GOOD RESOLUTIONS.



BESSIE came home from school, and seeing the closet door open, she went in. In one corner of the closet stood a jar, where her mother usually kept bath-biscuit, a nice, rich cake of which Jessie was very fond. She opened the jar, and looked in, and put in her hand and took out two. Hearing a noise while in the act, she started like a guilty person, and wanted to hide. However, she took two, hastily ate one, slipped the other in her pocket, and ran out-doors. 

After both were eaten, and the pleasure gone, Jessie felt very ill at ease. . She wished she had not taken them. Shrank from appearing at the table, lest her mother should have found that two cakes were missing, and might suspect her. You see how very suspicious guilt is.

"I will never, never do so again," said Jessie to herself that night. "I'll always ask. 

It is a sort of stealing to take things so; it is a sin. I'll never do so again; and so I've said before, over and over," thought the child, as a miserable sense of broken resolutions crossed her mind. "Oh, dear!" she groaned, "I want to be good, but I can't." 

She tried to pray, and after a great while went to sleep with "never do so again," on her lips and in her heart.

The next day, at recess, Martha Scott called a few of her cronies to her desk.

"See here, girls, what I've got."

They huddled round when she opened a paper and displayed six large pickles, for some school-girls have an unaccountable liking for pickles. The girls set up a shout.

"Did your mother give them to you?" asked one.

"Of course she didn't," answered Martha.

"It's wrong to take without leave," said Jessie.

"I guess Jessie's conscience isn't clear on that point," cried one of the girls, sharply.

"Well, it's wrong," persisted Jessie.

"Do you always ask leave? Come now, Jessie, do you, Miss Reproof, do you?" cried Martha Scott.

"Yes," cried Jessie, quickly and angrily, "I do. "She certainly spoke before she thought.

"Jessie, Jessie," whispered conscience, "that is a lie."

"I know it, I know it," whispered Jessie back in anguish of spirit. Jessie helped eat the pickles; but something stuck in her throat. It was not the pickle; I think it was the lie.

"Oh! Dear, dear," she said to herself, and all day it was inside, "Oh! Dear, dear;" 

which meant "What a weak, sinful thing I am. I can't keep my resolutions. When I am tempted, they are like cobwebs before a dust-brush; 'tis no use to make them. I shall never be good, never, never."

As soon as Jessie had an opportunity, which was the next day, she asked,"Do you think, mother, it is any use to make good resolutions? Do you think they make us any better?"

She wanted very much to understand the matter, for Jessie had had the notion that good resolutions had a great deal to do with making people good. Her own experience had, indeed, been quite to the contrary, and what it all meant puzzled her sorely. Therefore, she anxiously waited for her mother's answer.

"Not when good resolutions take the place of something to be done; not when they take the place of penitence," answered her mother; "for there are some people who ease their conscience by good resolutions against sin and temptation to come, when they should be repenting and giving up that sin which made their conscience ill at ease." "How to repent and give it up?" asked Jessie. 

"Be so truly and thoroughly sorry for it as to be willing to confess it, to feel very humble on account of it, and to desire above all things to be separated from it to be 'washed from it,' as the Bible says." "And how can we feel so?" asked Jessie, with tender concern.

"By the help of the Holy Spirit,"  answered her mother; "that is his work: to convince us of sin; to mellow our hearts; and make us ready and willing to give up thoroughly everything which grieves and displeases God."

"'Holy Spirit' I never thought of that before; ' confess it' I never thought of that before," said Jessie, only half aloud, as if speaking to herself; she looked very serious: "and resolutions, mamma" But mamma was gone. The baby was crying in the distance.

Jessie went away full of new ideas. She had heard the same things over and over, I dare say; but now they made an impression, because she felt she had a personal interest in them as she never had before. That night, as Jessie's mother sat alone reading in the sitting-room, and the children had long before-gone to bed, the door opened gently, and "Mother, are you alone?" came softly through the little crack "Jessie!" exclaimed her mother, holding out her hand; "come in, child. What is the matter?"

Jessie stole in, and taking her mother's out-stretched hand, and resting her head on her mother's shoulder, she sobbed out, "O mother."

Then what did she do? She confessed taking the bath-biscuit, the weakness of her good resolutions, the next day's lie, and all the wretchedness which followed. Penitent and humble she sank at her mother's knee, not to 'say her prayers,' that is, use words upon a thoughtless tongue, as she had so often done before; but she prayed,"O God, forgive me for Jesus' sake. "And did Jessie ever confess to Martha Scott the lie she told her? Yes, for she meant to make a clean breast of it. And what did Martha Scott say, do you suppose?

"You foolish girl, Jessie," she cried; "I'd never confess I told a lie till doom's day; you are a foolish girl."

If her mother's tender and approving looks had spoken peace to her troubled soul,  Martha's hard and unfeeling words stung her to the quick. Jessie had yet to learn how  differently the people of the world view the feelings of the penitent heart, from God's people. The people of the world hug sin and are too proud to give it up; while there is joy in a pious heart, yes, and joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth.

Children who are taking the first steps in a heavenly life must not be frightened anddiscouraged by such harsh treatment from their mates; they will find a sweetness and love in their own bosoms which more than make up for every unkindness; and this is to be got, not merely by making good  resolutions against the future inroads of sin which, I think, is all that many do who are disappointed at finding no real strength and comfort in it, but by a penitent confession, a thorough now giving up of what is wrong not of one fault only, but all your faults; not repenting for a fault once, but every time it overcomes or tempts you.

Take a bad act in hand at once, like a fever, or any other dangerous disease. How odd it would be if a person sick of fever should lay groaning to himself, " I resolve never, never to have another fever," without taking proper measures to get rid of the one he already has, and eradicating it from his system. It is curing he wants, and good   resolutions are not medicine; but they are excellent to strengthen and brace the body after it is cured. 




Child's Paper.




Who Is LITTLE SUNSHINE? The child who does not pout, or frown, or say cross words, but goes about the house laughing, smiling, singing, saying kind words, and doing kind deeds that child is Little Sunshine.