106

THE BOILER-ROOM BIBLE-CLASS.

He never finds the least difficulty in disposing of them all, and a proud little lass she is when he drops the pennies into her hands at night.

The mother, we think, is growing strong and well againhappy in her boy's thoughtful care, and cheery, light-hearted ways. He is not yet thirteen years old, but his mother calls him the "head of the house," and he truly deserves the title. Brave little man-God bless him!

THE BOILER-ROOM BIBLE CLASS.

"I NEVER knowed one," said Shapleigh, rolling a huge tobacco quid from side to side of his ample jaw. "I've seen pious people of 'most all perfessions, but I never did see a pious puddler,' an' I've ben in the Steel Works goin' on to twenty-nine year."

"Well," said his comrade, "you're bound to be surprised then; this Jones is coming here as boss puddler, and Wheeler told me that he saw the same man teaching of a Sunday-school class up to the North End."

"He must hev been mistakened," was the positive answer.

But he was not. The "boss puddler," Mr. Jones, took his place in the Steel Works the next morning, and the brawny men who made up his gang waited in silence for the first orders. They came as soon as he had taken a deliberate survey of the premises.

"He knows his business," said Shapleigh, as his friend stood beside him a few hours after the new boss had come.

"Do you think that he is pious?" inquired the other, anxiously.

"Pious! no, sir! he ain't no lamb; he's a reg'lar lion. Did you see him pick up that crucible? There isn't another man in the Works that can do it as easily as he did."

A number of days passed, and the men came to like their new overseer extremely; but it began to be whispered about among them that he hadn't sworn since he had been there.

"That's all right," said Shapleigh; "he isn't acquainted, an' don't like to branch out just yet. Wait awhile until young Connors breaks something, an' then, you mark my words, he will just lift the roof."

Connors blundered, bent, and broke, with all his unfortunate might, but no oath came from the boss. The matter was growing serious. Perhaps, after all, "Brother Jones," for so

THE BOILER-ROOM BIBLE-CLASS.

107

he was called by the younger men, was pious. Before they had opportunity to speculate further, the object of all this anxious inquiry settled the question for ever by a few simple words.

66

Shapleigh," he began, "I heard a sermon last winter, in which the preacher said that there was no real devil-that what we thought was the devil was really only the bad that was in us from the beginning."

66

Well, perhaps he knowed as much about it as any of 'em." "I don't know about that," said the boss, in his shrewd, matter-of-fact way. "I thought, as long as he took his text

from the Bible, that I would see if the same book wouldn't prove him wrong."

"An' did it?

“Oh, I haven't tried it yet. Come out in the boiler-house after the next heat, and you shall keep tally while I hunt up the places."

Before the other could demur he was gone.

"The boiler-house," thought Shapleigh, "that is where all the puddlers loaf and smoke between heats."

True to the appointment, Shapleigh was on hand, and soon the two were discussing passages that the pocket Concordance pointed out. Before long every one present was deeply interested in the search, and when the whistle blew, Jones said, carelessly:

"Some of you fellows hunt up another Bible for to-morrow, will you? and, Thompson, you bring a pencil and some paper to keep account of the points. Look alive now, boys, or our heat will be late!

The next day three brought Bibles and finished the question to their hearts' content, agreeing solemnly that the Bible taught a personal devil.

Another question was raised by one of the men, and settled the same way. The profane puddlers, so suddenly transformed into Bible students, began to be interested in their novel work. Their boss was so popular, so much one of themselves, that they never imagined a trap, and when he proposed that they go into a Bible class up town for one Sunday, just to see what a "real perfessional" would say with regard to the questions that they had settled, every one agreed.

The next Sabbath they were all in the class named, much to the surprise of the worthy teacher.

"You didn't tell him we was comin' ?" said Shapleigh to his overseer, with sudden suspicion.

"Not a word," was the earnest reply.

108

HEAVEN ON THE SHELF.

They listened with respectful gravity throughout the lesson, and one or two made brief comments.

The next Sunday three of them went again, and ere long all but one had joined the class.

"Boss," said Shapleigh one morning as they worked side by side, "I'm feelin' pretty good to-day."

"Are you?" said the other.

"Yes, an' I'll tell you why. Thompson an' I was a-readin' of that verse where it tells about a person's sins being all blotted clean out, an' we made up our minds that it was jest exactly what we wanted; so we prayed, an' boss, I can't tell you how I feel, but "-here the old man's voice broke, and his eyes filled"I've been prayin' ever since, an' I'm so happy that I just have to hold myself to keep from shoutin' out that tune that they sing up thar, All hail the power of Jesus' name.'

All but one of "Brother Jones'" class found the Master; and now to find in the Steel Works a puddler that swears, is as rare as it formerly was to find one who did not.

HEAVEN ON THE SHELF.

