[Illustration:  Fig. 104]

“Years afterward, when he had grown to young manhood, he returned to the home which he had not seen for a long time.  As he went once more to the grove, he came upon a birch tree and stopped to look at some words carved upon its bark, with a heart drawn about them.  Memory carried him back to the days of his childhood—­it was the same tree, grown big and strong, and with it the heart had grown large and the words were there strong and plain.  They could not be removed without greatly marring the tree.  Here are the heart and the words:  [Add lines to revise Fig. 104 to Fig. 105.] As he looked upon the words, they thrilled him with tender emotions as he remembered that it was his mother who had taught him this beautiful sentiment.  ’If I had written there an unkind word,’ he reflected, ’that, too, would have been as permanent and lasting.’

[Illustration:  Fig. 105]

“And now for the application:  We are told that some fathers and mothers, through a false idea of what is of lasting good to their children, permit them, in their inexperience, to learn to do things in a way which will mean sorrow and anguish in the end.  Of course, I understand that this could not ever happen to any of these fathers and mothers and these children!  The application is for those who aren’t here!  If the boy rebels against school, he will bless, in later years, the hand which made his attendance compulsory.  If he can see no harm in the use of unkind or offensive words, but is compelled by a loving parent to turn his mind and his speech to lofty things, he will later bless that one who saved him from his error.  If, in the years when he has grown through babyhood and childhood to youth, a strong, but gentle, hand bars for him the way which leads to evil companions and bad habits, he will praise and bless that restraining hand when the years of discretion show him how close was his step to the brink of a fatal precipice.

“With the same hand which bars the way to wrong must the parent write the words, ‘God is Love,’ on the heart of each little one.  The clear, pure truth cannot be told too often.  In after years, as memory brings these children back to your loving arms, back to their little downy beds, they will be comforted with the realization that the words have become so deep-seated that nothing can eradicate them, even after death has closed their eyelids.

“Some one has described the eyes of a child as ’clear wells of undefiled thought,’ and God forbid that as their eyes are lifted to ours, full of innocence and confidence, we should give them anything but the purest, most helpful truth as Christ reveals it to us.  We pledge ourselves earnestly to do this.”

THE BURNED BOOK
    —­Patience
    —­Adversity

How Thomas Carlyle’s Work of Many Years Was Destroyed in a Few
Seconds.

THE LESSON—­That there is such a thing as success through patience, and that the Christian should so live that he may rejoice in his tribulations.