6C

THE YOUTH’S CABINET.

 

bed-clothes. How often are wrong ac-
tions prevented by the most trifling cir-
cumstances! Surely we have no reason
to make a boast of our virtues. Tired
of crying, and the violent excitement I
had undergone, I soon fell fast asleep,
and felt quite glad, on awaking the next
morning, to hear my watch go merrily,
tic, tac. For a whole week I carefully
avoided my companions, and they soon
forgot my boasting. I wore my watch
for a long time without showing it to
any one, and was satisfied with the joy
of possessing it.

Nearly forty years have passed since
that Christmas; here is the watch still
in my possession, and it never loses a
minute. I did not at the time rightly
understand my mother’s words, but I
have a great while since discovered their
truth.

I may say, by this very story: When
I see a man who, from unreasonable ex-
pectations of something better, is discon-
tented with everything that befals him,
I think to myself, “He too has hoped
for a gold repeater.”

When I am about anything, and am
annoyed at its not succeeding as I wish,
I say to myself, “ Ah! have you still the
gold repeater in your head ?”

When I see a man who has been look-
ing up to some high place in the state,
or in society, and who frets with morti-
fication at being obliged to spend his life
in a subordinate position, I am ready to
exclaim, “ Leave off pressing the spring,
friend! ’twill not strike bim, bam—be
content with the plain hands.”

When I observe a young married
couple, to whom life has appeared like
a perpetual wedding-day, and who have
at last found out that Heaven does not

forever shower roses on their path, but
that the dull realities of every-day life
come at last, and then they fall to bick-
ering with one another, I think to my-
self, “Ah, could these good people but
forget the gold repeater !”’

In short, I have learnt a lesson from
this story, which may be applied’ in a
hundred ways. Most men are discon-
tented and unhappy, for no other reason
than that matters fall out differently from
what they have expected. There is no
harm in striving after all that is best and
most perfect ; on the contrary, it is pre-
cisely this which properly exercises and
proves our strength: but we must, at
the same time, take care to remain con-
tent and happy when a less perfect lot
fails to our share. I have learnt to be
content with this watch, and it is to me
a treasure beyond all price.

a

 

Robert Hall.

HIs great man, when he was a boy
about six years of age, was sent
to a boarding school, where he
spent the week, coming home

Saturday and returning Monday. When
he went away on Monday morning, he
would take with him two or three books
from his father’s library, to read at the
intervals between the school hours. The
books he selected, were not those of mere
amusement, but such as required deep
and serious thought. Before he was nine
years old, he had read over and over
again, with the deepest interest, Ed-
wards on the Affections, Edwards on the
Will, and Butler’s Analogy.