arm Kilbourn, but the
school kept him out of the way of the "home folks" for the greater part
of the day.

He was a winning, sweet-faced child, with long golden curls, of which
he was very proud. Some of his female playfellows at school, thinking it
a shame that a boy should look so much like a girl, cut off one or two
of his curls with a pair of shears made of scraps of tin, and when the
little fellow complained of his loss at home it was decided that the
best way to protect him from such attacks in future was to cut his hair
close to his head, which was done at once. Little Henry was commonly
thought a dull child. His memory was lamentably deficient, and his
utterance was thick and indistinct, so much so that he could scarcely be
understood in reading or speaking. This was caused partly by an
enlargement of the tonsils of his throat, and partly by timidity. The
policy of repression worked badly in his case, and had there not been so
much real good at the basis of his character it might have led this
gentle, yearning boy far from the useful channel along which his life
has flown.

His stepmother was a lady of fine mental culture, of elegant breeding
and high character, but she was an invalid, and withal thoroughly imbued
with the gloomy sternness of her husband's faith. One day little Henry,
who was barely able to manage the steady-going old family horse, was
driving her in the chaise. They passed a church on their way, and the
bell was tolling for a death. "Henry," said Mrs. Beecher, solemnly,
"what do you think of when you hear a bell tolling like that?" The boy
colored and hung his head in silence, and the good lady went on. "_I_
think, was that soul prepared? It has gone into _eternity_." The little
fellow shuddered, in spite of himself, and thought, no doubt, what a
dreadful thing it was to be a Christian.

So it was with the religion that was crammed into him. There was no
effort made to draw him to religion by its beauty and tenderness. He
rarely heard of the Saviour as the loving one who took little children
in His arms and blessed them, but was taught to regard Him as a stern
and merciless judge, as one who, instead of being "touched with the
feeling of our infirmities," makes those infirmities the means of
wringing fresh sufferings from us. Sunday was a day of terror to him,
for on that day the Catechism was administered to him until he was more
than sick of it. "I think," said he to his congregation, not