Lilie's cousin had a bottle of scent given to her, and it had such a pleasant smell that one day, when Lilie was alone in the room, she thought she would like a little, so she unscrewed the stopper, and sprinkled a few drops on her handkerchief. I do not suppose her cousin would have been angry if she had known, but Lilie knew the scent was not hers, and she was miserable the moment she had taken it, and had no peace until she confessed the fault, and asked her cousin's forgiveness. I wish Carl had felt like that about the piece of sugar; do not you? Then he would never have taken the larger things, and been sent to prison.
(Blackboard.)
Little Wrongs Lead to Greater Wrongs.
Carl—Sugar—Money—Prison.
15. Copying.
It was the Christmas examination at school, and the boys were all at their desks ready for the questions in arithmetic. Will Jones's desk was next Tom Hardy's, and everybody thought that one of these two boys would win the prize.
As soon as the questions had been given out, the boys set to work. Tom did all his sums on a scrap of paper first, then he copied them out carefully, and, after handing his paper to the master, left the room. Unfortunately he left the scrap of paper on which he had worked his sums lying on the desk. Will snatched it up, and looked to see if his answers were the same. No! two were different. Tom's would be sure to be right; so he copied the sums from Tom's scrap of paper. It was stealing, of course; just as much stealing as if he had taken Tom's pen or knife. Besides, it is so mean to let some one else do the work and then steal it from them—even the birds know that.
Some little birds were building themselves a nest, and to save the trouble of gathering materials, they went and took some twigs and other things from another bird's nest that was being built. But when the old birds saw what the little ones had done, they set to work and pulled the nest all to pieces. That was to teach them to go and find their own twigs and sticks, and not to steal from others.
Of course Will was not happy. There was a little Voice within that would not let him rest, and when the boys kept talking about the arithmetic prize, and wondering who would get it, he felt as though he would like to go and hide somewhere, he was so ashamed. That is one of the results of wrong-doing, as we said before—it always makes us ashamed.
At last the day came when the master would tell who were the prize-winners. The boys were all sitting at their desks listening as the master read out these words:—
"Tom Hardy and Will Jones have all their sums right, but as Will's paper is the neater of the two, he will take the first prize".
The boys clapped their hands, but Will was not glad. The Voice within spoke louder and louder, so loudly that Will was almost afraid some of the other boys would hear it, and his face grew red and hot. At last he determined to obey the Good Voice and tell the truth, so he rose from his seat, walked up to the master, and said: "Please, sir, the prize does not belong to me, for I stole two of my answers from Tom Hardy. I am very sorry."