k, by fire-light before she went to bed; this
she thought over in the night: and when she was dressing herself in
the morning, she was glad to find she always knew a little more than
she had done the morning before. It is not to be believed how much
those people will be found to have gained at the end of the year,
who are accustomed to work up all the little odd ends and remnants
of leisure; who value time even more than money; and who are
convinced that minutes are no more to be wasted than pence. Nay, he
who finds he has wasted a shilling may by diligence hope to fetch it
up again: but no repentance or industry can ever bring back one
wasted hour. My good young reader, if ever _you_ are tempted to
waste an hour, go and ask a dying man what he would give for that
hour which you are throwing away, and according as he answers so do
you act.

As her mother hated the sight of a book, Hester was forced to learn
out of sight: it was no disobedience to do this, as long as she
wasted no part of that time which it was her duty to spend in useful
labor. She would have thought it a sin to have left her work for her
book; but she did not think it wrong to steal time from her sleep,
and to be learning an hour before the rest of the family were awake.
Hester would not neglect the washing-tub, or the spinning-wheel,
even to get on with her catechism; but she thought it fair to think
over her questions while she was washing and spinning. In a few
months she was able to read fluently in St. John's Gospel, which is
the easiest. But Mrs. Crew did not think it enough that her children
could read a chapter, she would make them understand it also. It is
in a good degree owing to the want of religious knowledge in
teachers, that there is so little religion in the world. Unless the
Bible is laid open to the understanding, children may read from
Genesis to the Revelation, without any other improvement than
barely learning how to pronounce the words. Mrs. Crew found there
was but one way to compel their attention; this was by obliging them
to return back again to her the sense of what she had read to them,
and this they might do in their own words, if they could not
remember the words of Scripture. Those who had weak capacities,
would, to be sure, do this but very imperfectly; but even the
weakest, if they were willing would retain something. She so
managed, that _saying the catechism_ was not merely an act of the
memory, but of the understan