One day, a gentleman in India went into his library and took down a book from the shelves. As he did so, he felt a slight pain in his finger, like the prick of a pin. He thought that a pin had been stuck, by some careless person, in the cover of the book. But soon his finger began to swell, then his arm, and then his whole body, and in a few days he died. It was not a pin among the books, but a small and deadly serpent.
There are many serpents among the books now-a-days; they nestle in the foliage of some of our most fascinating literature; they coil around the flowers whose perfume intoxicates the senses. People read and are charmed by the plot of the story, and the skill with which the characters are sculptured or grouped, by the gorgeousness of the wood-painting, and hardly feel the pin-prick of the evil that is insinuated. But it stings and poisons.
Let us watch against the serpents and read only that which is healthy, instructive and profitable.
GOOD NIGHT.
“LITTLE MOTHER.”
BY JULIA HUNT MOREHOUSE.
It was Judge Bellow’s big, fine house, that stood on the corner by the park. Every body knew that, but every body did not know that the one little girl who lived in that house was restless and unhappy and often cross.