workmen to take him into his establishment, feeling that his welfare for time and eternity might depend upon that decision.

That man had many scruples, fearing the influence of one who was intemperate upon his young apprentices. But Alfred consented to sign the pledge to abstain from “ardent spirits,” which, with the little light then existing was considered all that could be reasonably asked of a man. I do not fully understand the nice distinctions made about the kinds of liquors, but there seems to have been various sorts of intoxicating drinks that were not counted as “ardent spirits.” These the young man felt his pledge did not require him to abstain from.

For a while all went smoothly. Alfred was valued as a superior workman. He was respected everywhere, and his family were handsomely supported. But in an evil day a glass of something not called “ardent spirits,” set on fire the old smoldering embers of a depraved taste. A second and a third glass fanned the blaze until it fired every drop of blood in his veins. The result was, not “one day of sinning, another of sorrowing and another

of repenting,” but two whole weeks of drunken insanity. Knowing that his wife had some money, he gave her no peace by day or by night until she gave it up to him. Then he set out for New York, where he spent it all in wild carousals, pawning a part of his clothing, and coming home at last a miserable, despicable object. “Who hath woe?” Surely there can hardly be a woe more terrible on earth than that of the drunkard and his family.

But yet he was not wholly lost, for when he came to himself he was overwhelmed with despair and self-reproach. Days of repenting were long and many, yet he shunned the path which led to his old employers. How could he hope to be received again, after all that had transpired. But he hears that the Spirit of the Great Master goes out after the lost sheep and seeks diligently for them among the dark mountains of sin; perchance he may save them from being dashed to pieces upon the fearful rocks.

“Why do you not come back to the shop, Alfred?” he asked kindly.

With a look of anguish and despair in his bloodshot eyes, he said: “I never can come

into your shop again; I have abused your confidence, treated you with the basest ingratitude, and destroyed my last hope of reformation.”

A few strong, earnest, cheering words were like oil on the troubled waters of his heart. He clutched like a drowning man at a straw to hope that he might be a man again. He came to the shop and worked more faithfully than ever to prove his gratitude to the hand so kindly held out to him in his time of need.

Three bright months and then a terrible fall again. Ah, what a tyrant is a depraved appetite! stronger than a man’s love of respectability, or happiness of the wife and child, stronger than his fear of eternal retribution!

At every successive fall Alfred sunk deeper into the mire. This time he grew so violent, that he was obliged to be put under arrest.

Another season of suffering and repenting, and then another trial in the service of an employer who had learned the lesson of forgiving until “seventy times seven.”

The intervals of sobriety also became shorter and shorter, and the days of drunken

debauch longer and more terrible, as the tyrant got the young man more and more into his clutches.

At last one bright May morning he was gone, no one knew whither; his presence would seem to have been a relief in the home where he was so often a terror and a curse. But oh, who can measure the depths of a woman’s love for even the most worthless son or husband. How the poor bruised heart goes out in all their wanderings, yearning over them and praying for them in all the years of neglect and unkindness.

So Mary Rogers watched and prayed for the return of her worthless husband. When at last in mid-summer a letter came, stating where he was, and that he had got steady work, and begging her to come to him, with many promises of reformation, the poor trusting heart believed them all, and taking her little child she went to him. There were enough to sneer at her faith in such promises, to call her a fool for trusting to them after her past experience, but she heeded them not.

Two years and a half rolled away when a respectable, well-dressed man walked into the door of the old workshop and advanced

with a manly, ringing step to meet the proprietor. Could it be Alfred Rogers changed? All that haggard, downcast look was gone. The face had the glow of health and cheerfulness, the bearing that of the steady and prosperous man.

You may be sure there was a warm grasp of the hand for him and a cordial greeting. In answer to his inquiries Alfred replied emphatically:—

“I am well, well in more senses than one. It is over two years since I have tasted a drop of anything that can intoxicate. That was the only thing for me; I began abstaining from ardent spirits alone—but that was not enough—I could not reform that way. Now I have shut down on everything that can intoxicate, and you see the result.”

After various kinds of inquiries after the welfare of his family, to all of which he would give most pleasing answers, Alfred went on to say:—

“I have come now to tell you why I left you. I saw clearly that I should die if I did not leave off drinking, and that I never could leave off in Hartford. I could not turn a corner of the street without passing a

grog-shop. I could not go to my meals without meeting some associate who asked me to take a glass. The dealers themselves would use every art to entice me to drink, well knowing that I would not stop after the first glass until they had a good bill against me. My only hope was in going where liquor was not to be had.”

