The color mantled at once in the little fellow’s cheeks, and almost ready to cry, he said, “Mother, when aunt Mary left us yesterday, she said that she and the children would be exposed to many dangers during the voyage, and she asked me to pray for them, and it took me a good while.”

I was told by a friend, of a group of little boys when visiting a little companion, all seated on the floor near each other, looking at some pictures.  They came to one representing Daniel in the den of lions.  It was noticed that the lions were not chained, and yet they were in a reposing posture.  None seemed to understand how this was.  One little boy said to another, “Ah, wouldn’t you be afraid to be put into a den of lions?” “Oh, yes,” was the reply.  And so the question went all round, eliciting the same answer.  At last the youngest of the party reached himself forward and pulled his brother by the sleeve, saying, “Johnny, Johnny, if lions are afraid of praying people, they’d be afraid of mother—­wouldn’t they?  And she wouldn’t be afraid of them, for she says we needn’t fear anything but sin.”

I was acquainted with a family where the following circumstance occurred.  The two youngest boys in the family were often trusted to take long walks, and sometimes they were permitted to go over, by themselves, to N——­, a distance of nearly four miles, and make a call on their aunt and cousins, who resided there.

One day they came and asked their mother if they might take a long walk.  She told them not a very long walk, for that day they had not been as studious and dutiful as usual.  They took hold of hands, and without designing to do so at first, it was believed, they ran on very fast till they reached the village of N——­, where their aunt lived.

On going to the house, their aunt thought, from their heated appearance, and hurried and disconcerted manner, that they were two “runaways.”  She, however, welcomed them as usual—­invited them to partake of some fine baked apples and new bread and milk—­quite a new treat to city boys—­but N——­, the eldest, declined the invitation.  She then proposed to them to go to the school-house, which was near by, and see their cousins.  This, too, N——­ declined.  He said to his brother, “Charley, we must go home.”  And they took hold of hands and ran all the way as fast as possible, and immediately on entering the house, their faces as red as scarlet, N——­ confessed to his mother where they had been, and asked her forgiveness.  This being granted, N——­ could not be happy.  He said, weeping, “Mother, will you go up stairs with us and pray with us?” She did so, with a grateful heart, and sought pardon for them.  N——­ did the same.  When it came Charley’s turn to pray, he made an ordinary prayer—­when his brother repeatedly touched him, and in a low whisper he said, “Charley, why don’t you repent—­why don’t you repent?”