'MINISTER'S BOY. 277 



culty is to enlist the moral powers ; and with re- 

 gard to these there is as often a mistake on the 

 part of the master as there is a failure on the part 

 of the servant. Your boy wants to go home to 

 see his parents; and his idea is that you cannot 

 grudge him the Sabbath for that purpose. But 

 give him rather any other day. He will be sur- 

 prised that you do not value his work so much as 

 you do his morals ; he will carry, by his visit, a 

 lesson to his brothers and sisters it may be to his 

 parents also ; and whilst you prevent as much 

 Sabbath profanation as might spoil a whole week's 

 instructions, you are effectually making more useful 

 hands by providing first for a better heart. 



The want of something to do in leisure hours is 

 a perpetual cause of running to idle companions. 

 The poor boy has learned to read; but it is only in 

 the best schools, and of late years, that children 

 have discovered any connection between the words 

 of a book and the ideas which they are meant to 

 convey; and the probability is that your boy has 

 never read a page either for his instruction or 

 amusement. To what a flood of light might his 

 mind be at once opened by giving him a little book, 

 and requiring him to tell what he had read of. 

 He has learned to write and do accounts by rote, 

 but has no notion of the use of either. The gift 

 of a few sheets of paper and a slate, with as much 

 intelligence as might be communicated in half an 

 hour, might, by exercising his mental faculties, 

 attach him to his abode, save him from bad com- 



