orter Catechism, could hardly be brought to read
the book of Leviticus with decency, and hated to make bricks without
straw; and yet, forgetting it all, loved the man beneath whose lashes
they had writhed in torture. In his heart the master vowed, with a new
love which loosed the millstone of many offences against the little
ones, that had for years been hanging about his neck--vowed that, be
the shame what it might, he would never leave them, but spend his days
in making up for the hardness of his heart and hand; vowed that he
would himself be good, and so make them good; that he would henceforth
be their friend, and let them know it. Blessed failure ending in such a
victory! Blessed purgatorial pulpit! into which he entered full of self
and self-ends; and from which he came down disgusted with that paltry
self as well as its deserved defeat. The gates of its evil fortress
were now undefended, for Pride had left them open in scorn; and Love,
in the form of flower-bearing children, rushed into the citadel. The
heart of the master was forced to yield, and the last state of that man
was better than the first.

"Swift Summer into the Autumn flowed," and yet there was no sign of the
coming vengeance of heaven. The green corn turned pale at last before
the gaze of the sun. The life within had done its best and now shrunk
back to the earth, leaving the isolated life of its children to the
ripening of the heavens. Anxious farmers watched their fields, and
joyfully noted every shade of progress. All day the sun shone strong;
and all night the moon leaned down from heaven to see how things were
going on, and keep the work gently moving, till the sun should return
to take it up again. Before he came, a shadowy frost would just breathe
on the earth, which, although there was only death in its chill, yet
furthered the goings on of life in repelling the now useless sap, and
so helping the sun to dry the ripening ears. At length the new
revelation of ancient life was complete, and the corn stood in living
gold, and men began to put in the sickle, because the time of the
harvest was come.

And with it came the _hairst-play_, the event of school-life both to
master and scholars. But the feelings with which the master watched and
longed for it were sadly different from those of the boys. It was
delight itself to the latter to think of having nothing to do on those
glorious hot days but gather blaeberries, or lie on the grass, or bathe