e would thrash him for that.

Instantly after, "Nine," he recited straight at Laddie: "I made a
covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?"

More than one giggled that time.

"Ten!" came almost sharply.

Leon looked scared for the first time. He actually seemed to shiver.
Maybe he realized at last that it was a pretty serious thing he was
doing. When he spoke he said these words in the most surprised voice
you ever heard: "I was almost in all evil in the midst of the
congregation and assembly."

"Eleven."

Perhaps these words are in the Bible. They are not there to read the
way Leon repeated them, for he put a short pause after the first name,
and he glanced toward our father: "Jesus Christ, the SAME, yesterday,
and to-day, and forever!"

Sure as you live my mother's shoulders shook.

"Twelve."

Suddenly Leon seemed to be forsaken. He surely shrank in size and
appeared abused.

"When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me
up," he announced, and looked as happy over the ending as he had seemed
forlorn at the beginning.

"Thirteen."

"The Lord is on my side; I will not fear; what can man do unto me?"
inquired Leon of every one in the church. Then he soberly made a bow
and walked to his seat.

Father's voice broke that silence. "Let us kneel in prayer," he said.

He took a step forward, knelt, laid his hands on the altar, closed his
eyes and turned his face upward.

"Our Heavenly Father, we come before Thee in a trying situation," he
said. "Thy word of truth has been spoken to us by a thoughtless boy,
whether in a spirit of helpfulness or of jest, Thou knowest. Since we
are reasoning creatures, it little matters in what form Thy truth comes
to us; the essential thing is that we soften our hearts for its
entrance, and grow in grace by its application. Tears of compassion
such as our dear Saviour wept are in our eyes this morning as we plead
with Thee to help us to apply these words to the betterment of this
community."

Then father began to pray. If the Lord had been standing six feet in
front of him, and his life had depended on what he said, he could have
prayed no harder. Goodness knows how fathers remember. He began at
"Jesus wept" and told about this sinful world and why He wept over it;
then one at a time he took those other twelve verses and hammered them
down where they belonged much harder than Leon ever could by merely
looking at peop