He remained away from the city some five years, and returned to his old business thoroughly reformed, and became an active, earnest worker in the church and Sabbath-school.

He could pass the old haunts now with only a feeling of loathing and repulsion.

What was the secret of this man’s reformation?

It was in entire abstinence from everything that would intoxicate, and to succeed in this he went where liquor was not to be had. Otherwise he would have soon lain down in a drunkard’s grave.

OVER THE CROSSING.

PLEASE sir, take me over the crossing,” said a little faint voice, as I was leisurely taking my morning walk.

The strange request roused me from my reverie; and looking imploringly in my face stood a thinly-clad, shivering little girl, who carried a small bundle, which she held in her hand with a singular tenacity. I gave a searching look into the child’s face, while she imploringly repeated:—

“Will you take me over the crossing quick, I’m in such a hurry.”

Tossing her in my arms I bounded over the muddy pathway; and just as I set down my little charge, the bundle slipped from her grasp, or rather its contents, leaving the empty paper in her hands, and an embroidered vest on the sidewalk. I picked up the vest, and in doing so unrolled the same, when lining, sewing-silk and padding were all disengaged, so that the nimble fingers of the

poor child picked up, and brushed, and packed them together again with scrupulous care; and tying them firmly, she gave me a sweet smile and bounded along. She would soon have passed from my sight had I not again called after her, and interrogated her why she made such haste.

“O sir,” she replied, “because my mother must have expected me an hour ago. I have been waiting for the young gentleman at the tailor’s shop to decide which color he preferred, and then the tailor told me to stop while he cut it, and then he gave me such a beautiful pattern for my mother to embroider it by—but it’s a sight of work to do it, sir, and I’m afraid she will set up all the long nights to sew, while I am sleeping, for the man said he must have it completed by next Thursday; the young gentleman is to be married then, and will want it—and if it isn’t done, maybe he would never give mother another stitch of work, and then what would become of us?”

And as the child hurried on I caught the same hurried footsteps, and followed on until we came to another crossing, when again came the beseeching tone:—

“Will you take me over this crossing too, sir?”

It was done in a trice, and my interest in the child increased as her prattle continued:—

“Mamma is to have a dollar for this work, and she means to buy me a new frock with part of the money, and then we shall have a great loaf of bread and cup of milk, and mother will find time to eat with me—if there is any money left, she says I shall have a little open-work straw bonnet, and go to Sabbath-school with Susy Niles.”

And her little feet scarcely touched the walk, so light and fairy-like was her tread.

“And does your mother work for one man all the time, little girl?” I inquired.

“Oh, no, sir; it is only now and then she gets such a nice job. Most of the time she has to sew for shops where she earns but about twenty-five cents a day, and then she has hardly enough to pay her rent, and it isn’t all the time we get enough to eat—but then mother always gives me the big slice when there is one big and one little one; sometimes she cries and don’t eat hers at all.”

A coach was passing—the child looked toward it and remarked:—

“I know the lady in that pretty carriage; she is the very one that is going to marry the young gentleman who is to wear this embroidered vest. She came to my home yesterday to get my mother to spangle the wreath round her white satin dress; and it’s just the same pattern that is to be put on this vest; but she could not do it, ’cause her eyesight is so poor, and the spangles shined so.”

My tongue was silent. Could it be that these were to be the very articles that were to be worn at my Ellen’s wedding? For did I not pay for spangles yesterday, and what was it that vexed Ellen but because she could not find anybody to sew them on when she returned? She said Mrs. Taggard was almost blind.

“My little girl,” said I, “Is your name Taggard?”

“Yes, sir—’Gusta, Taggard, and we live down in Sullivan court. Are you going home with me?”

It was a sensible conjecture; for why else should I follow on?

“I am going to see you safely at the door, and to help you over all the crossings.”

“There’s only one more, sir, and here it is; we live down there at No. 3, on the third floor back.”

The child looked kindly, and as she sweetly bade me “good by, sir,” I thrust my hand in my pocket and drew from it all the change it contained, which was a bright fifty cent piece, and placed it in her little palm. ’Gusta Taggard gave me her heartfelt thanks, and was soon out of my sight.

