THE SNOWBALL. 



ROLL away, roll away," cried Fred; " we shall make a fine large snowball before we have done with it."

"Now for another turn or two," shouted his brother Charles.

"Hurrah!" again cried O Fred; "we shall soon make it as big as ourselves."

They now stopped for a few minutes, and thrust their hands into their pockets, for they found that the snow was very cold. When they began again, they had to push harder than before, for the snowball had become more difficult to move.

After they had toiled at their sport for some time, and tried to form a man's face on the ball, their cousin Gracie came to have a look at it.  It was now time to go indoors, and they were soon seated around a good fire. They then told their father about the famous snowball they had made, and how many yards they had rolled it along the ground.  "Very true," said their father; " it was a large snowball indeed. I have been looking at you from the parlor window, and I must tell you that your snowball has set me to thinking."

"Set you to thinking, father!" said they; "why, what thoughts could come into your mind at the sight of a snowball?"

"First, then," said their father, in his usual quiet way," I thought your snowball was like knowledge, of which a child, who begins to learn, makes but a very little ball at first; but as he goes on, with pains and diligence, he rolls it along, and keeps gathering up, until it becomes a great ball of knowledge. All the wisest men who have ever lived began in a very humble way; but they went on until they had stored up a great amount of learning and knowledge.

There was, many years ago, a little boy who was engaged to open the gates for the men on the farm as they went in and out, and at other times to attend to the sheep and cattle. One day, after work, he was found in a hayloft, studying a learned book.

He was then sent to school, and he lived to become one of the wisest and most learned men that ever lived; and he is now known to us as the great Sir Isaac Newton. 'Little by little' thus it is said some of those lovely islands, which are found in distant seas are reared up by the little coral insect, which places one grain at a time upon another. So, little by little, the acorn becomes the strong oak; stone upon stone, the greatest palaces in the world are built; and line upon line, large books are written."

"We shall not forget that, father ‘Little by little.'"

"I thought, again, that the snowball was like a bad habit, or sin, in youth. It is small at first, but it grows bigger and bigger until it is almost like a mountain. Persons do not become very wicked all at once. Read the story of Achan as it is given us in the seventh chapter of the book of Joshua. He looked upon the forbidden things, then he coveted, and then he took them. Sin in the look, sin in the desire, and then sin in the act. And so it has been with tens of thousands of other persons in every age. They began, it may be with sins which did not attract much notice at first, and ended in open crime and   disgrace. A man, when about to be hung, said, 'I began by stealing a penny out of my mother's pocket, and have ended with murder.' The only way to be saved from the guilt and power of sin, is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and to do his will. 

His grace in our hearts is the only sure defense against evil."