There happened to be a school-boy passing that way at the time. He was not much of a farmer, and still less of a mechanic, I should think; but he thought he saw what the trouble was. It did not seem to be so much the lever itself, or the farmer, or the stone to be moved, as in the way the man went to work. The boy ventured to hint this idea to the farmer: "Why, my dear sir," he said, "there is no use in your breaking your neck in that style. You are at the wrong end of the lever. You haven't _purchase_ enough." The good-natured farmer (for he _was_ good-natured, and did not get into a passion because a mere boy, young enough to be his grand-child, attempted to help him out of his difficulty) the good-natured farmer stopped a moment, looked at the matter carefully, and frankly acknowledged that he had gone the wrong way to work. "I wonder what on earth I was thinking of," said he, in his usual blunt language. Of course he shifted his crow-bar immediately, so as to get a good _purchase_. The trouble was all over then. The stone came up easily enough, of course. It came into my mind while I was thinking about this farmer's mistake in the use of his lever, that certain people--myself included, perhaps--might profit by this blunder. A great many, for instance, use the lever of _truth_--a very good crow-bar, the best to be had--in overturning moral evils. But they do not accomplish anything, because they take hold of the wrong end of the lever. They have no _purchase_. Here is a man, who, as I think, is in the habit of wrong doing every day. Well, I settle it in my mind that I will talk to him, and see if I cannot make a better man of him. I look him up, and go to prying at his sin, like a man digging up pine stumps by the job. I call him hard names. Why not? He deserves them. Everybody knows that. I do not mince the matter with him at all. But what I say seems to have no good effect upon him. It makes him angry, and he advises me to mind my own business, assuring me, at the same time, that he shall take good care to mind his. I see plainly enough that I have been working half an hour or more to no purpose, and that very likely I have made matters worse. Yet what was my error? Simply this: that I spent all my strength at the short arm of the lever. If I had gone to work with a kind and tender spirit, something as Nathan went to work at David, once on a time, and used the other end of the lever, I should have got a good _purchase_, at least, and I am not sure but the stone would have yielded. As it is, however, the troublesome thing is there yet, and it seems to be settling into the ground deeper than ever. I know some good people, among whom I can count half a score of ministers, who try very hard to keep bad books and periodicals out of the family circle.