"Walter, do you remember, when I took you to the academy, I requested the teacher to give you a list of the rules or laws of the school? And when he did so, I told him that I hoped you would always conform to them. What did I mean by that?" "I suppose you meant that you hoped I should comply with the rules, or do every thing the laws required." "Just so. Well, whose laws must we conform to?" "The laws of God." "In what book are these laws written?" "In the Bible," replied Helen. "What is breaking God's law called?" "Transgression of it," said Walter. "And what other word denotes nearly the same idea as transgression of God's holy law?" "Sin." "Yes, and it is equally sin if we do not conform to the law. Suppose God had commanded Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit of a particular tree, and they had not done it, would they not have sinned just as much as by eating the forbidden fruit?" "Yes, sir." "But for a long time after the creation of the world, God's law was not written down in the Bible; your mother will tell you where it was written." "Paul says it was written in the hearts of men,— "'their conscience also bearing witness.'" "Before the Bible was completed, God wrote his commands upon two tables of stone. Do you know what became of them?" "Moses broke them in pieces, because he was so angry that the Israelites worshipped the golden calf; but God wrote them again, and afterward they were put into the ark." "In what part of the Bible do we find them?" "In the twentieth chapter of Exodus, and also in Deuteronomy." "Has any one ever lived in perfect conformity to the law of God?" "Jesus Christ did." "Now for a story, father," said Helen. Mr. Dermott smiled, and commenced. "Very late one evening, a good clergyman was called upon to go to a house in the outskirts of his parish to visit a poor woman, who, the messenger said, was nigh unto death. The night was extremely cold, and the minister was by no means young; but he hesitated not one minute in the performance of this duty. He set out, in company with his guide, who was a lad apparently just entering his teens; and, by walking at a rapid pace, reached the spot in about twenty minutes. The boy seemed averse to conversation, and only said he was the son of a neighbor of the poor woman who was sick.