won; then they lost. Then they staked larger and larger sums in the
vain hope of recovering the gold which was rapidly slipping away from
their possession. But they played on. Loss followed loss; they still
went on playing. Then they staked the last money they had, and lost.
Bankrupt and heart-broken, they betook themselves to the cliffs that
overhang the Mediterranean, and, hand in hand, plunged into the sea and
were lost. Oh, can that be innocent which in any degree tends to
encourage this thirst for getting gain not in the paths of honest
industry, but in a way which God cannot and does not bless?"

She paused. Walter hung down his head, while his features worked
uneasily. Then he slowly raised his face, and said, "I suppose I'm
wrong; but then, what is to be done? Gregson will ask me about it, and
what am I to say? `Brother Amos disapproves of raffles;' will that do?
I can just fancy I can see him and Saunders holding their sides and
shaking like a pair of pepper-boxes. No, it won't do; we can't _always_
be doing just what's right. If Amos don't go in for the raffle, I think
I must, unless I wish to be laughed at till they've jeered all the
spirit out of me."

Amos made no answer, nor did Miss Huntingdon; but as Walter looked
towards her, with no very happy expression of countenance, she quietly
laid one hand across the other. He saw it and coloured, and then, with
a disdainful toss of the head, hurried away. But the arrow had hit its
mark. As Miss Huntingdon was about to prepare for bed, she heard a low
voice outside her door saying, "May a naughty boy come in?" and Walter
was admitted. The tears were in his eyes as he kissed his aunt and sat
down. "I am waiting for the rod," he said, half mournfully and half
playfully. "I deserve it, I know. I was wrong. I was unkind to Amos.
I behaved like a cowardly sneak. Now, dear auntie, for a moral hero
that isn't like me."

"Dear boy," said his aunt, placing her hands lovingly on his head, "you
were wrong, I know; but you are right now, and I think you mean to keep
so. I have a beautiful instance here of moral courage, just to the
point; I was reading about it a few minutes ago.

"A young man once called on a most earnest and experienced minister of
the gospel, Dr Spencer of Brooklyn, New York, about his difficulties in
his earthly calling. He was salesman in a dry-goods store, and was
required by his employer to do things which he felt not to be