Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep:
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.


Oh, I was very sorry when our little Anna died! We called her Anna. She had another name at home, but we liked Anna better than we did her old name. I was very sorry when she died, and we were all sorry.




THE LITTLE SAILOR BOY.

The story I told you about the Indian girl makes me think of a little boy that we once had in our ship. He was a very good boy. The captain liked him very much. He was not the captain's child. But the captain used to say that he loved little George as much as if he was his child. The reason the captain loved him, and the reason everybody loved him, was because he was so kind and so good natured, and because he always did just as he was told to do.

I must tell you how George first came to live with us in the ship. We were once a great many hundred miles off, and the wind blew very hard. It blew so hard that we could not sail where we wanted to go, and by and by the ship went upon a bank of sand. There we had to stay a good while. We could not get away. Nobody was drowned. We ought to have been very thankful for that. I hope we were thankful. While we were lying on the sand bank, the waves dashed against the ship so hard, that we were afraid it would break in pieces. We did not know what to do. Some of us thought we might as well jump into the water, and try to swim to the shore. But the captain said that we should certainly get drowned if we tried to do that.

You wonder why we did not get into our boat, and row to the shore. We should have done so if we had not lost our boat. But we had no boat. The waves had dashed against it, and tore it away from the place where we kept it, so that we could not get it again.

But when we thought we must all be lost, we saw a boat coming toward the ship. Some fishermen had seen us, and were so kind that they came to us in their boat, so that we could get to the shore. Oh, how glad we were when we saw them coming! But the waves were so high, that for a good while we thought it would sink before it got to us. The men had very hard work to row the boat. The wind blew very hard at one time, and the little boat was blown back again almost to the shore. But they tried again, and after a long time they got to the ship. Then some of us got into the boat, and the men rowed us to the shore. After that, the boat went back to the ship again, and got the rest of the men.

But I have not told the best of the story yet. When we all got into the house, where it was warm, we told the fishermen that they were very good to come and help us get away from the ship. We thanked them very much. And then they told us that we must not thank them; and they pointed to a little boy about as old as you are, I guess. "There," they said, "that little boy is the one to thank. We should not have gone, if it had not been for him. We were afraid the waves would dash over the boat, and that we should be drowned. We did not dare to go. But this good boy said, 'Do go! oh, do go! The poor men in the ship will get drowned, if you do not go. I will go if my father will let me. I do not think father's boat will get lost. God will not let us drown, if we go and try to save the men.'" Well, the boy said so much, that the fishermen told him they would go, and they did go.

This little boy's name was George, and this is the one that I told you we all liked so well. The captain was so pleased with him, that he asked his father to let the little boy come and sail in his ship. His father said he wished his boy to be a sailor, and the boy wanted to be a sailor, too; and that if the captain would be kind to him, little George might go. So he went, and he was the very best boy I ever saw in my life. He used to talk to the sailors; and when they did wrong, when they said bad words, he would tell them it was naughty, and God would not love them if they did so. The sailors did not get angry with him, because they all saw that little George was good and kind, and that he wanted to do them good. I know of a good many sailors who stopped swearing, because little George told them, in his kind way, that he could not bear to hear them swear, and that God would not love them if they did so.








THE WRECK.

The captain of this ship—the same one that loved little George so well—was drowned not long after that. My little friends, I cannot help crying when I think that this good captain, who used to be so kind to the sailors, was lost at sea. I was not in the ship at the time. I was in another ship. I got sick of catching whales, so I did not want to go in a whale-ship any more.

The ship in which this captain was sailing was very near the shore, and there were some high rocks that stood quite down to the edge of the water. It was foggy at the time. The captain did not know that the ship was so near the rocks, because he could not see through the fog. The wind blew very hard, and blew the ship upon the rocks. In a minute the ship broke in pieces, and all but two or three of the men who were in it were lost. The captain was lost among the rest. So was little George. When the storm was over, and the wind stopped blowing, that dear boy was found on the shore, dead. There was a smile on his face, just such a smile as he used to have when he was living. There was a little Bible in his pocket. It was all wet with salt water. But there was some writing on one of the leaves which anybody could read. It said, "This book was given to little George by his dear mother."




THE PYRAMIDS.

I once went to a place called Egypt. There I saw a great many strange things. The pyramids are wonderful enough. Did you ever hear about them? They are made of stone, and are very large. I should think it would take a great many years to make one of them, if there were a hundred men at work all the time. They must have been built a very long time. I hardly know how long, but it was a great while before Christ was born.

I went to the top of the largest pyramid, and went all over it. It was one of the strangest things I ever saw. Some people think that the pyramids were built to bury kings in, when they died. If they were not built for that, I am sure I cannot tell what they were built for.

There is another odd thing in that country, not far from the pyramids. It is called a Sphinx. I know you will say that the name must be as odd as the thing is itself. Well, it is odd, sure enough. The Sphinx is a very large rock, made to look just like a lion with a man's head. It is as large as the house I live in. There is nothing but the head out of the ground. It was all out of the ground once, when it was first made, but the sand has now covered up that part which looks like a lion.

A great while ago, people used to call such things as these gods. They used to pray to the Sphinx, just as if it was a god—just as if it could hear anybody pray, the same as God does.




THE WHIRLPOOL.

You have seen little whirlpools in the brook, I suppose. I once saw a very large one, a great deal larger than any you ever saw in the brook. It was in the North Sea. This whirlpool does mischief sometimes. When vessels happen to get on the edge of it, they begin to go round and round, all the time coming near the middle of the whirlpool. When the captain of the vessel knows that he is in the whirlpool, he can get his vessel out, if it has just begun to go round. But after it has been in a while, he cannot get out. The vessel keeps going round and round. The people on board hear the roar of the whirlpool. It is too late to get away. By and by, the water draws the vessel down. It is dashed to pieces, and all who were in it are lost!

I have known little boys and girls get into a whirlpool, too; a different kind of a whirlpool, to be sure, but a great deal worse than this one in the North Sea. I mean the whirlpool of sin. When they first began to be wicked—when they first began to go round in the whirlpool—they went round very slowly. They could very easily have got out then, if they had tried, and if they had prayed to God to help them. But they did not try. So they kept growing worse and worse. They went round swifter and swifter. By and by, they got so far into the whirlpool that they could not get out. It was too late. They were lost—dashed to pieces on the rocks, in the whirlpool of sin!

Little boy! little girl! take care that you do not venture even to the edge of this whirlpool. Give your heart to God, while you are young, and pray to him to keep you from sin, and to lead you to heaven.

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