A teacher's gift

BOSTON:
BROWN, TAGGARD & CHASE,
(Successors to W. J. Reynolds & Co.) 25 & 29 CORNHILL.
1857.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by Brown, Taggard & Chase, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. PRINTED BY GEORGE C. RAND & AVERY. ELECTROTYPED AT THE BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.
“Well, John, have you succeeded, to-day, my son?”
“No, mother; I have been nearly all over the town, and no one would take me. But I think if you had been with me, I should have stood a better chance. You look so thin and pale, mother, somebody would have felt sorry, and so have taken me; but nobody knew me, and no one saw you.”
It was a cold, bleak night, and John had been out all day, “looking for a place.” He had tried hard, until it was quite dark, and then gave up, thinking his mother must be tired of waiting for him.
John’s mother was a widow, and a very poor one. She had kept herself by needle-work, till a severe trial of sickness had confined her to her bed, and she was unable to do more. She told her little son to sit down by the fire, while she got him some food. The fire and the supper were very scanty; but John knew they were the best she could provide, and he felt that he would rather share such a fire and such a supper with so kind a mother, than sit at the best-filled table with any body else who did not love him as she did, and whom he did not love as he did her.
After a few moments of silence, the boy looked up into his mother’s face, and said, “Mother, do you think it would be wrong to ask my new Sabbath school teacher about a place?” “No, my child, not if you have no other time, and I think that he would be a very proper person; at least, I should think that he would be interested in getting you a good place.” “Well, to-morrow is Sabbath day, and when the class breaks up, I will ask him.”
After reading a portion of God’s holy word, the mother and her little boy kneeled down together to pray. She asked God to bless them with his Holy Spirit, that they might truly repent of sin, and through faith in Jesus Christ, obtain pardon. She prayed that God would care for them as a father, give them his rich grace, and do that which he knew to be best for them, for Christ’s sake.