"Will you please teach me my verse, mamma, and then kiss me and bid me good night," said little Roger, as he opened the door and peeped into the chamber of his sick mother. "I am very sleepy, but no one has heard me say my prayers." Mrs. L. was very ill, and her friends believed her to be dying. She sat propped up with pillows and struggling for breath, her eyes were growing dim, and her strength was failing very fast. She was a widow, and little Roger was her only darling child. He had been in the habit of coming into her room every night, and sitting in her lap, or kneeling by her side, while she repeated some Scripture passages to him or related a story of wise and good people. She always loved to hear Roger's verse and prayer.

"Hush! hush!" said the lady who was watching beside the couch. "Your dear mamma is too ill to hear you to night." And as she said this, she came forward and laid her hand gently upon his arm as if she would lead him from the room. "I cannot go to bed to night," said the little boy, "without saying my prayers—I cannot."

Roger's dying mother heard his voice, and his sobs, and although she had been nearly insensible to everything around her, yet she requested the attendant lady to bring the boy and lay him near her side. Her request was granted, and the child's rosy cheek nestled in the bosom of his dying mother.

"Now you may repeat this verse after me," said his mother, "and never forget it: 'When my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up.'" The child repeated it three times—then he kissed the pale cheek of his mother, and went quietly to his little couch.

The next morning he sought as usual for his mother, but she was now cold and motionless. She died soon after little Roger retired to his bed. That was her last lesson to her darling boy—he did not forget it. He has grown to be a man and occupies a high post of honor in Massachusetts. I never can look upon him without thinking about the faith so beautifully exhibited by his dying mother. It was a good lesson.