A great many years ago, a little girl played in a garden in London. Her
father was dead, but she had a dear, good mother, who taught her to
build for herself a good and beautiful character, for the mother knew
that this would be a better thing for the little girl to have than gold
or diamonds, because as the Fairy Queen told us, it =lasts for ever=.
As time went on the little girl grew up, and became a great queen. She
has been a queen now for more than sixty years, and I do not think there
ever was so good a queen, and we are sure there never was one so dearly
loved. The queen has a beautiful gold crown, and beautiful castles and
palaces to live in, but these are not the things she values most. Best
of all, she has all those lovely jewels in her character that we have
been speaking about, with "Truth" for the foundation, and it is all
woven round with the pure gold of "Kindness"; these are the jewels that
are more precious to the great queen than crowns and costly stones.
Do you know the name of this queen? It is our own Queen Victoria.
Why do we love her so much? Not because she is a queen, simply, for
queens have sometimes been wicked, but because she is good, and true,
and kind, and these jewels make up the something that we call
"character," which when built like this is more beautiful than the
Fairies' Temple.
And just think of it: =every= little boy and girl may build up a good,
true character, which is the most precious thing you can have.
The Story Lessons in this book have been written to help each one of
=you= who hear them to build up this beautiful Temple of Character.
The queen believes that a =good= "character" is the best thing in the
world, and I want you all to think so too.
A man who was put in prison for preaching wrote a beautiful book,[23]
which you will read when you are older, and in it there is this story.
The story tells of a man who spent all his time raking up rubbish on the
floor to find gold and other things, and =never once looked up=. But all
the time there was an angel standing behind him with a beautiful crown
in her hand, which she wanted the man to have, but he never saw it.
That is like the people who think of nothing but =self=, instead of
"looking up" and thinking of the beautiful "stones" that build up the
"Temple," which is such a good thing to have, just as the crown was,
which the man did not see. Let us look up and see all that is beautiful
and good, so that we may become like God who made all these things.