“I am surely very ungrateful to my heavenly Father,” said he, half aloud.  “Hereafter, when I am disposed to complain of my food, I will think of this poor boy.  But stop; I had forgotten the rolls Mrs. Burton gave me.  I am not very hungry now;” and taking the packet from his bosom pocket, he gave it to the little starveling.

“I am not to have them all?” said Ned, as he broke one off, and began to eat it.  “Do you not want some yourself?”

“No,” replied William; “I will get some supper when I go home; so carry half of them to your grandmother, for you are both hungry, and have no supper to expect.”

And now, although hungry himself, with what pleasure did he give his rolls to one whose want was far greater than his own!  He felt, in this denying of self, how great was the luxury of doing good; for mercy—­

    “Droppeth as the gentle dew from heaven. 
  Upon the place beneath.  It is twice blessed;
  It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.”

Having finished his errand to the market-gardener’s wife, and received a new order for some children’s shoes, he took little Ned by the hand, and, having left him at his home, and looked in on the sick grandmother, he went back to his master’s house, which now wore a more comfortable aspect than it had ever done before.  So true is it that God accords to none unmitigated misery; and there are few, if any, who, like our hero, are tempted to believe themselves the most wretched beings in the world, who need anything but to look around among their fellow-men, to find that they are not the only or the greatest sufferers.  Neither should any allow themselves to think that poverty and misfortune form the chief misery of man.  None but the guilty are completely wretched; and trials are but necessary discipline to bring the soul from earth to heaven.  “Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now I keep thy law,” are the words of David; and how many can be found ready to acknowledge that “it is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth:  for the.  Lord will not cast off for ever; but though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion, according to the multitude of his mercies.”

And so from this time, although the treatment he received at his cheerless home was no better, the change which had come over his spirit since his late humiliation, had urged him to fly to the throne of grace for protection against the weakness of his own heart, and also made the hardships he endured seem less.  He grew more mature by the severe discipline which, sanctified by the Spirit of grace, was purifying his soul; and he pursued the homely trade which at first he so disliked, and tried to conquer self by hurrying past the picture-shops, which were so great a source of attraction at first, and now regarded them as forbidden fruit.  Not that they were less attractive, but his own heart told him, and so did his friend, Thomas Burton, that God appoints to every one such a sphere of action as is suited to his nature; and although to one has been committed but one talent, while another has five, and another ten, the principle on which each is improved is the same.  The great work each one has to do is within his own breast, and he that would gain the crown promised at the end of life’s course must run the race in the spirit and temper of the gospel, which are humility and meekness.