new penny. 'And now listen to me. The little children for whom the money is going to be collected to-day never get any goodies. They have no dear father and mother to take care of them, and no comfortable home. They have to live whole days in the streets when it is wet and cold; and they have no fire, and no good clothes, to keep them warm. And they have very little to eat of any kind-not nice meat and pudding, but any little scraps of dry crust. And when they are poorly, they have no one to nurse them, and no soft bed to lie in. Now if you give this penny to-day, it will help to get them some of the things they need: only, of course, you can't have your goodies."

Emmy sat thinking, her wondering child's eyes filling with tears, whether for the poor children or for herself she could hardly have told.

'Oh, mother!' and the sweet grey eyes were full of perplexity.

"Yes, Emmy. And now it is time to start for church. Put your penny in your glove, and then you can think about it, and decide whether you will give it or save it for sweets to-morrow."

Emmy walked very soberly to church: usually she ran merrily along, chattering all the way; but to-day she could do nothing but think about her penny.

'But I do so like goodies,' were her last words before entering church; but for all that, when the collector came down the aisle with the box, one chubby little hand fumbled in the glove of the other, and the child looked up at her mother with eyes that asked for approval. She received a smile and nod for answer; and the penny was dropped into the box.

A very beaming face little Emmy

to the poor little children,' she said: 'I gave it to Jesus.'

'Yes, darling,' her mother answered; ' and Jesus saw you, and loves you for giving up something for His sake. Don't you feel happier than though you were sucking pear-drops?'

"Yes, mother. I can do without the goodies very well; and now the little children have some meat and nice pudding."

Don't laugh, my readers who are older than Emmy, at her baby notions as to what a penny can do. Not much, to be sure, in the one sense; and yet in our Lord's eyes widow's mite counted for more than the large offerings of her richer neighbours. The child has given all she had; has given up something she really desired for the sake of her little starving brothers and sis ters; and Christ, Who is their elder brother and loves them all, will not despise her gift. EMMA RHODES.

me

cry,

D.C.

GF

RATITUDE is that sweet duty which we owe to every one who does us a kindness, and above all to God and to our parents. There is nothing more odious in a man, nor can we say anything worse of him, than that he is ungrateful.'

6

There was a law in China that every official who was found guilty of cheating should have his hands cut off. A mandarin, one of the highest officials of the kingdom, being found guilty, was sentenced to this punishment; which was just about to be carried into execution when his daughter, in all the beauty of youth

and innocence, undertook his defence, pleading herself her father's cause before the Emperor Quen-ti. Her speech was a short one. 'It is most true, great Emperor,' said she, when she appeared before the monarch; my father has deserved the fate which awaits him, his hands must be cut off. Here they are,' she added, as she stretched out her own from under her wide sleeves. 'Yes, great Emperor, these hands which you see here belong to my unfortunate father. These are useless to the support of his family, and I deliver them up to the severity of the law, to preserve those