LINKS.

of fourteen, intently studying wise and deep books which had certainly never
troubled the General’s own head when he was a merry lad at Eton! He knew
he had heard his housekeeper say that the schoolmaster reported that the boy
had learned all he could teach him, and she had added with a little sigh,
that he would soon need to give up his books and do something for himself in
life. The General had’ heard heedlessly, with a cursory reflection that it
seemed a world of pity that a lad with such inclinations and such a brain
should have no chance to find a fit sphere for them — “while thousands of
pounds and the best teaching power in the land are wasted on brainless
young puppies who don’t care a straw for anything beyond their sports.”

Now, since clearly it was
God who had bestowed great
mental powers on this father-
less boy, surely it would be
‘pleasing to God that they
should have justice done to
them !

The grave old General
smiled. Might not he, too,
“become as a little child,”
and, taking a leaf from his
niece Lydia’s book, seek to

   

please his Father by helping
one of his Father’s younger children
to learn the lessons which the Father
had made him fit to learn ?

That is how it came about that
the housekeeper’s son was sent first
to study with a young clergyman in
the country, and then to a great
public school, and then to college. The General managed everything very
wisely, advancing no step which the boy’s growing merits did not justify. But
at no point did the lad fail the General’s expectations. And by the time he
was twenty-five he had gained such an academic standing, that everybody
felt sure he would be a great man, and do some valuable work. It seemed
quite impossible then to believe that he had so nearly missed the chance !