saw fit to spare you; and how thankful you ought to
be that he did not take you away in your disobedience!

11. "You now see how you were tempted, first to go with William Brown to
the pond, and then to step into the water; which shows how one
temptation leads to another. But did not something within you, my son,
tell you, while there, that you were doing wrong to disobey your
parents?"

12. "No, mother; I do not recollect that it did. I'm sure I did not
think a word about it till I was alone in bed, and was asking my
heavenly Father to take care of me. Then something seemed to say,
'Frank, you have done wrong to-day.'

13. "And I felt how wicked I had been, and could not ask God to forgive
me till I had confessed all to you. I knew you were away when I came
home, and I thought you hadn't returned.

14. "I was so unhappy that I called Betsy, and told her how I felt. She
told me it was an accident, and no matter at all; that she had taken
care of my clothes, and she believed you would never know anything about
it.

15. "But all this was no comfort to me; the something within would not
be quiet. If it had spoken to me in the same way when I first saw the
little ship, I think I should not have gone to the pond."

16. "Frank," said his mother, "this something within, which is
conscience, did then speak, but you did not listen to its voice. The
voice of temptation was louder, and you obeyed it, just as you followed
some noisy boys, the other day, though I was calling to you, 'Frank,
come back.'

17. "I spoke louder than usual, and at any other time you would have
heard my voice; but you were too much attracted by the boys to listen to
me.

18. "Temptation makes us deaf to the voice within; and yielding to
temptation, as you see, my son, leads us into sin; and this is why we
pray, in the Lord's prayer, 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from evil,' which is sin, for there is no greater evil than sin.

19. "It is to keep us from this great evil that God has given us this
voice within, to warn us not to follow temptation, though the sin appear
but a trifling one, and though it hold out the promise of pleasure, as
the little ship did."

LESSON XLII.

_The same subject, continued._

1. "I will name some of the temptations to which little boys are a good
deal exposed, and yield to without thinking, and sometimes without
knowing to what they may lead.

2. "Sometimes the temptation to steal comes