SELF-HELP.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2255, 20 May 1881, Page 3

SELF-HELP.

Dr Samuel Smiles, the author of "Self Help," in his new work entitled "Duty," gives the following pathotio story : A way off, I beliove in Edinburgh, two gentlemon were standing at the door of an hotel one very cold day, when a little boy, with a poor, thin, blue faoe, his feet bare and red with cold, and with nothing to cover him but a bundle of rags, came and said, " Please, sir, buy some matches." " No, I don't want any," said the gentleman.

"But they're only a penny a box," the little fellow pleaded. " Yes, but you see I don't want a box." " Then I'll gie ye two boxes for a penny," the boy said at last. " And so, to get rid of him," the gentleman, who tells the story in an English paper, says, " I bought a box, but then found I had no change, bo I said, 'l'll buy a box tomorrow.' " "Oh, do buy them the nicht," the boy pleaded again ; " I'll rin and get ye the ohange, for I'm very hungry." So I gave him tho shilling, and he started away. I waited for him, bnt no boy came. Then I thought I had lost my shilling; but still there was that in the boy's face I trusted, and I did not like to think badly of him. Well, late in the evening a servant came and said a little boy wanted to see me. When he was brought in I found it was a smaller brother of the boy who got my shilling, but, if possible, still'more ragged, and poor, and thin. He stood a moment diving into his rags, as if ho were seeking something; and then said, " Are you the gentleman that bought the matches frae Sandia ? J '

" Yes ! " , " Weel, then, here's fourpence oot o yer shillin'. Sandie canna come. He's _no weel. A cart ran owor him and knooked him doon ; and he lost his bonnet and his matches and your elevenpence ; and both his legs are broken, and he's no well at all, and the doctor says he'll dee. And that's a' he can gie ye the noo',' putting fourpence down on the table ; and then the poor child broke down into great sob?. So I fed the little man," the gentleman goes on to say," and then I wont with him to see Sandie. I found that the two little things lived with a

wretched drunken stepmother; their own father and mother were both dead. I found poor Sandie lying on a bundle of shavings; he knew me as soon as I came in, and said, ' I got the change, sir, and was coming back ; and then the horse knooked me down, and both my legs are broken. And Beuby, little Reuby ' lam sure lam deein', and who will take care o' ye Beuby when I am gane ? What will ye do, Beuby?' Then I took the poor little sufferer's hand, and told him I would always take care of Reuby. Ho undentood me, and had just strength to look at me as if he would thank me; then the light went out of his blue eyeß, and in a moment' He lay within the light of God.' "