An hour before, I had started from my home an invalid. I had long deliberated whether an exposure to a chilly east wind would not injure rather than improve me. I was melancholy, too; my only daughter was about to be married—there was confusion all over the house—the event was to be celebrated in fashionable style. Ellen’s dress had cost what would have been a fortune to this poor seamstress, and I moralized. But I had forgotten myself; the cough which had troubled me was no longer oppressive. I breathed quite freely, and yet I had walked more briskly than I had done for months, without so much fatigue as slow motion caused, so that when I returned, my wife rallied me upon looking ten years

younger than when I left her in the morning; and when I told her the specific lay in my walk with a little prattler, and the satisfaction of having left her happier than I found her, she took the occasion to press the purchase of a diamond brooch for Ellen, affirming if the gift of half a dollar made me so much happier, and that, too, to a little errand street girl, what would fifty times that amount confer upon one’s only daughter, upon the eve before her marriage?

I gave the diamond brooch—I paid the most extravagant bills to upholsterers, dry goods establishments, confectioners and musicians, with which to enliven the great occasion, and yet I found more real satisfaction in providing for the real wants of little ‘Gusta Taggard and her mother than in all the splendid outlay of the wedding ceremony; and it was not that it cost less which made the satisfaction, but it was that all extravagant outlays, in the very nature of things, are unsatisfactory, while ministering to the necessities of the truly needy and industrious confers its own reward.

I had seen the glittering spangled dress—but it was made ready by some poor, emaciated

sufferer, who toiled on in patient trust, and the embroidered vest was finished by the strained vision and aching head of another, who was emphatically one of “God’s poor,” upon whom blight or disgrace had not fallen, save by His appointment; and the diamond brooch was borne off by admiring throngs but to be envied and coveted, while the simple coin bestowed upon my little street acquaintance had introduced me to a new species of enjoyment that never cloys in the retrospect or causes uneasiness in the prospective. I had learned to do good in small ways—my morning walks have now an object and aim. I pass by splendid palaces to hasten to Sullivan court, and thence on to yet other sources of enjoyment, so that my invalidism is fast leaving me by the new direction which is given to my thoughts.

I am free to acknowledge that while I cheerfully pay for flannel robes, and silverware, and servants, and all the requirements which fashion imposes, I derive far less pleasure from surveying them, than in sitting beside some worthy recipient of charity, who tells me that “the little sum you gave me saved me from despair and self destruction, and enabled me to become helpful, so that no other assistance is now necessary.”

Such a confession fills a void which administering to a luxury never can; and all the satisfaction originated in first helping a little child over the crossing.

A HELPING HAND.

Why should I sit with folded palms, Why study my own wants and ease; When to my ears there comes for help, A call on every passing breeze.

Rouse slothful heart go sow the seed, God gives with willing hand, broadcast; Fear not the heat of noontide’s sun, Nor yet the evening’s chilly blast.

’Tis thine to sow, nor question if Thine eyes shall see the golden grain; God watches o’er the buried seed, Thy labor shall not be in vain.

ONLY THIS ONCE.

I’LL be in again very soon, mother; I am only going round the corner to see the new billiard rooms;” and, cap in hand, Harry was closing the parlor door when his mother called him back.

“I cannot consent to your going there, my dear,” she said; “you must know that both your father and myself disapprove of all such places.”

“But I don’t intend to play, mother; only to look on; the boys say the tables are splendid; and besides, what could I tell Jim Ward after promising to go with him? He is waiting outside for me. Please say ‘yes’ only this once.”

“Tell Jim that we would prefer you should not go, and ask him to walk in and spend the evening,” said Harry’s father, as he looked up from the paper.

“Oh, I know he won’t do that!” and Harry stood turning the door-handle, till,

finding that his parents did not intend to say anything more, he walked slowly to the front step.

“Why don’t you hurry along,” called Jim, “and not keep a fellow standing all night in the cold?”

“I am not going. Won’t you come in?” said Harry.

“Not going! Your mother surely doesn’t object to your looking at a billiard table.”

“She would prefer I should not go,” said Harry, and Jim’s only reply was a very significant whistle, as he walked off.

“He’ll be sure to tell all the boys!” said Harry, half aloud as he shut the front door with rather more force than was necessary. “I don’t see what does make father and mother so particular.” Then, entering the parlor, he took the first book that came to hand from the table, and, taking a seat very far from the light, looked exceedingly unamiable.

His father laid aside the paper, and without seeming to notice Harry’s mood, said pleasantly, “I wonder if my son feels himself too old for a story; if not I have one to tell him about ‘only this once.’” The book

Harry had taken up, and which chanced to be one of his father’s on civil engineering, was returned to the table; but he still kept thinking of what the boys would say when Jim told an exaggerated story, and his countenance remained unchanged.

