lot at home.  At one time, when I was attending school about a mile from home, my time out of school was taken up by my walk to and from it and the chores which necessarily fall to a farmer’s boy, so that for some months I had no opportunity of earning anything.  One Sabbath morning, I dropped my last silver piece into the collection, with a prayer—­which I always offered at such a time—­that God would bless it to the heathen, that some one might be led to Him by it.

“I went home that day with a child’s anxiety, feeling that I could not bear the thought of giving nothing for the heathen on next Sabbath, and yet not seeing how I could possibly obtain it.  That night I asked my Heavenly Father to provide the money for me.  The anxiety was all gone; for I felt that God would answer.  Next morning, when almost at the school-house, I found a handkerchief in the road, in the corner of which was securely tied a silver quarter and a silver dime.  Instantly my thoughts flew to the next Sabbath, and to the prayer I had offered.  O, yes!  I thought, God has more than answered my prayer; instead of giving me just enough for next Sabbath, He has given me enough, for seven Sabbaths.

Then the thought came, somebody lost it; yes, it was my duty to find the owner, which I did not expect would be difficult, although it was in town.  So I cheerfully gave it up, thinking that ‘the Lord will provide’ in some other way.  I took it directly to my teacher, and asked her to find the owner.  She made faithful inquiry, but no one was found to claim it.  Who can question this being an answer to prayer, when we think of the numerous chances against its occurring just as it did.”

A CHILD’S PRAYER FOR PAPA.

A drunkard, who had run through his property, returned one night to his unfurnished house.  He entered his empty hall.  Anguish was gnawing at his heart-strings, and language was inadequate to express his agony as he entered his wife’s apartment, and there beheld the victims of his appetite, his loving wife and a darling child.  Morose and sullen, he seated himself without saying a word; he could not speak; he could not look up then.  The mother said to the little angel at her side, “Come, my child, it is time to go to bed;” and that little baby, as she was wont, knelt by her mother’s lap and gazing wistfully into the face of her suffering parent, like a piece of chiseled statuary, slowly repeated her nightly orison.  When she had finished, the child (but four years of age) said to her mother, “Dear Mother, may I not offer up one more prayer?” “Yes, yes, my sweet pet, pray;” and she lifted up her tiny hands, closed her eyes, and prayed:  “O God! spare, oh! spare my dear papa!” That prayer was lifted with electric rapidity to the throne of God.  It was heard on high—­it was heard on earth.  The responsive “Amen!” burst from the father’s lips, and his heart of stone became a heart of flesh.  Wife and child were both clasped to his bosom, and in penitence he said:  “My child, you have saved your father from the grave of a drunkard.  I’ll sign the pledge!”