could not at once forget the teachings of his early
childhood. He prayed that he might be kept from the power of the
wicked, and the great and mighty Hearer of prayer was indeed his
guard. His eye fell kindly on the desolate boy, and was only preparing
him by present trials for future good. Still our young hero was not
without faults. There was a little spice of pride in his composition,
and, as we have learned from his letter, he hated the humble trade to
which he was apprenticed. This was wrong: there is no occupation,
however lowly, which cannot be made respectable by the proper
discharge of the duties belonging to it; and if our young readers will
remember that all their needs and changes are known unto Him who
bountifully supplieth all, they will also recognise how possible it is
to honour Him, whose servants they are, by an upright walk and
conscientious advance in the allotted path.

But there were some pleasures for the poor boy even here, although
deprived of home comforts. How kindly has God appointed that the
elastic spirit of childhood cannot be crushed! and to one of the
fanciful and enthusiastic temperament of our hero it was indeed a
great blessing. The objects met with in a great and populous city are
always striking; and our little shoemaker, as he walked through the
streets, felt himself elevated, not lowered, by the grandeur around
him. It showed him what man was enabled to do by energy and industry,
and he determined that, although obliged to cobble at old boots and
shoes for the present, it should not be so for ever. As he was made
errand boy, he was obliged to be often in the streets; and then the
pleasure he enjoyed in standing before the windows of the
picture-shops, made him forget the tears which he so often shed under
his master's caning, his mistress's continual fault-finding, and his
meagre fare. Sometimes, while gazing on the works of art, so
entrancing to a child with the soul of a painter, he also forgot how
the time passed, and, having far exceeded that demanded by his errand,
was on his return accused of playing the idler, and received an
idler's reward.

Even this could not cure him of his love of pictures. Like one who had
found a treasure in a desert, he was not to be deterred by the
difficulties in the way to its enjoyment. He did not persist in the
course which would have provoked Mr. Walters' anger, but started off
on a full run from the time he left the house, not stopping unt