books, you can be a member." This serving-maid soon showed herself as
the brightest scholar in the group, far superior in her thirst for
knowledge to her young mistresses. She was encouraged and aided to seek
a higher education, entered a Normal School, and became a successful
teacher.

One letter received at the office contained, in brief, the following: "I
am a working-man with six children and I work hard to keep them in
school. Since I found out about your Circle, I have begun to read,
getting up early in the morning to do it. I am trying hard to keep up,
so that my boys will see what father does--just as an example to them."

A letter from a night watchman said, "I read as I come on my rounds to
the lights, and think it over between times."

A steamboat captain on one of the western rivers wrote that he enjoyed
reading the books and found the recollection of their contents a great
benefit, "for when I stand on the deck at night I have something good to
think about; and you know that when one has not taken care of his
thoughts they will run away with him and he will think about things he
ought not."

I was well acquainted with a gentleman and his wife, both of unspotted
character, but unfortunately living apart from some incompatibility. He
was accustomed to call upon her every fortnight, in a formal manner,
professedly to meet their children, and on one of his visits he
mentioned that he was beginning the C. L. S. C. readings. She was
desirous of knowing what those letters meant; he explained and gave her
a circular of information. She, too, joined the Circle, and next time at
his call they spent an evening pleasantly discussing the subjects of
reading that both were pursuing. From a fortnightly they dropped into a
weekly interview, and after a time spent nearly all their evenings
together. One day I met them together, and being aware of their former
relations, I perhaps showed surprise. The husband took me aside and said
that they were now living together very happily, thanks to the C. L. S.
C. They had forgotten their differences in a common object of interest.

In the early years of the C. L. S. C. one book of the course was on the
subject of practical Christianity. At one time, the religious book was
_The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation_, by Dr. Walker, a work widely
read two generations ago and regarded as a standard. We received at the
office a letter from a high-school teacher who said that he was an