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CONVERSATIONS

ON THE

GOSPEL OF SAINT LUKE.

INTRODUCTION.

"How have you been passing your time while we have been away, mamma?" asked Cecilia Dalton of her mother.

Mrs Dalton's children had been spending the day with a friend, and there had been great lamentations at leaving their mother to solitude and dulness.

"I have been very busy and very happy-much happier than you thought I could be while you were away; but I want you to clear the table in the dining-room. I have left it covered with books, as I thought my maidens would come and save me the trouble of putting them back into their places."

The girls ran off to execute their mother's wishes, and presently returned, asking eagerly, "Mamma, what have you been doing? we counted no less than ten books as we put them away."

"And such grave-looking thick books!" added Cecilia. "I have been looking at some things in the Bible I did not understand."

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"O mamma! I do not think I should have spent a halfholiday, as you called it, in reading the Bible."

"Besides, you read the Bible with us every morning," continued Mary.

"Yes, and it was in our reading together that I came upon some passages that perplexed me, and I had no time to look them out then; so I took advantage of your having left me alone to-day to get hold of all those large books that frightened you, and to hunt out what I wanted to find; and then your father came in and helped me, so that I have had a very pleasant afternoon."

"Oh, I am so glad you enjoyed the day; I thought you would be so dreadfully dull without us."

May sat silent for a few seconds, and then said, "I have met with things that puzzled me sometimes, mamma; the other day I came upon some verses that I could not understand in the Epistle to the Romans, and I asked Alfred to explain them to 'me, and he only said that I should not be able to understand them, and it was no use trying to explain them, I had better let it alone."

"I have no doubt Alfred was right, my dear, though it was a disappointing answer to receive; there are many things in the Bible that you cannot understand yet."

"But there can be no harm in trying," exclaimed Cecilia. "None, if you are humble, and reverent, and patient of disappointment; you may gain much good by seeking, though you may not learn to understand the particular passage you began with; but it is very disappointing to try and understand anything and to fail, and if any one who knows your powers, and the difficulties of the subject, . advises you to leave it alone, you will save yourself much vexation if you follow his advice."

"But we shall understand these things some day-I mean, when we grow older?" said May.

"Some of them, my dear, I hope you will; many of them."

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