subjects. Describe any thing to children. The way to tell stories. II. Practical Directions. The field. Influence to be sought. The pa- rent disappointed. Brothers and sisters. Indulgence. Presents. Decision and firmness. The way to gain an influence. Way to use it. Expression of the truth. The winter walk and the snow bird. The expression of kindness or of cruelty. Formal instruc- tion. Solitude. Influence of man upon inan. Instruction. Plan of the chapter. Five propositions. Mode of divine instruction. Our methods. The contrast. Reason for it. Illus- tration. Botany. The two students. The thistle. The rose. Nature and use of science and system. The theologians. Province and value of theological science. Systematic education. The Bible the storehouse. Korah. Korah's mutiny. The parties. Their designs. Conversation with Korah. A coincidence. Dathan and Abiram. Their reply. Moral lessons to be deduced. Various questions. Two kinds of interest in a story. Example. Job. The dramatic interest. The moral interest. Both combined. Third general head. Observation. Effect of a habit of observa- tion. Refined and vulgar taste. The evidence for moral truth. Mathematical truth. A difference between intellectual and moral science. Apparent exceptions. Proof of Christianity. Proof by experiment. Illustrations. Difficulty of sound induction. Truth accessible. Arguing with error. First case. Another case. Great forces to be overcome. Dangers. Practical directions. The strange light. Two ways of combatting error. Collisions. Misunderstandings. Sympathy. Effects of disputation. Exagger- ation. Defending error, and its effects. Deal in great arguments, not in minute details. Faint hopes of success. Classes of reason- ers. Way in which human opinions are formed. Result of the discussion. Grounds of human belief. The way to spread the CHAPTER XI.-CONCLUSION. Conclusion. Plan completed. Recapitulation. Views of God. Pan- 339 THE WAY TO DO GOOD. CHAPTER I. WORKS AND FAITH, OR THE STORY OF ALONZO. "Created in Christ Jesus unto good works." Works and Faith. Alonzo's home. The farm-yard. THE exact nature of the connection which subsists between faith and good works, in the salvation of man, is a subject, which, in a volume on THE WAY TO DO GOOD, ought to be well understood at the outset. I can best convey to my young reader what I wish to say on this point, by telling him the story of Alonzo. Alonzo was a Vermont boy. His father lived in one of those warm and verdant dells which give a charm to the scenery of the Green Mountains. The low, broad farmhouse, with its barns and sheds, hay-stacks and high wood piles, made almost a little village, as they lay spread out in a sunny opening near the head of the glen. A winding road repeatedly crossing a brook which meandered among the trees, down the valley, guided the traveller to the spot. The wide yard was filled with domestic animals, the sheds were well stored with the utensils of the farm, lilac trees and rose bushes ornamented the front of the dwelling, and from the midst of a little green lawn upon one side of the house, was a deep clear spring, walled in with moss covered stones, and pouring up continually from below, a full supply of cool, clear water. A group of willows hung over the spring, and a well-trod foot path led to it from the house. Occupations of childhood. The phenomenon. A struggle. A smooth flat stone lay before the "end door," as they called it, which led to the spring. Here, during the second year of his life, Alonzo might have been seen almost every sunny day, playing with buttercups and daisies, or digging with the kitchen shovel in the earth before the door, or building houses of corn-cobs, brought for his amusement, in a basket, from the granary. The next summer, had you watched him, you would have observed that his range was wider, and his plans of amusement a little more enlarged. He had a garden, two feet square, where he stuck down green sprigs, broken from the shrubs around him, and he would make stakes with a dull house knife partly for the pleasure of making them, and partly for the pleasure of driving them into the ground. He would ramble up and down the path a little way, and sometimes go with his mother down to the spring, to see her dip the bright tin pail into the water, and to gaze with astonishment at the effect of the commotion,-for the stony wall of the spring seemed always to be broken to pieces, and its fragments waved and floated about, in confusion, until gradually they returned to their places and to rest, and for ought he could see, looked exactly as before. This extraordinary phenomenon astonished him again and again. One day Alonzo's mother saw him going alone, down towards the spring. He had got the pail, and was going to try the wonderful experiment himself. His mother called him back, and forbade his ever going there alone. 'If you go there alone," said she, "you will fall in and be drowned." Alonzo was not convinced by the reason, but he was awed by the command, and for many days he obeyed. At length, however, when his mother was occupied in another part of the house, he stole away softly down the path a little way. There was a sort of a struggle going on within him while he was doing this. "Alonzo," said Conscience, for even |