Wreaths of Friendship | Page 5

be lost. And another thing, my child: you ought to ask God to assist you in this self-government--to make you his child--to give you a new heart--to teach you to love Christ, and to be like him. Then you will seldom feel cross and fretful, because things go wrong. You will be cheerful and good-natured. You will make others happy--and you will very soon forget the old story, that nobody loves you."
Now, many little boys and girls--possibly some who read this story--would have thought this task too hard. They would have regarded it as a pretty severe penance. Perhaps they would have concluded, after having put all these difficult things into one scale, and the thing to be gained by them into the other, that the reward was not worth so great a sacrifice. So thought not Angeline, however. She began the work in earnest, that very day. She went over to her uncle's, with an unusual amount of sunshine in her countenance, and made it all right with Jeannette. In the evening, she told her little brother James what she intended to do, and invited him to help her; and before they retired to rest that night, they knelt down together and offered up a prayer, that God, for Christ's sake, would help them in governing themselves.
One day--perhaps some six weeks after this--Mrs Standish said, smilingly, to her daughter,
"Well, my dear, does Lucy Wallace love you any better?"
"Oh, mother," said Angeline, as a tear of joy stood in her eye, "every body loves me now!"

A NOBLE ACT.
"What have you there, boys?" asked Captain Bland.
"A ship," replied one of the lads who were passing the captain's neat cottage.
"A ship! Let me see;" and the captain took the little vessel, and examined it with as much fondness as a child does a pretty toy. "Very fair, indeed; who made it?"
"I did," replied one of the boys.
"You, indeed! Do you mean to be a sailor, Harry?"
"I don't know. I want father to get me into the navy."
"As a midshipman?"
"Yes, sir."
Captain Bland shook his head.
"Better be a farmer, a physician, or a merchant."
"Why so, captain?" asked Harry;
"All these are engaged in the doing of things directly useful to society."
"But I am sure, captain, that those who defend us against our enemies, and protect all who are engaged in commerce from wicked pirates, are doing what is useful to society."
"Their use, my lad," replied Captain Bland, "is certainly a most important one; but we may call it rather negative than positive. The civilian is engaged in building up and sustaining society in doing good, through his active employment, to his fellow-man. But military and naval officers do not produce any thing; they only protect and defend."
"But if they did not protect and defend, captain, evil men would destroy society. It would be of no use for the civilian to endeavor to build up, if there were none to fight against the enemies of the state."
"Very true, my lad. The brave defender of his country cannot be dispensed with, and we give him all honor. Still, the use of defence and protection is not so high as the use of building up and sustaining. The thorn that wounds the hand stretched forth to pluck the flower, is not so much esteemed, nor of so much worth, as the blossom it was meant to guard. Still, the thorn performs a great use. Precisely a similar use does the soldier or naval officer perform to society; and it will be for you, my lad, to decide as to which position you would rather fill."
"I never thought of that, captain," said one of the lads. "But I can see clearly how it is. And yet I think those men who risk their lives for us in war, deserve great honor. They leave their homes, and remain away, sometimes for years, deprived of all the comforts and blessings that civilians enjoy, suffering frequently great hardships, and risking their lives to defend their country from her enemies."
"It is all as you say," replied Captain Bland; "and they do, indeed, deserve great honor. Their calling is one that exposes them to imminent peril, and requires them to make many sacrifices; and they encounter not this peril and sacrifice for their own good, but for the good of others. Their lives do not pass so evenly as do the lives of men who spend their days in the peaceful pursuits of business, art, or literature; and we could hardly wonder if they lost some of the gentler attributes of the human heart. In some cases, this is so; but in very many cases the reverse is true. We find the man who goes fearlessly into battle, and there, in defence of his country, deals death and destruction unsparingly upon her enemies, acting,