As John Elliott was once calling on a merchant, he saw in his counting-room, ledgers and account books on the table, while some religious and devotional works were laid up on the shelf, and remarked to his friend:

Sir, here is earth on the table, and heaven on the shelf. Pray do not think so much of the table as to altogether forget the shelf."

We are too prone to put heaven on the shelf, and so busy ourselves with this world that we forget the next. But the things that are seen are temporal; and how soon they must all pass away. A little while and every earthly delight and possession will have passed forever beyond our reach: and there will be nothing left for us except the unseen and the eternal.

Let us then occupy ourselves most with the things that are enduring. Let us lay up our treasures where they cannot be stolen or destroyed; and let us seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, knowing that all needed things will be added unto us.

ON DISCONTENT.

WHERE there is one entirely free from the canker "discontent," two, at the very least, are afflicted with it. The mouth betrays the disease, but its seat is the centre of the heart.

"I wish I had the chance of selling fish, but I haven't," said a poor, thin, half-starved looking lad with a pale face, as he watched the movements of a fish boy, who, with a well-supplied basket, was carrying on a profitable trade, crying out at the top of his voice, "Live mackerel! live mackerel !" I dare say you do wish you had the chance of selling fish, but if you had it would be of little use; for all the chances, as you call them, that you have had have been thrown away; and he who, through idleness, neglects one opportunity of getting a livelihood, is very likely to neglect another. The lad was evidently one of that numerous class of young people in London who spend most of their time in idleness, now and then getting a trifle for holding a gentleman's horse for him, running on an errand for him, or picking his pocket of his handkerchief, as the case may be. The wages of sloth and knavery are not only small, but uncertain, and most likely the poor lad found it so; most likely it was hunger, or weariness of the life he was leading, that wrung from him the exclamation, as he stood with his hands in his pockets, "I wish I'd the chance of selling fish!"

Hardly had the fish boy proceeded the length of the street, before a butcher's apprentice, with a colour like a rose, rode by him without a hat, on a hard-trotting pony, leaning very much on one side, being balanced by a heavy basket of meat on the other. "I wish I was a butcher's boy," said the seller of fish; "it's fine to be him, to have as much as he can eat and drink, and a horse to ride on. Here am I, tramping about in all weathers, hardly getting salt to my porridge. If I clears a trifle by selling a few fish, by the time I've filled my belly, and paid for my night's lodging, it's ten to one if I've enough to buy any more, and then I'm obliged to sell for somebody else; I wish I was a butcher's boy." Perhaps you do, for you were once a butcher's boy; you lost your place through misconduct, and are not at all likely to get another. It will be better to make the best of your present calling, than to render it worse by giving way to discontent.

On went the seller of "live mackerel one way, and away went the butcher's boy the other, making, nobody knew how, his pony go like a wild thing, scattering the gravel right and left, and striking fire with his iron hoof against the pebble

stones. Not long was the butcher's boy before he came to his place of destination. Having delivered his meat to the cook at the great gate of the corner house of the square, he was just about to mount his go-ahead pony, when, the hall door being open, he saw two tall footmen in livery sitting on a bench doing nothing. "I should like to try that game myself," said he, in an undertone. "No bad thing to be dressed up in a drab coat and white cotton stockings, cracking jokes, and doing nothing, from morning till night. I wonder what those fellows would say of my life. Up at three of a morning in the slaughterhouse, then preparing the shop, hanging up meat, and riding about like mad till dinner-time; chipping the block when there is nothing else to do, and then called all manner of ugly names, and sometimes kicked into the bargain. I wish I was a footman!" Wishing is but a bad trade, my boy. At one time you might have been almost what you liked, for you had a kind father and mother, who humoured you in everything; but how did you return their kindness? Well, they have both been taken from this world, and you can plague their hearts no longer. Leave footmen to themselves, and do your duty to your master, hard as he is, for you may be much worse off than you are now.

"I tell you what, Joseph," said one of the tall footmen to the other, as the butcher's boy rode away. 'I don't think of stopping here much longer; for what with low wages, sitting up late at night, and dawdling through the day on a bench, dressed up in clothes that belong to my master and not to me, I'm sick of it. I had rather be like the butcher's lad that has just trotted from the door, than lead the life of a footman. Look at the butler, how he takes on, and orders folks about, and the money he gets! Many a man would make a better butler than he is, full as he is of himself.” "That's true, John," replied the other footman; "I only wish you and I were butlers; but that's a move that will not be made in a hurry, I'm thinking. If my master don't mind what he is about I shall cut before long. In any other line we might get on, but a footman can do nothing.' Oh yes, a footman, if he be sober, honest, and industrious, can do a great deal for himself and for those he serves; but you, John and Joseph, are not remarkable for any of these qualities. You threaten to leave your present situations, well knowing that at this very time you are in no small danger of dismissal. Act better, and your prospects will be brighter.

"Were I the master of this establishment and not what I