Little things show character, and frequently determine a boy's whole career. It is the boy who does the kind, polite, and thoughtful acts unconsciously that wins his way to employment and success. And success does not mean wealth and fame. A man is valued according to his faithfulness and reliability, and these chiefly determine the measure of his true usefulness. It is not always those who are most conspicuous in the eyes of the world who are really the most useful. A man who takes money at a ferry gate is seen by thousands, but he only does what any one of a thousand could do equally well; while a thoughtful and conscientious writer, who may be personally known to very few, may have great influence for good. True success means the development of a character that is worthy of example--a character that is honest to every duty, faithful to every trust, and that is unselfish enough to find time for kindly acts that are not forced, but the simple expression of a warm and generous principle. True success is fidelity to every relation in life. "NOTHING TO THANK GOD FOR." "Have you nothing to thank God for?" asked the mother of a little girl named Helen. "No," said Helen; "you and papa give me everything." "Not for your pleasant home?" asked mother. "It is my papa's house; he lets me live in it." "Where did the wood come from to build it?" asked mother. "From trees," answered Helen, "and they growed in big forests." "Who planted the big forests? Who gave rain to water them? Who gave the sun to warm them? Who did not allow the winter to blast them? Who kept them growing from little trees to trees big enough to build houses with? Not papa, not man; it was God." Helen looked her mother in the eye, and then said, "Papa bought nails to make it with." "What are nails made of?" asked mamma. "Iron," answered Helen; "and men dig iron out of the ground." "Who put iron in the ground, and kept it there safe till the men wanted it?" asked mother. "It was God." "We got this carpet from men," said Helen, drawing her small foot across it. "Where did the carpet-men get the wool to make it from?" asked mother. "From farmers," answered Helen. "And where did the farmers get it?" "From sheep and lambs' backs," said the little girl. "And who clothed the lambs in dresses good enough for us? for your dress, I see, is made of nothing but lambs' wool. Where did the lambs get such good stuff?" "God gave it to them, I suppose," said the little girl. "It is you that gives me bread, mother," said she quickly. "But," said her mother, "the flour we got from the shop, and the shopkeeper bought it from the miller, and the miller took the wheat from the farmer, and the farmer had it from the ground, and the ground grew it all itself." "No," cried Helen suddenly, "God grew it. The sun and the rain, the wind and the air, are His, and He sent them to the corn-field. The earth is His too. And so God is at the bottom of everything, isn't He, mother?"