FOOTNOTES:

[20] Continued from page 253.

[21] As there have been so many revolutions in France, it may be
convenient to suggest that, according to the dates of this story,
Harley, no doubt, alludes to that revolution which exiled Charles X. and
placed Louis Philippe on the throne.

[22] Have you fifty friends?--it is not enough. Have you one enemy?--it
is too much.

[23] At home--"In the serene regions
Where dwell the pure forms."

THE WHITE LAMB.

A STORY FOR THE YOUNG FOLKS.

BY R. H. STODDARD.

Once in a far country, for which you might search all the geographies of
the world in vain, there lived a poor woman who had a little daughter
named Agnes. That she was poor, and had a child, was by no means
wonderful; for poor people are common in all parts of the earth; and so
for the matter of that, are children too; for which the good God cannot
be enough thanked.

But this poor woman and child were not altogether like the thousands who
surrounded them, as I shall show you in the course of my little story.
For the mother was exceeding goodly, and the child was exceeding fair;
and goodly too, so far as a child could be. Not that children cannot be
as good, aye, and better than most grown people; but in that country
they were very bad and ignorant.

It is true that there were schools and academies there, and great
colleges time-honored and world-renowned; but somehow or other the
people were no better, but on the contrary rather worse for all these
blessings. Whether they neglected good, or good neglected them, is not
for us to inquire now; but certain it is that the greater part of them
grew up in ignorance and vice. Now they need not have grown up in vice
unless they had preferred it to virtue; though they could hardly have
escaped a life of ignorance. There were many priests there to teach them
the folly of sin in this world, and its eternal punishment in the next.
They were very energetic in picturing the misery of sinners; but in
spite of all they could say, and do, they preached to thin and careless
congregations: in consequence of which many of their salaries were
unpaid from one year's end to another.

Most of the men spent their Sabbaths in bull-baiting and dog-fighting;
most of the women in gadding from house to house with budgets of
scandal; while the children ran off to the woods to snare birds and
gather berries, and oftentimes to fight out a match made up the day
before. Bl