and who wants comfort for injustice? Not Billy Boy. After a while father came in, and before Billy Boy saw him, mother had presented the case.
He thought carefully a moment. Then his cheerful voice was heard.
"Well, my boy, I hear you won out to-day."
"Well, then," in a voice of awful solemnity, "you heard wrong, 'cause we didn't; we were licked."
"Oh, but I heard that there were two contests; which did you win?"
"Why, I don't know what you mean, father."
"Mother told me about it. She told me you lost the match, but you won the big, important thing; you didn't beat the other fellows, but you beat yourselves, and conquered all the anger and unfairness and bad language. Congratulations, old fellow! You won out and I'm proud of you."
Billy Boy's face was slowly undergoing a change. It was growing once more interested, happy, hopeful. "Why, that's so, dad," he said joyously, after a minute; "I didn't see that. And God was on our side after all, wasn't He?"
"Greater is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city," said the father, with a smile.
That night when Billy Boy said his prayers, this is the way he ended his petition: "And please, God, excuse me for the way I thought about you this afternoon. I didn't understand."—Congregationalist.
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VICTORY, ULTIMATE
The victory that comes beyond all life's failures is the subject of these lines from Success:
There is no failure. Life itself's a song
Of victory o'er death, and ages long
Have told the story old of triumphs wrought
Unending, from the things once held for naught.
The battle's over; tho defeated now,
In coming time the waiting world shall bow
Before the throne of Truth that's builded high
Above the dust of those whose ashes lie
All heedless of the glorious fight they won
When death obscured the light of vict'ry's sun.
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VICTORY WITH GOD
But yesterday I opened an English history.
The scholar was recounting the events of the
hour when Parliament prohibited slavery, in
the English colonies. At that time, the
author says, applause in those sacred precincts
was unknown, but suddenly at the name
of Wilberforce, all the members arose,
cheered wildly, waved hands and caps, and
in a tumult of enthusiasm, clustered about
Wilberforce. But the one man who sat
silent and overcome, perhaps was thinking of
the hour when in Parliament he made his
first plea. Then his seemed a hopeless task.
The rich men of England drew their income
from slavery and the sugar plantations. The
whole moneyed system of England was involved.
After Wilberforce's first attack on
slavery, he was left alone. Men turned their
backs on him as if he were a leper. He ate
his bread in solitude. When he wandered
through the corridors of the House of Commons,
he was alone, like an outcast. All
great houses were closed to the reformer.
Then Wilberforce wrote a little book on religion
and conscience, and the moral state
of England. But the bitter fight was transferred
to a cathedral, whose canon thundered
against the reformer, and defended the institution
of slavery. But Wilberforce held
on his way. He knew his God. He saw afar
off Him who was invisible. And lo, the
sword flashed, and he beheld the Prince of
Peace marching to victory. Once there was
Wilberforce, and in the shadow behind him
one like unto the Son of God. Then, there
was Wilberforce, and all England behind
him, and the Eternal God over all, leading
on, in whose name Wilberforce wrought exploits.—N.
D. Hillis.
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VIEW, THE NEAR AND FAR
How often would it happen that men who see evil in other men, and hold one another in distrust and contempt, would gain a different impression merely by drawing nearer together. Tit-Bits gives this humorous instance:
They met on a bridge. Each held out his
hand, and they shook, and instantly realized
that they were utter strangers. Had not one
of them been a genuine Hibernian the situation
might have been embarrassing.
"Begorra, that's quare," said Pat. "When we wor so far off that we couldn't see eich other I thought it was you an' you thought it was me, and now we're here together it's nayther of us." (Text.)
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