BLESSED 


ARE THE PEACE-MAKERS.



BLESSED are the peace-makers; for they shall be called the children of God," repeated little May. "What is a peace-maker, Paul?"

''A peace-maker?" replied Paul, with the wisdom of ten years. "Why, a peacemaker is one who makes peace, who tries to keep people from fighting, and when they're at it tries to get them to stop."

"If I saw two boys fighting, and got them to stop, would I be a peace-maker?" 

"I suppose SO; but you would better not try it, for most likely they'd pitch into you;" with which sage advice Paul went off to play ball, and wholly forgot the conversation.

Not so little May. All day long she watched for fighting boys, but saw none. In her anxiety to prove herself a child of God, she was quite willing to have some one naughty enough to fight.

When nurse dressed her for her afternoon walk she went with unusual alacrity. 

The walk was nearly over, when, as they were crossing a narrow street, she saw at the other end two boys fighting. May rushed down the street; but before she could reach them, a woman came out of a house near by, and parted them, sending one boy down the street, and taking the other into the house with her.

When the woman sent the boy away, he turned so suddenly that he did not see little May who had just come up, but rushed against her, knocking her against the fence. 

When the terrified nurse reached her, the blood was dropping from a cut in her head.

The boy stopped. "I'm so sorry, ma'am," said he. "I didn't see her, she came so sudden like. Let me help you get her home."


At first the nurse indignantly refused the proffered aid; but finding that it was no easy matter to carry May and draw the baby, she gave the latter into the boy's care.

Morning found May quite well, but greatly disappointed at the result of her attempt tobecome a child of God. A little talk with mamma, however, made this matter clearer.

During the morning, the boy who had knocked May down was seen hanging around the house, intently watching the windows. Mrs. Morgan called him in.

"I came to see how the little 'un is," he said, bashfully.

"He cannot be wholly bad," thought Mrs. Morgan. So she talked kindly to the boy, and soon became so interested in him that before he left he had promised to enter an industrial school. Little May's ill-advised attempt to win a blessing was not without good results; for under the helpful influences, which Mrs. Morgan brought around him, this boy-fighter grew into an honest, useful man.





Christine Earle.