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Page 5
"Before you learn much, it might be well to unlearn a little. When any
thing goes wrong, as you say, you must, at least, not make it go worse. You
must not make every body around you unhappy, if you do feel a little cross
and peevish."
"Oh, mother, I can't speak pleasantly when I don't feel so."
"Then, in most cases, you had better not speak at all."
"I never thought of that. I can stop talking, if I try."
"So you can, and you can do more. You can get into the habit of finding
'the south or sunny side of things,' as Jean Paul says, and if you do, you
will not be likely to have a snow-storm in your heart very often. Besides,
you ought to remember, that all these disappointments and crosses are a
part of your education for heaven, and you should endeavor to improve them
as such, so that their good effect will not be lost. And another thing, my
child: you ought to ask God to assist you in this self-government--to make
you his child--to give you a new heart--to teach you to love Christ, and to
be like him. Then you will seldom feel cross and fretful, because things go
wrong. You will be cheerful and good-natured. You will make others
happy--and you will very soon forget the old story, that nobody loves you."
Now, many little boys and girls--possibly some who read this story--would
have thought this task too hard. They would have regarded it as a pretty
severe penance. Perhaps they would have concluded, after having put all
these difficult things into one scale, and the thing to be gained by them
into the other, that the reward was not worth so great a sacrifice. So
thought not Angeline, however. She began the work in earnest, that very
day. She went over to her uncle's, with an unusual amount of sunshine in
her countenance, and made it all right with Jeannette. In the evening, she
told her little brother James what she intended to do, and invited him to
help her; and before they retired to rest that night, they knelt down
together and offered up a prayer, that God, for Christ's sake, would help
them in governing themselves.
One day--perhaps some six weeks after this--Mrs Standish said, smilingly,
to her daughter,
"Well, my dear, does Lucy Wallace love you any better?"
"Oh, mother," said Angeline, as a tear of joy stood in her eye, "every body
loves me now!"
A NOBLE ACT.
"What have you there, boys?" asked Captain Bland.
"A ship," replied one of the lads who were passing the captain's neat
cottage.
"A ship! Let me see;" and the captain took the little vessel, and examined
it with as much fondness as a child does a pretty toy. "Very fair, indeed;
who made it?"
"I did," replied one of the boys.
"You, indeed! Do you mean to be a sailor, Harry?"
"I don't know. I want father to get me into the navy."
"As a midshipman?"
"Yes, sir."
Captain Bland shook his head.
"Better be a farmer, a physician, or a merchant."
"Why so, captain?" asked Harry;
"All these are engaged in the doing of things directly useful to society."
"But I am sure, captain, that those who defend us against our enemies, and
protect all who are engaged in commerce from wicked pirates, are doing what
is useful to society."
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