s feelings! Then
he was innocent and happy; now he was guilty and wretched. He tried
to feel easy, but he could not; conscience reproached him with his
sin. He rode sadly along, thinking what excuse he should make
to his parents for his long absence, when he saw his father, at a
distance, coming to meet him. His father, fearing that some accident
had happened, left home in search of his son. The boy trembled and
turned pale as he saw him approaching, and hesitated whether he had
better confess the truth at once, and ask forgiveness, or endeavor to
hide the crime with a lie. Oh, how much better it would have been for
him if he had acknowledged the truth! How much sooner would he have
been restored to peace! But one sin almost always leads to another.
When this kind father met his son with a smile, the boy said, "Father,
I lost the road, and it took me some time to get back again, and that
is the reason why I have been gone so long."

His father had never known him to be guilty of falsehood before, and
was so happy to find his son safe, that he did not doubt what he said
was true. But, oh, how guilty, and ashamed, and wretched, did that boy
feel, as he rode along! His peace of mind was destroyed. A heavy
weight of conscious guilt pressed upon his heart. The boy went home
and repeated the lie to his mother. It is always thus when we turn
from the path of duty; we know not how widely we shall wander. Having
committed one fault, he told a lie to conceal it, and then added sin
to sin, by repeating and persisting in his falsehood. What a change
had one short half day produced in the character and the happiness of
this child! His parent had not yet detected him in his sin, but he
was not, on that account, free from punishment. Conscience was at
work, telling him that he was degraded and guilty, His look of
innocence and his lightness of heart had left him. He was ashamed to
look his father or mother in the face. He tried to appear easy and
happy, but he was uneasy and miserable. A heavy load of conscious
guilt rested upon him, which destroyed all his peace.

When he retired to bed that night, he feared the dark. It was long
before he could quiet his troubled spirit with sleep. And when he
awoke in the morning, the consciousness of his guilt had not
forsaken him. There it remained fixed deep in his heart, and would
allow him no peace. He was guilty, and of course wretched. The first
thought which occurred to him, on waking, wa