hers, the most unfit
for a school, all they considered was, that the profits of the
school might enable her to live without parish pay. Mrs. Jones
refused another, though she could read well, and was decent in her
conduct, because she used to send her children to the shop on
Sundays. And she objected to a third, a very sensible woman, because
she was suspected of making an outward profession of religion a
cloak for immoral conduct. Mrs. Jones knew she must not be too nice,
neither; she knew she must put up with many faults at last. "I
know," said she to Mr. Simpson, "the imperfection of every thing
that is human. As the mistress will have much to bear with from the
children, so I expect to have something to bear with in the
mistress; and she and I must submit to our respective trials, by
thinking how much God has to bear with in us all. But there are
certain qualities which are indispensable in certain situations.
There are, in particular, three things which a good school-mistress
must not be without: _good sense_, _activity_, and _piety_. Without
the first, she will mislead others; without the second, she will
neglect them; and without the third, though she may civilize, yet
she will never christianize them."

Mr. Simpson said, "He really knew but of one person in the parish
who was fully likely to answer her purpose: this," continued he,
"is no other than my housekeeper, Mrs. Betty Crew. It will indeed be
a great loss to me to part from her; and to her it will be a far
more fatiguing life than that which she at present leads. But ought
I to put my own personal comfort, or ought Betty to put her own ease
and quiet, in competition with the good of above a hundred children?
This will appear still more important, if we consider the good done
by these institutions, not as _fruit_, but _seed_; if we take into
the account how many yet unborn may become Christians, in
consequence of our making these children Christians; for, how can we
calculate the number which may be hereafter trained for heaven by
those very children we are going to teach, when they themselves
shall become parents, and you and I are dead and forgotten? To be
sure, by parting from Betty, my peas-soup will not be quite so
well-flavored, nor my linen so neatly got up; but the day is fast
approaching, when all this will signify but little; but it will not
signify little whether one hundred immortal souls were the better
for my making this petty sacrifice. Mr