of them. You've been a naughty boy, Charles, and I do n't know as I shall let you carry my cap home to-night.' But afterwards he whispered to his mother, Mamma, you may give it to him,— I only told him so.'

He gave the most indubitable evidence of sincerity, in his affection for others. One day a gentleman, one of his friends, was present,-who happened to have a slight cough. Nathan noticed it, and said he was sorry, and wished he had some spermaceti candy, for he said that was very good. A third person heard Nathan express this wish, and very soon after when the company had retired, a little parcel was left at the door for Nathan containing the candy he desired.

The person, doubtless, who heard the wish, supposed Nathan wanted it for himself. He however insisted upon his friends taking a generous portion of his present.

Any nice thing that was sent to him, he was ever ready to divide with his sisters. Often, very often, have I heard him say,

6

Mamma, wo'n't you give Maria or Rebecca a piece of that orange, or one of those figs, or some of the grapes.'

When even his mother was preparing anything particularly good for him, he would ask, 'Mamma have n't you got some for Mrs. Slady who lived in the same house.

an old

His mother says, he would often say in such

cases,

Mamma, an't you going to give Mrs. Ssome?'

One day, about this time, another little cousin, near his own age, came to see him, but not being much accustomed to a sick chamber, and struck with Nathan's pale face, he was unwilling to go to the bedside.

Nathan tried to persuade John to come and take him by the hand, but could not succeed.

At length John's Sabbath School teacher, who was present, took little John by the hand and they went together, and sat at the side of the bed.

Nathan then asked the teacher, 'Is John a good boy?'

Sometimes he is; he can be a very good boy. 'Does he get his lessons well?'

Pretty well, generally.

Do you ever talk with him about the Sav iour?'

Yes, sometimes.

'Won't you talk with him more about the Saviour?'

He manifested his interest in children, very strikingly and in various ways, in conversation with them, with parents and teachers.

His mother says he almost always inquired of his visiters, whether they were Sabbath School teachers, and when this was the case, invariably asked such questions as these:

'Do you ever tell them about the Saviour? Do you think they know there is a Saviour? Do you ever tell them they have got to die?'

Mrs. H made the following minutes of one of her visits. I write from his lips. Nov. 'Tell them (children) to put their trust in

22.

the Saviour, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and read the Bible, and not play on Sundays. You must tell them to pray for a new heart, and put their trust in the Saviour, or they won't go to heaven.' He then quoted the lines,

'Tis religion that can give
Solid pleasure while we live;
After death its joys will be
Lasting as eternity.'

A lady called with a little girl, to see him. In the course of the conversation, he asked if the little girl attended the Sabbath School. She replied, that she did not. He then asked the lady, who was at his bedside, to stand away, and beckoned to the little girl to come to him, and said to her,

You must go to the Sabbath School, and learn to read, and read your Bible, and love your Saviour.'

She went immediately to the Sabbath School, and a little while afterwards, when Nathan had been sometime dead, she asked if Nathan knew, now that he was in heaven, that she went. on receiving an answer, said,

And

'If he was here now, I could tell him that I

go,'

And who knows but this little one may become in truth one of the lambs of the flock, and may on her dying bed, have occasion to pronounce the same blessing upon him, that Nathan did on Mr. P―, the gentleman who first found little Nathan and invited him?

CHAPTER VII.

His usual position in bed. A lady reads the prayer for a sick child from the Church Prayer Book. Nathan's interest in it. A painter takes his miniature. Interesting conversation with his father He converses cheerfully about his approaching death. He gives his knife to his father, and a book to his mother, for them to remember him by. His last conversations. His death and

funeral.

A lady who visited him in December for the first time, has made copious minutes of her interviews, from which the following is extracted:

In December, 1829, one afternoon, I was invited by a lady to accompany her on a visit to the little child of whom I had heard so interesting an account.

We found the little sufferer evidently much wearied with the frequent calls of visiters, and anxious to be relieved from the presence of all but his mother. I asked him if he suffered much pain. He answered, 'Yes;' and that 'he wished I would come and sit with him some other time.' We retired almost immediately, the child saying as we went, 'Come again.

The next day about eleven o'clock, I went to pass a short time with him. He was much distressed, and unable to lie down. He sat upon the bedside. A chair was placed before him, with a pillow resting lengthwise across the top of it. He was leaning his head upon a Bible, which he kept in its place as it lay upon the pil

low, by holding his arms around it. It was in this attitude that I generally saw him, as he was able to lie down but seldom, and then only for a very short time.

His little sister, who was playing about me, took out a small prayer book from my work bag. He seemed much pleased with some little pictures it contained; one, of Moses receiving the ten commandments, and another of an angel playing upon a harp, a frontispiece to the Psalms of David. As I was explaining the pictures, Nathan seemed to forget his pain, and exclaimed with animation, and with an expression of countenance I cannot forget,

'O, let me see it.'

He took the book, laid down on the bed, and appeared for a short time with his eyes rivetted on the picture. Then turning the leaves gently over, he suddenly exclaimed,

'O, precious book! will you lend it to me?' He then sat up as before, put it with the Bible on the pillow which supported him, and laid his head on them both.

Turning his face then toward me, he said,

I will find you some hymns, and you shall sing to me.'

Singing had been spoken of before, by his mother and myself. He selected from the Vil

lage Hymn Book the following:

"When languor and disease invade,

This trembling house of clay :'

He wished it to be read. At the lines.