'Father, you are a good I love you; but," said she, "sometimes you are naughty." "Why," said he, "what THE EVIL OF SELFISHmakes you say so?" NESS. At If WO boys, named Augustus and Eugene, were playing top. They had but one top between them, which they took turns in spinning. first they got on very well together. But after a while Eugene was not satisfied with having one turn at spinning the top at a time. He wanted to have two turns at once. he had only stopped to talk the matter over with his friend, so that that they might both understand it, and agree about it, it would have been all very well. But he resolved to take two turns without saying a word about it. It was just here that his selfishness came in. He was thinking of nothing but pleasing himself; and see what stock till all the rest of the grain in the land was gone, came of it. Augustus said, "Stop, Eugene; because then he could get a it's my turn now.” "I'm going to have another turn first," said Eugene. "No, you sha'n't.” "But I will, though." "Then take that," said Augustus, hitting him a blow with his fist. Then the boys stopped playing, and took to fighting. Presently Eugene hit Augustus a blow which hurt him very much, and made him very angry. He hastily took a long sharp knife from his pocket, and plunged it into Eugene's side. It entered his heart and killed him. Eugene lost his life, and Augustus became a murderer; and all this terrible evil sprang out of one act of selfishness. A good many years ago there lived in Egypt an old man named Amin. A time of great famine came upon the land, just as there was once in the days of Joseph. Amin had a great store of wheat in his granaries. When bread began to get scarce, his neighbours came to him to buy grain. But he refused to sell it to them. His intention was to keep his higher price for it. Food became very scarce. People were suffering on every hand. Many died; and yet this selfish man kept his stores locked up. At last the starving people were ready to give him any price he asked for his grain. Then he smiled a cruel smile, when he thought how rich his hoarded wheat would make him. He took the iron key of his vast granary. He opened the door and went in. In a moment all his hopes of gold faded away like а dream. Worms had entered the great heaps of his once beautiful grain, and destroyed it all. Hungry as the people were, they yet raised a shout of gladness at what had happened. They saw that God's judgment had come upon the miserable man, and it served him right. But such was the effect of the disappointment on the old miser himself, that he fell dead at the door of his granary. His selfishness killed him. It destroyed his body in this world, and his soul in the world to come. Here, too, we see what selfishness does. It makes us very wicked. thing. But then it does another to it, will have this effect on the It makes us very ugly. soul; and so will anger, and One thing about our bodies so will selfishness. There is that makes them look pleasant nothing, perhaps, that makes a is, that every part has its person look so disagreeable proper size and shape. But as giving way to selfishness. suppose we should see a boy, Just read the history of Judas ten or twelve years old, with a Iscariot, and see how ugly this head as big as a bushel measure; sin makes us. or a girl, of the same age, with a foot as large as an elephant's foot, or a hand ten times as large as it ought to be; would they look beautiful? No. It would be very unpleasant and disagreeable to see them. We should say that was a monstrous head, or a monstrous foot, or hand; and the persons who had them would be properly called monsters. A person is thus styled when his body is out of shape; when his head, or his foot, or his hand, or his mouth grows to be very much larger than it ought to be. And it is just the same with our souls, when we give way to wrong feelings. This makes one part of the soul grow larger than it ought to be. The proper shape or proportion of the soul is lost, and then it becomes a monster, just as the body does when any one part of it becomes much larger than it ought to be. Pride, when we give way Little Anna lay in bed, very ill with a fever. In the same room was her brother Robert, busily engaged in making a boat. The noise of the hammer was very distressing to his poor sister. She begged him not to make so much noise. But he went on pounding away, and paid no attention to her. How unkind he was! Presently, in a gentle voice, Anna said:-"Robert, please give me a glass of water. My throat is dry, and my head aches very much." Robert paid no attention to what his sister said, but went on working at his boat. Shortly she begged again for a glass of cold water. Robert called out sharply, "Wait a minute, Anna; I'm too busy now." Again his sister pleaded for a drink, when he hastily filled a glass from a pitcher which was warm from standing in the sun. "O not that water, brother!" said Anna, in a gentle tone. "Please fetch me a little fresh and cool from the spring." I'm "Don't bother me so, Anna; you see how busy I am. sure this water is good enough." And then the thoughtless, unfeeling boy went on hammering again on his boat. "O my poor head, my poor head!" said Anna, as she sipped a little of the warm water, and lay back on her pillow. This was the last favour that Anna ever asked her brother. She died that night. For a cartload of gold and silver I would not have had Robert's feelings, when he stood by the grave of his sister. He was a thoroughly selfish boy; and when you think of him as acting out his selfishness in the chamber of his sick, dying sister, how does he look to you? Ugly. Yes, very ugly indeed. If we do not want to look like him, let us strive against selfishness. After the drought, the dew; After the cloud, the blue; For the sky will smile in the sun's good time, And the earth grow glad anew. Bloom is the heir of blight, Dawn is the child of night, And the rolling change of the busy world Bids the wrong yield back to right. Under the fount of ill Many a cup doth fill, And the patient lip though it drinketh oft, Finds only the bitter still; Truth seemeth oft to sleep, Blessings are slow to reap, Till the hours of waiting are weary to bear, And the courage is hard to keep; Nevertheless, I know Out of the dark must grow, Sooner or later, whatever is fair, Since Heaven hath willed it so. -Canadian Methodist Mag. |
