hem, papa," requested Lulu, looking
greatly interested. "Have they mouths? and do you know what they eat?"

"Yes, they have mouths and they live on seaweed, eating it by means of a
long ribbon-like tongue covered with rows of hard teeth; the common
limpet--which, as I have told you, lives on the British coast--has no
fewer than one hundred and sixty rows, twelve teeth in a row. How many
does that make, Max?"

"Nineteen hundred and twenty," answered the lad after a moment's
thought.

"Right," said his father. "The tongue when not in use, lies folded deep
in the interior of the limpet."

"Are their shells pretty, papa?" Lulu asked.

"Those of some of the limpets of warmer climates are very beautiful," he
answered; "large too. I have seen them on the western coast of South
America, a foot wide; so large that they are often used as basins."

"Oh I'd like to have one!" she exclaimed. "Is it for their shells
people try to pull them off the rocks?"

"It may be so in some instances, but the limpet is used for food and
also as bait, by the fisherman.

"Try, my children, to remember what I have been telling you about it;
but most of all let your thoughts dwell upon the lesson to be drawn from
its close clinging to the rock.

"God is often spoken of in the Scriptures as his people's rock, because
he is their strength, their refuge, their asylum, as the rocks were in
those places whither the children of Israel retired in case of an
unexpected attack from their foes.

"David says; 'The Lord is my rock and my fortress.... Who is a rock save
our God?'

"Jesus is the rock on which we must build our hope of salvation; any
other foundation will be as the sand upon which the foolish man built
his house; 'and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds
blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell; and great was the fall of
it.'

"The limpet is wiser; it never trusts to the shifting sand, but holds
firmly to the immovable rock. Be like it in resisting all attempts
whether of human or spiritual foes, to drag you from your Rock."

"Papa," said Max, slowly and with some hesitation. "I wish to do so--I
think it is my settled purpose--but I--I feel afraid that sometime I
may let go. I'm a careless, heedless fellow you know, and--and I'm
afraid I may forget to hold fast to Jesus, and be overcome by some
sudden and great temptation."

"There is danger of that, my boy," the captain returned with feeling,
"yet I should h