“THE CLAM-SHELL PREACHER."




THERE was a mission school in Hartford, in a garret room of a rickety building, in the earlier days of such schools in this country.  It was what the English would call a "ragged-school," made up of boys and girls in the community, out of homes of squalor and of vice along the river banks in one of the poorer quarters of that city. It was not an easy matter to catch and hold the attention of that motley assemblage. There was rarely a visitor who was equal to the emergency. But Dr. Beadle won the eyes and ears of all who were there, when he first came to that school. Standing in front of the Superintendent's desk, before the school closed for the day, he held up a common fresh-water clam-shell, and called out, 

"Boys, what is that? "

"A clam-shell," cried a hundred voices.

"Yes, it's a clam-shell, a rough, coarse clam-shell; just such a shell as you could pick up any day by the bank of a river, or back in the country by a brook in the woods."

Then turning the shell quickly in his hand, he showed the other side, beautifully polished, and reflecting the colors of the rainbow.

"And what's that, boys?"

"That's a clam-shell, too," was the answer.

"Yes; but see how much prettier this side is. What makes the difference?"

"It's been rubbed down," said one.

"It's been smoothed off," said another.

"It's been polished up," said a third.

"Yes, that's it. And, boys, do you know that's just what we are trying to do with you in this Sabbath-school? We've brought some of you in here as rough as the other side of the clamshell, and now we are trying to smooth you off, to polish you up, so that you'll shine like this side of the shell. This polishing business is hard work, boys, and it takes time, but it pays." 



S. S. Times.



GOD warms the earth with snow.