for the use of the room.

"I have not done with our difficulties yet. The road leading to the
village was anything but a good one; indeed, in the winter it was very
bad: so that, though in summer we could get plenty of teachers, yet when
winter came we could get none, and the whole concern of the school then
fell upon three or four. In the midst of our discouragements, one of our
superintendents left us. The other was taken ill, and was prevented from
being with us for six months. I was nominated to the office of our friend
who had left, and excepting when a substitute could be found--which was
not very often--I had to take the place of our sick one also: add to this
the fact that we had only two other teachers who regularly attended, and
you will see that our difficulties were of no light character. Often have
I been at our little school with only one teacher and myself; and,
indeed, at length things were come to such a crisis, that I said on my
return home one afternoon, 'I will go no more; I'll give it all up,' But
my friends reasoned with, and showed me the impropriety of such a
decision; they told me that as the school was now entirely dependent
upon myself for support, I should be much to blame if I gave it up. I
listened to their advice, and continued to discharge my duties as well as
I was able."

"Beware of desperate steps; the darkest day,
Live till to-morrow, 't will have pass'd away."

So sang Cowper, and so it proved in the case of I---- school!

"I determined," writes the subject of our narrative, "not to abandon the
school. I made its position a matter of earnest prayer; canvassed our
people for teachers; and God raised us up friends, so that soon we had a