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THE HISTORY OF HENRY MILNER

every minute; but at length coming to the end of the wood, and entering on an open field, the light of the moon and stars seemed almost to shed upon them, who had been for some time in almost total darkness, a glory equal to the perfect day.

"Oh!" said Henry, "how sweet and pleasant is light after darkness!"

"Darkness

"It is indeed, my boy,” said Mr. Dalben. is not agreeable to man; and when involved in it, he never ceases to desire the light. Hence darkness is compared to that state in which man is by nature, and in which he must ever remain, unless his mind is enlightened by the power of the Holy Spirit of God.

"When you were in the wood, my dear little boy, you could not see the path before you; you could not distinguish the trunk of a tree from a projection of the bank; you could not avoid a stone or clod of earth which happened to be in your way. So it is with the natural man, the man in his state of darkness; he knows not good from evil, right from wrong, or the way in which he ought to go; and if left in this state he must unavoidably perish but when light shines on him from above, then he becomes, as it were, a new creature, his eyes are opened, and he is enabled to discern what dangers to avoid, and what benefits to pursue."

"Uncle," said Henry, as he drew near their house, "we have had a very pleasant walk."

"And I trust that we shall have many more such, my dear boy," said Mr. Dalben, "if the Lord prolong our lives."

So saying, they entered the house; and I conclude my chapter, hoping at a future time to give some further account of Mr. Dalben and his adopted son.

END OF PART I.

THE HISTORY

OF

HENRY MILNER.

PART SECOND.

CHAPTER I.

Showing the improvement made by Henry before his eleventh Year.

It is now more than three years since the learned community of little readers first became acquainted with Henry Milner, that highly-favoured child, who, during all the years of early youth, was never taught any thing of the fashions and ways of this world; but was led straight on in the paths of holiness, without being allowed to turn either to the right or the left.

I am about to give my young friends some further accounts of this little boy; but they must not now expect to find him such a baby as he was when he had that notable quarrel with Mrs. Kitty respecting his green bag, of which I have given so full and true account in my last book.

Henry Milner was not nine years old when we finished our last accounts of him; and more than a year passed, after his visit to Southstones Rock, without any thing very particular taking place; he was, therefore, full ten years old, or perhaps near eleven, at the time which I have fixed upon for beginning the second part of my memoirs.

And first, I presume that you would wish to know what improvements he made during the year and half which was spent by him, from the time of his visit to Southstones Rock, to the period which I have fixed upon for the beginning of my second history.

In the first place, he was very much grown, and become much stouter, so that he could run almost as fast

as Lion, and could walk much further than Mr. Dalben himself without being tired. He had a very pleasant countenance, particularly when speaking, and his manners were such as a Christian child's ought to be. When any person spoke to him, he did not stop to consider, as some proud boys do, whether it was a rich or a poor person who was addressing him; but always answered with the same civility, and if the speakers were grown up persons he always used the words Sir or Ma'am, when he answered them, which is what I am sorry to say is very seldom done in these days by children of any age; for boys cannot be made to understand that while they are boys they are of no consequence in the world, and of no use to any one; and that grownup people only bear with them because they hope that in time they may become useful and good men, and because they pity them and love them, and because they remember the time when they were also little children, and were very troublesome to their parents, and rude and silly.

However, as boys are so silly and so troublesome, the least thing that they can do is to pay respect to their elders, and not be talking in company and giving their opinions before wiser people, though they may speak no doubt to their fathers and mothers, and friends at home, and say what is in their minds on those occasions, and then they may ask any questions they please; and I dare say may often be allowed to joke and play, and make themselves innocently cheerful.

But, as I said before, Henry Milner was always respectful to his elders, and this made every one love him, so that the old people all about Mr. Dalben's would have done any thing for little Henry Milner; and whenever he happened to meet with any of them, they would stroke his head, and pray that he might be blessed.

