Nor droop, that far from country, kindred, friends, What boots it where the high reward is giv'n, Louisa. They are very beautiful, mamma; but I do not quite understand the meaning of the second line: "And summons thee from Cherson's distant walls." Mamma. Cherson is? Can you tell me where Louisa. No, mamma. Mamma. Henry, can you tell your sister? Henry. Cherson is situated on the borders of the Black Sea; or, rather, on the banks of the river Dnieper, in Russian Tartary. Mamma. You are right: it was in this city that the pious and humane Howard, while ardently labouring for the relief of misery and distress, fell a sacrifice to the plague, in the year 1790; and now, my Louisa will comprehend the allusion: "Howard, thy task is done! thy master calls, And summons thee from Cherson's distant walls:" and melancholy as seems the idea of his dying more than one thousand miles from his home and native land, amidst the frozen chills of Russia's deepest snows, and with scarcely any other attendant than his servant Thomasson to soothe his weary pillow, there is great consolation conveyed to surviving mourners, in the final couplet: "What boots it where the high reward is giv'n, Or whence the soul triumphant springs to Heav'n?" 44 CHAP. V. THOMAS SCOTT. Henry. I HAVE just finished the cottage I began drawing the other evening, and I will thank you, mamma, to look in your portfolio for the picture of a windmill, which I wish to copy. Mamma. I will comply with your request very soon, my dear; but I am just now engaged with an interesting work which I wish to read. If you will amuse yourself in some other way for half an hour, I will attend to you. Henry. The clock has just struck six, mamma; and more than half an hour has elapsed since you promised me that you would in that time look in your portfolio for my windmill. But before you do so, will you be so good as to tell me what is the title of the book you have been reading. Mamma. It is the life of the Rev. Thomas Scott, the venerable Expositor of the Bible. Henry. Perhaps you can relate some particulars of his youthful years to us, this evening. Mamma. It will give me pleasure to do so, because I think you may derive instruction as well as amusement from the account. Thomas Scott was born in the year 1746, at a small farm-house, at Braytoft in Lincolnshire. I Louisa. Then his father was a farmer, suppose, mamma. Mamma. He was what is called a pasture farmer, or, in other words, a grazier or feeder of cattle. But although his circumstances were limited, and he had to struggle with the difficulties of poverty, he saw the necessity of giving his children a suitable education; and little Thomas, who was the tenth of thirteen children, after having been taught to read and spell, by his excellent mother, was sent to a school at Burgh, two miles off, where he went as a day-scholar, and learned the elements of Latin. At eight years of age he was sent to Bennington, a village about four miles from Boston, where his father had a grazing farm, (on which his elder brother and sister resided,) that he might attend a school in the parish, kept by a clergyman. Here he remained about two years; and in addition to writing and the first rudiments of arithmetic, he made some little progress in Latin, at his master's desire, who thought he discovered a taste for that kind of learning. At ten years of age he was removed to a school at Scorton in Yorkshire, where he remained five years, without once returning |