he was placed in the presidential chair; and in a few years more, his useful life being ended, the whole land was clothed in mourning, and expressions of sorrow were heard from every heart as the sad tidings were spread abroad,"He is dead! GEORGE WASHINGTON, the patriot, the Christian, is no more!"

LESSON C.

THE HOLY SPIRIT

YOU

OU remember how Jesus died on the cross. You have read the story in your Bible. But did he die for himself? No; for he never sinned. He died for you and me, for we have sinned, and we deserve. to suffer for it. And what he died for was to save us from that punishment.

2. Now, if I think I can take care of my own sins, I do not go to Jesus with them. I shall have to suffer the punishment for them myself. But how kind and blessed he was to bear it all for me! And now, if I will only bring them to him and ask him to take them away, he will do it, and I shall never have to be punished for them.

3. This is just what you have to do. Go to Jesus and ask him to put your sins among those that he died for when he hung on the cross; ask him with all your heart; show him how sorry you are that your sins ever brought him to such a cruel death. Ask him with your whole soul, and he will do it. He will wash away your sins, and God will not con

demn you for them, because Jesus has pardoned them. But you must also follow him. This means that you must obey his commands, and be like him.

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4. Are you afraid, if you try to follow Christ, you will some day turn back? Do you say, "I am so weak that when the sins come upon me I am almost sure I shall fall, and so can not be a Christian after all"? Do you feel like one walking on a narrow bridge across a deep, roaring river?

5. Well, Jesus has a way of helping you out of this difficulty, too. He told his disciples, the night before he was crucified, that after he had gone away into heaven his Spirit would come back to them, and dwell in their hearts, and always be near them to help in every thing good and keep awav every thing evil.

6. And his promise has lasted ever since. So his Spirit will help you, as well as his first disciples. Ask him every day to let his Spirit come and be your guardian angel all the day long. Tell him how much you need his help; how you are afraid you will sometimes forget and sin against him; how weak you are and how you want him to be your Protector.

7. Tell him you need his help very much, and he will grant your prayer. I know he will. The Bible says he will. And, oh, how blest you will be! Jesus is your Guide, and his death on the cross has washed away your sins, and his Spirit has come to live in your heart, and be your guardian angel.

LESSON CI.

COMMIT TO MEMORY.

IT

T is very useful to commit passages in a book to memory. They are thus laid up for use when we have not the books with us. A boy once learned several chapters in the Bible. A wicked priest burned up the book. "There is one thing," said the boy, "that you have not burned." "What is that?" said the priest. The boy said, "The twelve chapters that I committed to memory."

2. I knew a person who used to think a great deal about what he had read while he was following the plow; and he thought that laboring men had quite an advantage over other men: that, while their hands were employed about their work, their minds could be employed about something else.

3. I knew also a blind man, who took much pleasure in thinking over and speaking aloud what he had learned when he had good eyesight. It is well to have a good stock of ideas laid up in the mind for use when we are at work in the field or in the shop, or when we are kept awake by sickness in the night

season.

4. Some men have committed to memory more than there is in all the books which some others own. This is a very good way of carrying their books about them; and it is easy to carry such a load. Try it. Work will then be less tiresome. We shall have food for the mind; and our minds ought to grow as well as our bodies.

5. The more a man knows, the more useful he may be, and, if he uses his knowledge as he ought, the more he will be respected. The memory is a grand storehouse; let it be filled with good knowledge, so that there will be no room for what is bad.

trunk wharves

they

LESSON CII.

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MR. LINCOLN'S FIRST DOLLAR.

NE evening, in the executive chamber, there

were present a number of gentlemen, among them Mr. Seward. Mr. Lincoln said, "Seward, you never heard, did you, how I earned my first dollar?"-"No," said Mr. Seward.

2. "Well," replied he, "I was about eighteen years of age. I belonged, you know, to what they call down South the 'scrubs.' We had succeeded in raising, chiefly by my labor, sufficient produce, as I thought, to justify me in taking it down the river to sell.

3. "After much persuasion, I got the consent of my mother to go, and constructed a little flatboat large enough to take a barrel or two of things that we had gathered, with myself and little bundle, down to New Orleans.

4. "A steamer was coming down the river. We have, you know, no wharves on the Western streams;

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and the custom was, passengers were at any of the landings, for them to go out in a boat, the steamer stopping and taking them on board.

5. "I was contemplating my new flatboat, and wondering whether I could make it stronger, or improve it in any particular, when two men came down to the shore in carriages with trunks, and, looking at the different boats, singled out mine, and asked, 'Who owns this?'

6. “I answered, somewhat modestly, 'I do.' 'Will you,' says one, 'take us and our trunks out to the steamer?'-' Certainly,' said I. I was very glad to have the chance of earning something. The trunks were put on my flatboat, the passengers seated themselves on the trunks, and I sculled them out to the steamer.

7. "They got on board; and I lifted up their heavy trunks and put them on deck. The steamer was about to put on steam again, when I called out to them that they had forgotten to pay me. Each of them took from his pocket a silver half-dollar and threw it on the floor of my boat. I could scarcely believe my eyes as I picked up I picked up the money.

8. "Gentlemen, you may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day, that by honest work I had earned a dollar! The world seemed wider and fairer before me. I was a more hopeful and confident being from that time.”