and affectionate.

Though Joseph was so young, yet his parents hoped he had become a lamb
of the Good Shepherd. He had faults, as all children have; but he tried
to correct them. His face sometimes flushed when Emma teased him or
meddled with his books, of which he was very careful; but he never
struck her now, and seldom was angry but a minute.

"I try to think," he said to his mamma, "that she don't know better, and
that she's almost always good; and if I wait a minute and remember about
Christ forgiving me, then I feel happy right away."

Josey showed in one way that he was a Christian child. He loved
everybody, and tried to be good to all.

Among the poor people belonging to his father's church, no one was more
welcome to their humble cottages than little Josey. He always had a
pleasant word for each, and often spent hours of his play-time in
reading to the old women of the parish.

At Christmas, his greatest treat, and one that he spent weeks in
preparing for, was to take his box sled (the one he drew his sister in,)
and fill it with the presents he had prepared for his friends.

"Though they are poor," he said, over and over, "I love them dearly,
and I want to have them know it." So he spent all his pocket-money in
buying what mamma and Aunt Fanny thought would be useful.

A pair of mittens for one poor orphan, a flannel shirt for a rheumatic
old man, a pair of glasses for another, and plenty of pies, which he had
hired cook to make. He hired her, because he wanted to feel that the
gifts were his and not his mother's.

Do you wonder every body, rich and poor, loved him, and that, wherever
he went, blessings were showered on his head?

I don't mean those worthless words that so many beggars use without
meaning: "A thousand blessings on your head, Miss."

Oh, no! But real, heart-felt prayers that God would be his Father and
Friend forever.

Do you suppose Josey was a cross, sulky boy? Can you imagine him wearing
a frown? or with his lips in an ugly pout?

No, indeed! It is not possible for one who cultivates such love for all
around him; for one who tries in this way to imitate the example of his
blessed Saviour to be unhappy or cross. Those children who think only of
themselves, who are selfish and greedy, who never heed the blessed
words, "Be ye kind one to another," are the persons to wear sour faces
and pouting lips.

Don't you remember what the good Book says, "Her ways are ways of
pleasantness