TRUE TO THE LAST.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3177, 25 April 1879, Page 4

TRUE TO THE LAST.

In a sermon delivered to children in Westminster Abbey, Dean Stanley told the following story .— Not long, ago, in Edinburgh, two gentlemen went standing at the door of an hotel one very cold day, when a little boy with a poor thin blue face, his feet bare and red with the cold, and with nothing to cover him but a bundle of rags, came and said: tt " Please, lir, buy some matches. " No, don't want any," the gentleman

jaid. . „ '•But they are only a penny a box, the poor little fellow pleaded. .' "Yes, but you see we doh,'t want a box," the gentleman said again. " Then I will gie ye twa boxes for a penny," the boy said at last;.so to get rid of him, the gentleman who tells the »tory says, " I bought a box; but then I , found I had no penny, so I said, M will buy a box to-morrow;'" "0 do buy them to-night,. if you please," the boy pleaded again ; " I will run and get you the change, for I am Terra hungry." , So I gave him the »hilling, and he started away. I waited for him, but no boy came. Then I thought I had lost my shilling; still there was that in the boy's face I trusted, and I did not like to think badly of him. Late in the evening I was told a little 1 boy wanted to see me; when he was broHght in I found it waß a smaller bro- . ther of the boy that got my shilling, but, -if possible, still more ragged and poor and thin. He stood a moment, diving into his lags as if he was seeking somethings, and then said: "Are you the gentleman that bought the matches frae Sandie P " "Yes." " Weel, then, here's fourpence out o' yer shilling 5 Sandie cannot come; he's very ill; a cart ran ower him and knocked him down, and he lost his bonnet and his matches and your seven pence, and both his legs are broken, and the doctor says he'll die, and that's a." ' And then, putting the fourpence on the table, th'd poor child broke down into great sobs. - So I fed the little man, and I went with him to see Sandie. I found that the two.little things lived alone, their father and mother being dead. Poor Sandie was lying on a bundle of shaving; he knew me as soon as I came in, and said : "I got the change, sir, and was coming 'back; and then the horse knocked me down, and both my legs were broken, and O.Eeuby 1 little Keuby ! I am sure I am* dying, and who will lake care of you when I am gone? What will ye do, BeubyP'?Then I took his hand, and said I would always take care of Eenby. He understood me, and;had just strength enough to look up at me, as if to thank me; the light went out of his blue eyes. In a moment He lay within the light of God, , Like a "babe upon the breast, i: Where the wicked cease from troubling, And the weary are at rest. That story is like an arrow in the hand of a, glint. It ought to pierce many a heart, old and young. Whenever, dear children, you are tempted to say what is not true, OF to be hard on other little boys arid girli/or to take what you ought not take, I want you to remember little Sandie. • •