"Oh," I said, "I suppose there may be a sprinkling of desire to entertain and please, mixed with the love of display.""Do you suppose that your love of display, allowing you have it, would be forever slain by your merely refusing to sing in company?""I thought that might give it a pretty hard blow," I said, "if not its death-blow.""Meanwhile, in, punishing yourself you punish your poor innocent friends," he said laughing."No child, go on singing; God has given you this power of entertaining and, gratifying your friends.But ,pray without ceasing, that you may sing from pure benevolence and not from pure self-love.""Why, do people pray about such things as that?" I cried.
"Of course they do.Why, I would pray about my little finger, if my little finger went astray."I looked at his little finger, but saw no signs of its becoming schismatic.
AUG.3.-This morning I took great delight in praying for my little scholars, and went to Sunday-school as on wings.But on reaching my seat, what was my horror to find Maria Perry there!
Oh, your seat is changed," said she."I am to have half your class, and I like this seat better than those higher up.I suppose you don't care?""But I do care," I returned; "and you have taken my very best children-the very sweetest and the very prettiest.I shall speak to Mr.Williams about it directly.""At any rate, I would not fly into such a fury," she said."It is just as pleasant to me to have pretty children to teach as it is to you.Mr.Williams said he had no doubt you would be glad to divide your class with me, as it is so large; and I doubt if you gain anything by speaking to him.
There was no time for further discussion, as school was about to begin.I went to my new seat with great disgust, and found it very inconvenient.The children could not cluster around me as they did before, and I got on with the lesson very badly.I am sure Maria Perry has no gift at teaching little children, and I feel quite vexed and disappointed.This has not been a profitable Sunday, and I and now going to bed, cheerless and uneasy.
AUG.9.-Mr.Williams called this evening to say that I am to have my old seat and all the children again.All the mothers had been to see him, or had written him notes about it, and requested that I continue to teach them.Mr.Williams said he hoped I would go on teaching for twenty years, and that as fast as his little girls grew old enough to come to Sunday-school he should want me to take charge of them.Ishould have been greatly elated by these compliments, but for the display I made of myself to Maria Perry on Sunday.Oh, that I could learn to bridle my unlucky tongue!
JAN.15, 1835.-To-day I am twenty.That sounds very old, yet I feel pretty much as I did before.I have begun to visit some of mother's poor folks with her, and am astonished to see how they love her, how plainly they let her talk to them.As a general rule, I do not think poor people are very interesting, and they are always ungrateful.
We went first to see old Jacob Stone.I have been there a good many times with the baskets of nice things mother takes such comfort in sending him, but never would go in.I was shocked to see how worn away he was.He seemed in great distress of mind, and begged mother to pray with him.I do not see how she could.I am perfectly sure that no earthly power could ever induce me to go round praying on bare floors, with people sitting, rocking and staring all the time, as the two Stone girls stared at mother.How tenderly she prayed for him!
