for a moment or
two.

"I'm sorry to hear you say that, sir," said Adams, with a look of
concern.

"And it can't be age, you know," continued Young, in a tone of
pleasantry, "for I'm not much above thirty. I suspect it's that
asthmatic affection that has troubled me of late. However," he added,
in a heartier tone, "it won't do to get downhearted about that. Come,
what say you to begin school at once? We'll put you at the bottom of
the class, being so stupid, and we'll put Sally at the top. Will you
join, Sall?"

We need scarcely say that Sally, who was always ready for anything,
whether agreeable to her or otherwise, assented heartily to the
proposition, and then and there began to learn to read out of the Bible,
with John Adams for a class-fellow.

Of course it was uphill work at first. It was found that Adams could
blunder on pretty well with the small words, but made sad havoc among
the long ones. Still his condition was pronounced hopeful. As to
Sally, she seemed to take up the letters at the first sitting, and even
began to form some correct notion of the power of syllables. After a
short trial, Young said that that was quite enough for the first day,
and then went on to read a passage or two from the Bible himself.

And now, for the first time, Otaheitan Sally heard the old, old story of
the love of God to man in the gift of Jesus Christ. The name of Jesus
was, indeed, not quite unfamiliar to her; but it was chiefly as an oath
that her associations presented it to her. Now she learned that it was
the name of Immanuel, God with us, the Just One, who died that sinful
man might be justified and saved from the power of sin.

She did not, indeed, learn all this at that time; but she had her
receptive mind opened to the first lessons of the glorious truth on than
summer evening on the mountain-top.

From this date forward, Edward Young became a real schoolmaster; for he
not only taught Adams to read better than he had ever yet read, but he
daily assembled all the children, except the very little ones, and gave
them instruction in reading out of the Word of God. In all this John
Adams gave him hearty assistance, and, when not acting as a pupil, did
good service in teaching the smaller children their letters.

But Young went a step further.

"John Adams," said he, one morning, "it has been much on my mind of late
that God has spared you and me in order that we may teach these women
and children the