And now, with respect to the things which Henry Milner had learned, I will endeavour to give you an exact account, in order that any of you, my readers, who may be of the same age of which he then was, may be enabled to discern whether your own improvements have kept pace with his.

And first, he could read English very well, and when he came to a hard word he always asked the meaning of it, in order that he might know it again when he saw it, and that it might not be a hard word to him any longer.

Till people can read their own language well, and until they know the hard words and their meanings, they cannot have enjoyment in reading, and then indeed they do lose a very great pleasure, and a very great means of improvement; and therefore, the very first thing which a little boy should learn is, to read his own language with propriety.

Mr. Dalben had taught Henry to cipher ever since he was seven years old, and the little boy in consequence was in long division when he was ten years of age.

With respect to the Bible, I was going to say, Henry was very well acquainted with it; but if I had said so it would have been a mistake, for no man can be said to understand the Bible thoroughly; the Bible is like a deep mine, into which the lower you dig the more precious things you find; and no man ever yet came to the bottom of the mine. However, Henry had been made to search therein, and he had already found many precious things, besides learning many portions of Scripture by heart. Mr. Dalben had caused him to make a stream of time, which contained all the most important events related in the Bible; and he had adorned this stream of time with many little pictures which reminded him of the events which he had read in the Bible, and with the help of this stream he could make out the whole outline of Scripture, from beginning to end, in a way which would have surprised any one who was unacquainted with the means which Mr. Dalben had taken to impress these things on his mind.

As to the doctrines of religion, I fear he did not yet understand much of them, indeed not so much as he ought to have done considering the advantages which he had enjoyed, although he could answer many questions relative to them; but although these things were as it were on his lips, they were not yet in his heart, and Mr. Dalben knew very well that he must wait God's time and pleasure before he could expect to see his dear boy so impressed with holy things as he wished him to be.

While Henry was a little boy, Mr. Dalben had taken great pains to make him acquainted with the general nature and purport of grammar, and when he was nine years old he began to learn the Latin grammar, and he was very glad then that he was so well acquainted with the different parts of speech, and other things relative

to grammar, which Mr. Dalben had taught him, because this knowledge made the Latin grammar so much more easy to him.

About this time his good tutor began to teach him Hebrew, and then he found many things which were most delightful to him, for there are no books in Hebrew but the books of Scripture; and not a day passed but he learned to understand a little portion of the Bible better and better; and he found such lovely things relative to the Bible in the. Lexicon which he turned over to look for his words, that Mr. Dalben compared him to one of the people of Israel, who was fed every day with manna from heaven, as he was travelling through the wilderness to Mount Zion. Little Henry was not like those poor little boys, who not being blessed with pious parents and careful teachers are obliged to seek instruction in dictionaries, where, instead of meeting with holy lessons, they often fall upon such pieces of information as Christian children ought never to know, and thus, instead of being nourished with manna, they learn to desire the leeks and garlic, and flesh-pots of Egypt. Henry had not learned much indeed of Hebrew at ten years old; but he could read and write the characters very well, and could, with a little direction, make out almost the whole of the first chapter of Genesis; he wrote also a tolerably good hand, and when Mrs. Kitty was out he sent her two very pretty letters; but Henry's favourite study was history, and perhaps he knew more of that and of ancient geography than most little boys are acquainted with; but I shall not say much of this at the present time, as I shall take occasion to speak on this subject by-and-by.

Mr. Dalben had not yet begun to make Henry construe Latin, but he had prepared him to read and understand Virgil's Æneid, by making him thoroughly acquainted with the ancient history of Troy, and the wanderings of Æneas, together with the account of the different countries which that hero visited, so that the little. boy would have nothing to do but to study the language itself when he begun to read Latin.

With respect to reading for his amusement, Mr. Dalben allowed him this pleasure every day; but he only gave him one book at a time, and required him when he returned it to give some little account of what he had read, and was very particular in pointing out to him the