go up stairs with us and pray with us?" She did so, with a
grateful heart, and sought pardon for them. N---- did the same. When it
came Charley's turn to pray, he made an ordinary prayer--when his
brother repeatedly touched him, and in a low whisper he said, "Charley,
why don't you repent--why don't you repent?"

A very little child, not two years old, always seemed delighted to hold
her little book at prayer time, and when her father said Amen, she
always repeated it after him aloud. One day she seemed very uneasy
during prayer time, and though she made great resistance, she was taken
out of the room. She insisted on going back to the drawing-room, and the
chairs being still in the order in which the family had been seated
during prayer time, the little creature went by the side of each, and
folding her little hands, she repeated "Amen," "Amen," until she had
been to each one. Thus we see it is not so much for want of knowledge,
as for a right state of heart, right teachings, right examples, that
children do not live and act, speak and think and pray aright.

* * * * *

Original.

FIRST PRAYER IN CONGRESS.

In the letters of John Adams to his wife, Sept. 10, 1774, we have an
account of the _First Prayer_ in Congress. What an instructive and
encouraging lesson is here taught to all religious persons, always
unhesitatingly to obey all holy and good impulses.

Had Mr. Cushing, who moved the resolution, held back,--or had Mr. Samuel
Adams refused to second this resolution,--or had Rev. Mr. Duche
declined, when called upon to lead on that occasion, our nation might
never have presented the sublime spectacle of uniting, as a body, in
calling upon God at the opening of their Congressional sessions.

And who would dare to predict the loss which this omission might at that
time have occasioned to this infant Republic!

Mr. Adams's account is as follows:--

"When Congress first met, Mr. Cushing moved that it should be opened
with prayer. This was opposed on the ground that the members, being of
various denominations, were so divided in their religious sentiments
that they could not join in any one mode of worship. Mr. Samuel Adams
arose, and after saying that he was no bigot, and could hear a prayer
from any gentleman of piety and virtue who was a friend to his country,
moved that Rev. Mr. Duche--an Episcopal clergyman, who, he said, he
understood deserved that character--be invited