I remember when a boy my mother had a beautiful vase. I was
charged not to touch it. My fingers, however, boy-like, itched
to touch it. I frequently went around it, and peered behind it.
I wondered if there might not be some painting on the bottom of
it, as there was on the sides. In lifting ii up, one day, when
I had grown bolder, it fell to the hearthstone and broke into a
thousand pieces. I knew I had wounded the mother heart in that
moment. She heard the crash and came in. I knew that I deserved
punishment. But she only said, “My dear boy; do you see what
you have done.” It was burned into my memory then what it cost
to disobey law, and in all the sixty years that have elapsed
since then, when I have looked upon the treasures of others, I
have heard her voice saying to me, “Do you see what you have
done?”--Bishop D. A. GOODSELL.
(541)