At another time the teacher spends his five minutes in aiming to accomplish a very different object.  I will suppose it to be one of those afternoons when all has gone smoothly and pleasantly in school.  There has been nothing to excite strong interest or emotion; and there has been (as every teacher knows there sometimes will be), without any assignable cause which he can perceive, a calm, and quiet, and happy spirit diffused over the minds and countenances of the little assembly.  His evening communication should accord with this feeling, and he should make it the occasion to promote those pure and hallowed emotions in which every immortal mind must find its happiness, if it is to enjoy any worth possessing.

When all is still, the teacher addresses his pupils as follows: 

“I have nothing but a simple story to tell you to-night.  It is true, and the fact interested me very much when I witnessed it, but I do not know that it will interest you now merely to hear it repeated.  It is this: 

“Last vacation, I was traveling in a remote and thinly-settled country, among the mountains, in another state.  I was riding with a gentleman on an almost unfrequented road.  Forests were all around us, and the houses were small and very few.

“At length, as we were passing an humble and solitary dwelling, the gentleman said to me, ’There is a young woman sick in this house; should you like to go in and see her?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ said I, ’very much.  She can have very few visitors, I think, in this lonely place, and if you think she would like to see us, I should like to go.’

“We turned our horses toward the door, and as we were riding up, I asked what was the matter with the young woman.

“‘Consumption,’ the gentleman replied; ’and I suppose she will not live long.’

“At that moment we dismounted and entered the house.  It was a very pleasant summer afternoon, and the door was open.  We entered, and were received by an elderly lady, who seemed glad to see us.  In one corner of the room was a bed, on which was lying the patient whom we had come to visit.  She was pale and thin in her countenance, but there was a very calm and happy expression beaming in her eye.  I went up to her bedside, and asked her how she did.

“I talked with her some time, and found that she was a Christian.  She did not seem to know whether she would get well again or not, and, in fact, she did not appear to care much about it.  She was evidently happy then, and she believed that she should continue so.  She had been penitent for her sins, and had sought and obtained forgiveness, and enjoyed, in her loneliness, not only the protection of God, but also his presence in her heart, diffusing peace and happiness there.  When I came into the house, I said to myself, ’I pity, I am sure, a person who is confined by sickness in this lonely place, with nothing to interest or amuse her;’ but when I came out, I said to myself, ’I do not pity her at all.’”