“Oh, papa, dear, don’t ever do that?” she pleaded, hugging him tight, “I think it would be a worse punishment than you have ever given me; for it would seem as if you were saying, ‘You don’t belong to me any longer; I won’t have you for my own.’”
“No, my darling,” he returned, holding her close, “I shall never say that, however ill you may behave.”
“And I do mean to be good; always obedient, and never in a passion again; but I can’t be sure that I shall; it’s sometimes so much easier to be naughty.”
“Yes, sad to relate, we all find it so,” he sighed. “What a happy place heaven will be! for when we get there we shall have no more inclination to sin, but shall be always basking in the sunshine of God’s love and favor.”
“Yes, papa; being so happy when you are entirely pleased with me helps me to understand how happy we shall all be when we are with our Heavenly Father and he smiles on us and has no fault to find with us. I like that Bible verse, ‘Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him,’ because I know you pity and love me when I’m in trouble, even when I’ve brought it on myself by being naughty.”
“I do, indeed, my child; and God’s love for his children is infinitely greater than that of any earthly father for his.”
“It seems to me,” Max remarked, “that if that officer the old hunter told about had been used to thinking of God as his kind, loving Father, and praying to him, it would have been easy enough for him to ask for help when in such danger.”
“I think you are quite right,” his father said; “and now,” opening the Bible, “we will read a portion of his word, then ask for his kind, protecting care while we sleep.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
Mr. Short took great interest in the plans and preparations for celebrating the Fourth, and was quite anxious that “the captain’s young folks” should have their every wish in regard to them satisfied.