Original.
MINISTERING SPIRITS.
LINES WRITTEN FOR A LITTLE GIRL BY AN EPISCOPAL CLERGYMAN.
Do ANGELS minister to me—
Can such a wonder ever be?
Oh, sure they are too great;
Too glorious with their raiment white,
And wings so beautiful and bright,
Upon a child to wait.
Yet so it is in truth, I know,
For Jesus Christ has told us so,
And that to them is given
The loving task to guard with care
And keep from every evil snare
The chosen ones of heaven.
And so if I am good and mild,
And try to be a holy child,
My angel will rejoice;
And sound his golden harp to Him
Who dwells among the cherubim,
And praise Him with his voice.
But if I sin against the Lord,
By evil thought or evil word,
Or do a wicked thing;
Ah! then what will my angel say?
Oh, he will turn his face away,
And vail it with his wing.
Then let us pray to Him who sends
His angels down to be our friends,
That, strengthened by his grace,
I may not prove a wandering sheep,
Nor ever make my angel weep,
Nor hide his glorious face.
Original.
A TEMPTATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
Not long since, in one of the cities on the Atlantic seaboard, there was a lad employed in a large jewelry establishment. A part of his duty was to carry letters to the post-office, or to the mail-bag on the boat, when too late to be mailed in the regular way. On one occasion, after depositing his letters, he observed a part of a letter, put in by some other person, projecting above the opening in the bag. Seizing the opportunity he extracted this letter without being seen, and took it home. On examination he found it contained a draft for one thousand dollars. Forging the name of the person on whom it was drawn, he presented the draft at a bank and drew the money, and very soon afterwards proceeded to a distant western city.
After a little while, the draft was missed and inquiries made. It was found that this lad had been near the mailbag on the day when the missing letter had been put in it, that he was unusually well provided with money, and that he had suddenly disappeared. Officers of justice were commissioned to find him. They soon traced him to his new residence, charged him with his crime, which he at once confessed, and brought him back to meet the consequences of a judicial investigation. After a short imprisonment he was released on bail, but still held to answer, and thus the case stands at present. He must of course be convicted, but whether the penalty of the law will be inflicted in whole or in part, it will be for the Executive to say.
Meanwhile the circumstances suggest some thoughts which may be worth the reader's attention. This lad was a member of a Sunday school, but irregular in his attendance, and this latter fact may in some degree explain his wandering from the right path. He might, indeed, have been a punctual attendant on his class, and still have fallen into this gross sin, but it is not at all probable. And it is curious and instructive, that wherever any inmates of prisons, houses of refuge, or other places of the kind, are found to have been connected with Sunday-schools, it is nearly always stated in accompaniment that they attended only occasionally and rarely.