"I give you something!" exclaimed his father. "How can I give you anything, George? I who have nothing on earth I can call my own; no, not even the breath I draw!"
"Ain't the house yours, and the garden, and the horses and oxen and sheep?" still inquired George, failing to comprehend the great truth of God's ownership.
"Oh, no, my son, no! Why, you make me shrink into nothing, George, when you talk of all these things belonging to me, who can't even make a grain of sand! How could I give life to the oxen and horses, when I can't give life even to a fly, my son?"
George was introduced into a new world by this lesson, as his father intended that he should be. His precocious mind grasped, finally, the great idea of his "true Father," and the lesson never had to be repeated.
We have rehearsed this incident somewhat in detail as given by Mr. Weems, because its influence will be found interwoven with George's future private and public life.
Another story told by Mr. Weems is the famous hatchet story, which has been rehearsed to so many children, since that day, to rebuke falsehood and promote truth-telling.
His father made him a present of a hatchet with which George was especially delighted. Of course he proceeded forthwith to try it, first hacking his mother's pea-sticks, and, finally, trying its edge upon the body of a beautiful "English cherry-tree." Without understanding that he was destroying the tree, he chopped away upon it to his heart's content, leaving the bark, if not the solid wood underneath, in a very dilapidated condition. The next morning his father discovered the trespass, and, rushing into the house, under much excitement, he exclaimed:
"My beautiful cherry-tree is utterly ruined. Who could hack it in that manner?"
Nobody knew.