learning: it will always give me pleasure, and occupy my mind; and I
shall be serving God better by improving myself, and using the powers He
has given me."

He carried out this idea, and became a thoughtful, intelligent,
well-informed man, respected both by his employers and fellow-workmen,
and, what was better than all, he found favour in the sight of God. By
the grace of God he was led to feel himself a poor sinner, and sought
forgiveness through the precious blood of Christ. For a long while he
groped in the dark, with the burden on his shoulders; but reading one
day that passage in the third chapter of John,--"For God so loved the
world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in
Him should not perish, but have ever-lasting life. For God sent not His
Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him
might be saved," the light burst upon his mind, his prayers were
answered, and he became an earnest Christian, a faithful soldier and
servant of the Lord Jesus Christ; and he was rewarded--not with any
great earthly riches, but with much peace in his heart, with great
strength and comfort in time of trial; with home happiness, and much
that might have made him the envy of princes, who had shut themselves
out from the love of God.

He made the good choice in his _youth_. He sought the Lord _early_, and
found him, and He escaped the terrible anguish and suffering that
attends repentance after a long life of careless sin.

All through life he had the love of the Saviour to help and cheer him on
his way; in temptation he had God to look to for strength; in sorrow he
had the Saviour to turn to for sympathy and help. Each night he asked
forgiveness for the sins of the day, and each morning he sought a
blessing and preservation, and went forth with a light heart, praising
God, and full of thankfulness to Him for His mercy.

There was no anxious care for the future, in his heart he knew that his
heavenly Father would guide him and care for him day by day.

It seems most unaccountable that any one should willingly refuse all
this happiness; and yet how many boys and girls there are who never
pause to think what choice they have made, and which master they are
serving. You must be serving one, either God or the world. Which it is
your own heart will tell you. Remember God will have no half-service. He
has said, "He that is not with Me is against Me."

CHAPTER IV.

GOOD RE