en

My Grandmother's Cottage

The First Oath

The Fairy's Gift

A Lesson taught by Nature

Florence Drew

Shechem

The Little Candle

"Are we not all Brothers and Sisters?"

Fortune-Telling

The Boy who Stole the Nails

The Childless Mother

The Motherless Child

Faith

SMALL MEANS AND GREAT ENDS;

OR,

THE WIDOW'S POT OF OIL.

BY JULIA A. FLETCHER.

"Oh! how I do wish I was rich!" said Eliza Melvyn, dropping her work in
her lap, and looking up discontentedly to her mother; "why should not I
be rich as well as Clara Payson? There she passes in her father's
carriage, with her fine clothes, and haughty ways; while I sit
here--sew--sewing--all day long. I don't see what use I am in the world!

"Why should it be so? Why should one person have bread to waste, while
another is starving? Why should one sit idle all day, while another
toils all night? Why should one have so many blessings, and another so
few?"

"Eliza!" said Mrs. Melvyn, taking her daughter's hand gently within her
own, and pushing back the curls from her flushed brow, "my daughter, why
is this? why is your usual contentment gone, and why are you so sinfully
complaining? Have you forgotten to think that 'God is ever good?'"

"No, mother," replied the young girl, "but it sometimes appears strange
to me, why he allows all these things."

"Wiser people than either you or I have been led to wonder at these
things," said Mrs. Melvyn; "but the Christian sees in all the wisdom of
God, who allows us to be tried here, and will overrule all for our good.
The very person who is envied for one blessing perhaps envies another
for one he does not possess. But why would you be rich, my child?"

"Mother, I went this morning through a narrow, dirty street in another
part of the city. A group of ragged children were collected round one
who was crying bitterly. I made my way through them and spoke to the
little boy. He told me his little sister was dead, his father was sick,
and he was hungry. Here was sorrow enough for any one; but the little
boy stood there with his bare feet, his sunbleached hair and tattered
clothes, and smiled almost cheerfully through the tears which washed
white streaks amid the darkness of his dirty face. He led me to his
_home_. Oh, mother! if you had been with me up those broken stairs, and
seen the helpless beings in that dismal, dirty room you would have
wished, like me, for