“When I was about your age, Harry, we lived next door to Mr. Allen, a very wealthy gentleman, who had one son. As Frank was a good natured, merry boy, and had his two beautiful ponies, several dogs, and a large playground, he soon made friends. Many an afternoon did we spend together, riding the ponies, or playing ball on the playground, and one summer afternoon in particular, I never expect to forget, for it seems to me now, looking back upon it, as the turning point of Frank’s life; but we little thought of such a thing at the time. It only seemed to us a very warm afternoon; and, becoming tired of playing ball, we had stopped to rest on the piazza, when he proposed that we should take the ponies to a plank road, a few miles from the house, and race them. I was certain that his father would disapprove of this, and, besides, it would have been most cruel work on such a

warm afternoon, so I tried to make Frank think of something else he would like to do instead; but all in vain.

“I think you might go, Charlie,” he said. “What’s the harm of doing it; only this once? I just want to see if either of my ponies is likely to be a fast trotter.”

“For one moment I hesitated, but in the next came the thought of my father’s displeasure, and I shook my head.

“Very well, just as you please, Mr. Good Boy! I know plenty who will be glad of the chance to ride Jet;” and so saying he walked off.

“Frank did find a boy who was delighted to go with him, and enjoyed the race so much that, notwithstanding his father’s reprimand, he managed to pursue the same sport more times than ‘only that once.’”

“As soon as the summer was ended, Mr. Allen went to Europe for his health, and I did not see his son again for three years, till I left the country and entered the same college with him. Frank commenced studying very earnestly; but before the first year was ended the earnestness had passed away. Friends would induce him to spend his evenings

at their rooms, or at some public place of amusement, and each time Frank would try to satisfy his conscience with, ‘It will be only this once.’ Thus by degrees his lessons were neglected, and, as study became irksome, his love for excitement and gaiety increased, till one day I overheard a gentleman, who knew him well, remark that he feared Frank’s ‘only this once’ would prove his ruin.

“But a few years before, Frank would have been shocked with the thought of spending the afternoons in racing, and evenings in billiard saloons and such places, nor did he, at one time, ever really intend to go to the latter more than ‘once,’ ‘just to see for himself;’ but there are very few who ever stop in the course of wrong doing at ‘only this once.’

“When the tidings of his father’s death reached Frank, he seemed more thoughtful for a time; but in an hour of temptation he yielded. Before long his old companions surrounded him again, and of them he soon learned how to spend, in a most reckless manner, the large fortune left him by his father.

“In vain his true friends tried to stop him in his wild career; and, five years ago, Harry, Frank died a drunkard.”

“Oh, father, how dreadful!” and Harry shuddered as he thought the story over.

“Yes, it is dreadful, my son; but there are countless untold stories as dreadful as this one. If we were to visit a prison, and ask the wretched inmates how it was that they were first led into crime, we should find that ‘only this once’ brought most of them there. One took something which did not belong to him, never intending to do it more than that once; but the crime soon grew into a habit. Another was once tempted to gamble, and only that one game was the foundation of all his crimes.

“Learn, my son, to dread those three little words, and when tempted to use them think of all they may lead to, and ask for strength to resist the temptation; and, Harry, do you wonder now at our refusing to let you, even once, visit the billiard room?”

“No, father; I see now that you were right, and I was wrong in supposing that it could not possibly do me any harm to go only this once; and if Jim does tell the boys some silly story to make them laugh at me, I can tell them about Frank Allen, and that will sober them soon.”

Dear reader, do you flatter yourself that it is a trifling thing to do wrong, “only this once?” If so, stop and consider, how often not only the young but those of mature years yield to this deceptive and alluring thought and indulge in that which they would look upon with horror if repeated. They do not realize that sin once indulged in loses its exceeding sinfulness, that one step in the downward path opens to the broad road.

And how many parents yield to the pleadings of their children to be indulged, “this once” who find that to deny after once being indulged costs a greater effort than to have stood with firmness to conviction of conscience and true principle. Multiplied sorrows and heart aches of parents and children, and countless stories of wretched ones, tell of this ruinous power. The only way of safety is to determine solemnly, with Heaven’s aid, to resist unto death temptations to do wrong “only this once.”

Continue reading: HE WILL SOON BE HERE.