knowledge of the general history. This has been done in the hope that
these extracts may serve as a mother's storehouse for reading aloud to
her boys, or that they may be found useful for short readings to the
intelligent, though uneducated classes.

NOVEMBER 17, 1864.





WHAT IS A GOLDEN DEED?



We all of us enjoy a story of battle and adventure. Some of us delight
in the anxiety and excitement with which we watch the various strange
predicaments, hairbreadth escapes, and ingenious contrivances that are
presented to us; and the mere imaginary dread of the dangers thus
depicted, stirs our feelings and makes us feel eager and full of
suspense.

This taste, though it is the first step above the dullness that cannot
be interested in anything beyond its own immediate world, nor care for
what it neither sees, touches, tastes, nor puts to any present use, is
still the lowest form that such a liking can take. It may be no better
than a love of reading about murders in the newspaper, just for the sake
of a sort of startled sensation; and it is a taste that becomes
unwholesome when it absolutely delights in dwelling on horrors and
cruelties for their own sake; or upon shifty, cunning, dishonest