of learning to read.

* * * * *


A BUDGET FROM THE LITTLE NAILER.

They have come! the long expected letters from "Jemmy Stubbing," or the
Nailer Boy. I am sure they will be a treat to all the children that meet
in our School-room. I hope all the benches will be full whilst Josiah's
letters are read. And what a nice thing it was in the children in
America, to take that little fellow out of the cinders and soot of the
blacksmith's shop, and send him to school for two years!

Now many a little boy and girl of our school-room circle has contributed
half a dime towards Josiah's education. I would ask that little boy or
girl what he or she would sell out all right and title to the pleasure
and consequence of that act for? What would you take in money down for
your share in the work of expanding that little fellow's mind, and
filling it with such new ideas as he expresses in his letters? What a
new world he has lived in since he returned from school to his little
wayside smithy, the roof of which can hardly be seen over the hedge!
Think of it--but you cannot think of it as it is, unless you could see
that nailer's shop and cottage. But think of what he was, when you took
him from the anvil and sent him to school. Then he could not tell a
letter of the alphabet, and never would have read a verse in the Bible,
if it had not been for your half dimes. Now see with what delight he
searches the scriptures, and marks and commits to memory choice verses
in that Holy Book. He has taught his father to read it too, and is
teaching his sisters, and the children of the neighbors to read it, and