At length he spoke slowly, and his voice trembled with the strong feelings which had shaken him.  “Mother, you are the dearest and best mother that ever lived.  I wish I could be a good boy, for your sake; but when father speaks so harsh, I am angry all the time, and I cannot help being cross and ugly too.  I know I am more and more so; I feel it, and the boys tell me so sometimes.  John Gray said, yesterday, I was not half as pleasant in school as I used to be.  I feel unhappy, and I am sure if I grow wicked, I grow wretched too.”  And again he burst into a passion of tears.

“Does not sin always bring misery, my dear boy?” asked his mother, after a little pause, “and will you not daily meet with circumstances to make you angry and unhappy, if you give way to your first impulse of impatience,—­and is it not our first duty to resist every temptation to feel or act wrong?  God has not promised us happiness here, but He has promised that if we resist evil it will flee from us.  He has promised that if we strive to conquer our wicked feelings and do right when we are tempted to do wrong He will aid us, and give us sweet peace in so doing.  To-day you have given way to anger, and you are wretched.  You are blaming your father and think he is the cause of your trouble; but think a moment.  If you had borne the punishment he gave you meekly and patiently, would not a feeling of peace be in your bosom, to which you are now a stranger?  You know that when we suffer patiently for doing well, God is well pleased; and would not the consciousness that you had struggled against and overcome a wicked feeling, and that God looked upon you with approbation, make you more really happy than anything else can?  My dear, dear boy, your happiness does not consist in what others say or do to you, but in the feelings you cherish in your own heart.  There you must look for happiness, and there, if you do right, you will find it.”

“I know you always say right, mother, and I will try, I will try, if I can, to bear patiently; but oh, if father only was like you”—­and again tears stopped his utterance.

“My dear child,” said his mother, “your father has many troubles.  It is a great care to provide for his family, and you know he suffers us to want for nothing.  He often has most perplexing cases, and his poor brains are almost distracted.  You are a happy boy, with no care but to get your lessons, and obey your parents, and try to help them.  You know nothing yet of the anxieties which will crowd upon you when you are a man.  Try now to learn to bear manfully and patiently all vexations—­looking for help to that blessed One, who, when he was reviled, reviled not again.  How much happier and better man you will be, how you will comfort your mother, and still more, you will please that blessed Savior, who has left such an example of meekness—­suffering for sinners, and even dying for his cruel enemies.  Oh, my son, my son, ask that blessed Savior to make