any good impression upon his
heart.

Before Benedict had reached his sixteenth year, he twice enlisted as a
soldier and was brought back by his friends. He repaid his mother's
kindness with baseness and ingratitude; so that, between the
intemperance and wretchedness of the father, and the cruelty and
depravity of the son, she died of a broken heart. When he grew up, the
same character followed him. We need not be surprised, then, that, in
the most critical period of his country's history, he betrayed his
trust. He was a General in the American Army, in the Revolutionary War;
and by his extravagance, and his overbearing behavior, he brought upon
himself a reprimand from the American Congress. His temper, naturally
impetuous, had never been controlled, and he could not bear reproof. He
was bent on revenge; and to accomplish it, he entered into a
negotiation, through Major Andre, to deliver up West Point, of which he
had the command, to the enemy. If the plot had not been discovered and
prevented it would have been a very great calamity to our country. It
might have turned the scale against us. I have some personal reason to
feel indignant at the traitor, besides what arises from the love of
country; for my father was on picket guard at West Point, the night in
which it was to have been delivered up, and would have been the first
man killed. If Arnold had been caught, he would have closed his career
on the gallows; but, as it was, he escaped, and a more worthy man
suffered. He received, as the reward of his treachery, the appointment
of Brigadier General in the British Army, and ten thousand pounds
sterling. But his name will go down with the history of his country, to
the latest generation, black with infamy. He was a bad boy, and he made
a bad man. And, as Solomon has said, "The name of the wicked shall rot."

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

A single incident, in the history of _George Washington as a boy_,
furnishes a clew to the character of _George Washington as a man_. I
refer to the well known story of the new hatchet and the cherry-tree,
with his refusing to tell a lie; which I need not repeat, because it is
preserved in the books that are read in our common schools, and embalmed
in the memory of the rising generation. This incident shows that he had
already in his bosom a deep-seated principle of stern integrity, which
no temptation could shake. This was the leading feature in his character
when he became a man. We have