surely live. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." Now are you satisfied ?"

LYDIA.

Yes, indeed! if you had told me this before I should have been satisfied at once. Then the iniquity of the father does not bring down the real displeasure of God upon the children, if they are blameless, but only makes them feel the unavoidable and temporal effects of their parents' fault.

ON THE CONDUCT OF DANIEL.

"His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal;
Nor number nor example with him wrought

To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind,
Tho' single."

PARADISE LOST.

FRANCES,

WE shall be much too early for Church this afternoon; the bell had scarcely begun to ring when we set out.—Anne, shall you dislike sitting down on this stile and resting for a short time?

ANNE.

Not at all-I think it will be very pleasant this warm afternoon, and we may spend our time in conversing about the sermon we heard this morning. Frederick, do you remember the subject?

FREDERICK.

Oh yes! It was about Daniel and the lions that God would not let hurt him, because he was such a very good man. Oh! Anne, do you remember the picture in our nurse's Bible, where Daniel is in the lion's den, and the lions look so tame, and the king is looking in at the top, to see if Daniel is safe. I hope I shall be such a good man when I

grow up.

ANNE.

I hope so too; and if you try to be good while you are such a little fellow, it will make it easier for you to continue so, when you grow up to be a man like papa. You must remember your little hymn, which says,

""Tis easy work if we begin

To fear the Lord betimes,
But sinners who grow old in sin,

Are hardened in their crimes."

LYDIA.

What a very good sermon it was, Anne! Any person might have understood it, and

have been instructed.

FRANCES.

I think his enemies' accusation is the most striking proof of the excellence of Daniel's character. The zeal by which he was animated for the law of his God, is not likely to have been their only ground of complaint, could they have discovered any other. As nearly as I can recollect the words of the text, they were, "We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God."

LYDIA.

Yes-here they are; I have found them out in papa's pocket Bible; and afterwards follows their request to Darius to establish the decree in which all persons were forbidden to worship any other being or thing for thirty days, but the king.

ANNE.

This request was probably formed and certainly urged by the great men of the court only, though they artfully represented to the king that it was the desire of all ranks throughout the kingdom,-which he was weak enough to believe.

t

FRANCES.

I am quite surprised that so great and powerful a king could be so easily persuaded.

LYDIA.

Why, you know, Frances, that Nebuchadnezzar, encouraged by flatterers who had nearly the same reasons for their conduct, made an image of gold, and commanded his subjects to worship nothing but that.

ANNE.

Perhaps Darius thought he was in no danger of arrogating too much to himself, when he had such an example before him; but whatever his own reasonings were, we all know that the heathens admitted into their list of deities things quite as absurd as images of gold, and much less powerful than conquering emperors.

LYDIA.

Perhaps, then, you do not much wonder that Darius fell into the snare which was laid for him, since he was probably not much superior to the prejudices of his countrymen; but I think, at any rate, Daniel must at once