'He is a very miserable man,' said Miss Anne, sighing; 'I often hear him
walking up and down his room, and crying aloud in the night-time for God
to have mercy upon him; but he is a slave to the love of riches. Years
ago he might have broken through his chain, but he hugged it closely, and
now it presses upon him very hardly. All his love has been given to
money, till he cannot feel any love to God; and he knows that in a few
years he must leave all he loves for ever, and go into eternity without
it. He will have no rest to-night because of the injury he has done you.
He is a very wretched man, Stephen.'

'I wouldn't change with him for all his money,' said Stephen pityingly.

'Stephen,' continued Miss Anne, 'you say you pray for my uncle, and I
believe you do; but do you never feel a kind of spite and hatred against
him in your very prayers? Have you never seemed to enjoy telling our
Father how very evil he is?'

'Yes,' said the boy, hanging down his head, and wondering how Miss Anne
could possibly know that.

'Ah, Stephen,' she continued, 'God requires of us something more than
such prayers. He bids us really and truly to love our enemies--love which
He only can know of, because it is He who seeth in secret and into the
inmost secrets of our hearts. I may hear you pray for your enemies, and
see you try to do them good; but He alone can tell whether of a truth you
love them.'

'I cannot love them as I love you and little Nan,' replied Stephen.

'Not with the same kind of love,' said Miss Anne; 'in us there is