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Original.
KNOW THYSELF.
Many instructive lessons may be conveyed to the minds of children in
story and in verse. We do not now remember who is the author of the
story we are about to relate. It may be familiar to many of our readers.
We venture, however, to repeat it in our own words, as it has an
important moral worthy the attention of the old as well as the young:--
A man and his wife were hard at work in a forest, cutting down trees.
The trees were very hardy and tall, and their axes were dull; the
weather was cold and dreary, they were but poorly clad, and they had but
little to eat.
At length, the woman, in her despondency, fell to crying. Her husband
very kindly inquired, "What is the matter, my dear wife?"
"I have been thinking," said she, "of our hard fate, and it does seem to
me a hard case that God should curse the ground for Adam's sake, just
because he and his wife had eaten a green apple; and now all their
descendants must earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, all their
days."
The man replied, "Do not, my dear wife, distress yourself thus, seeing
it will do no good."
She continued, "I do think that Adam and Eve were very foolish to listen
to any thing that a serpent had to say. If I had been in the place of
Eve I am sure I should have done otherwise."
To this her husband replied, "True, my dear wife, Eve was a very silly
woman.
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