red fellow. He
not only insists on my going with him to the house of Mynheer Von
Kniper, but tells me that he has made arrangements for rigging me out in
full fig for the occasion. It will be very good fun, I daresay; and I
only wish that you could be there to enjoy it."

"If I saw you happy, I should be happy; but I could not enjoy such a
scene as that myself. I should feel so completely like a fish out of
water."

"Oh, nonsense!" he answered; "a man has only quietly to observe what
others do, and not to attempt to show himself off, or to broach any
subject, and he will generally pass muster as a well-behaved person.
However, as Mr Von Kniper did not ask you to come, of course you cannot
go. Well, I dare say that I shall have enough to make you laugh when I
come back."

I am not at all certain that Newman was right in his last observation.
Practice and experience are absolutely necessary to fit a person for any
station of life; and no wise man will ever wish to step into one for
which he is not fitted by education or habit, or to associate with those
with whom he has no ideas or associations in common. The great mistake
numbers of well-intentioned people make, is the wish to rise in the
world themselves, or that their children may rise in it to a superior
station to that in which they were themselves born. They forget that
the reason why they were sent into the world was to prepare them for
another and a better existence; that this world is no abiding-place; and
that, therefore, it is worse than folly to take toil and trouble to
climb up a few steps in the ladder which will enable us to look down on
our fellow-worms still crawling below us. There is one most important
thing parents should teach their children--one most important thing
children should desire--"To do their duty in that station of life in
which it has pleased God to call them." Their sole motive should be
love to their Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, who thus commanded them to
act. At the same time, they may be well assured that if they do their
duty with all their heart--if they do diligently whatever their hand
finds to do--they will not fail to be placed in those posts of honour
and responsibility which even worldly men are always anxious to get such
persons to fill. We see how Joseph was raised to honour in Egypt, how
Daniel was respected at the court of Babylon. The Bible is full of such
examples, and those examples were given for our in