She then proposed to them to
go to the school-house, which was near by, and see their cousins. This,
too, N---- declined. He said to his brother, "Charley, we must go home."
And they took hold of hands and ran all the way as fast as possible, and
immediately on entering the house, their faces as red as scarlet, N----
confessed to his mother where they had been, and asked her forgiveness.
This being granted, N---- could not be happy. He said, weeping, "Mother,
will you go up stairs with us and pray with us?" She did so, with a
grateful heart, and sought pardon for them. N---- did the same. When it
came Charley's turn to pray, he made an ordinary prayer--when his
brother repeatedly touched him, and in a low whisper he said, "Charley,
why don't you repent--why don't you repent?"
A very little child, not two years old, always seemed delighted to hold
her little book at prayer time, and when her father said Amen, she
always repeated it after him aloud. One day she seemed very uneasy
during prayer time, and though she made great resistance, she was taken
out of the room. She insisted on going back to the drawing-room, and the
chairs being still in the order in which the family had been seated
during prayer time, the little creature went by the side of each, and
folding her little hands, she repeated "Amen," "Amen," until she had
been to each one. Thus we see it is not so much for want of knowledge,
as for a right state of heart, right teachings, right examples, that
children do not live and act, speak and think and pray aright.
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