Such an uncommon display of genius created them many friends, and they frequently received invitations from the younger branches of the neighbouring gentry. From these visits they learned a polite and graceful behaviour, and consequently soon got rid of their awkward rusticity. As they increased in knowledge, so their minds opened and expanded; and, though their wishes were at first only to learn to read, they now sighed after the higher branches of literature.
"What a pleasing thing it must be," said Dorcas one day to his sister, "to read of what passed in the former ages of the world, and trace out the tempers and dispositions of the people in those days! What a narrow span of earth are we confined to, in comparison of what we are told the world is at large! I should like to read those books which give a description of the different parts of the earth and seas; what animals inhabit them, and what curiosities they contain superior to our own."
"I have the same wish," replied Amarillis; "but let us be thankful to that good God, and to the generosity of our opulent neighbours, by whose bounty and goodness we were rescued from a state of ignorance and gloomy despair, have been enabled to read the Sacred Writings, and imbibe the glorious doctrines of salvation."
This conversation was overheard by a gentleman, who immediately bought them some small books of history and geography, of which they made so proper a use, that there were very few young people, within several miles of them, who were able to converse with them on geographical and historical subjects.
Within the course of two years, Dorcas and his sister had made great improvements in the sciences, when it was thought necessary to send them into the world to provide for themselves, as their parents were now engaged in a gentleman's family, in a much better situation than that of a shepherd and shepherdess. Amarillis was taken as a waiting maid, attendant and companion of a young lady of distinction and fortune; and Dorcas thought himself happy in being taken as clerk in the shop of a capital tradesman.
In this situation all parties at present remain, and afford an unanswerable proof of the utility of Sunday Schools. Had it not been for that noble institution, Dorcas and Amarillis must have lived and died in the grossest ignorance, overwhelmed with poverty and despair; their parents must have lingered out a half-starved life in their miserable cot, without being able to bequeath any thing to their children but rags and poverty. What may be the future situation of Dorcas and Amarillis we cannot say; but we need not search the roll of fate to know this, that they are bound to pray, as they undoubtedly do, for the first promoters of Sunday Schools.
Let me advise my youthful readers, whatever their condition in life may be, to imitate the industry of Dorcas and Amarillis. Let them remember that, however painful a few years of hard study may be, how pleasing will be the consequences to them all the rest of their lives, when they will be possessed of that which nothing but their final dissolution can take from them!
