MRS. WHITTELSEY'S

MAGAZINE FOR MOTHERS

AND DAUGHTERS.

EDITED BY

MRS. A. G. WHITTELSEY.

That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones polished after the similitude of a palace.—BIBLE.

VOL. III.

NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY HENRY M. WHITTELSEY, 128 NASSAU STREET.

1852.

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1852, by

HENRY M. WHITTELSEY,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.

Transcriber's note: Minor typos corrected and footnotes moved to end of text.



INDEX.

PAGE

A Child's Prayer. 369

A Child's Reading. 129

A Lesson for Husbands and Wives. 257

An Appeal to Baptized Children.—By Rev. William. Bannard. 141

A Temptation and its Consequences. 21

A Word of Exhortation. 5

Brotherly Love.—By Rev. M. S. Hutton, D.D. 89, 105, 137

Children and their Training. 375

Children of the Parsonage.—By Mrs. G. M. Sykes. 246

Children's Apprehension of the Power of Prayer. 305

Chinese Daughter.—Letter of Mrs. Bridgeman. 18

Cousin Mary Rose, or a Child's First Visit. 69

Despondency and Hope; an Allegory.—By Mrs. J. Norton. 187

Every Prayer should be offered in the Name of Jesus. 356

Excerpta. 100

Excessive Legislation. 167

Extravagance. 354

Family Government. 320

Fault Finding; its Effects.—By Ellen Ellison. 13

" " The Antidote.—By Ellen Ellison. 156, 180

Filial Reverence of the Turks. 292

First Prayer in Congress. 308

Female Education.—By Rev. S. W. Fisher. 271

" " Physical Training. 297

" " Intellectual Training. 330

" " 363

Frost. 384

General Instructions for the Physical Education of Children. 336

Gleanings by the Wayside. 217, 249, 277

God's Bible a Book for all. 220

Habit. 140

Infants taught to Pray. 192

Inordinate Grief the effect of an Unsubdued Will. 301

Instruction of the Young in the Doctrines and Precepts of the Gospel. 31

Intellectual Power of Woman.—By Rev. S.W. Fisher. 255

Know Thyself. 93

Letter from a Father to his Son. 241

Light Reading. 316

Lux in Tenebras; or a Chapter of Heart History.—By Mrs. G. M. Sykes. 286

Magnetism. 170

Memoir of Mrs. Van Lennep. 24

Ministering Spirits. 20

Mothers need the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. 353

My Baby. 309

My Little Niece Mary Jane. 55, 76

Music in Christian Families. 342

Never Faint in Prayer. 259

Never tempt another. 184

Notices of Books. 36, 131, 164

Old Juda. 96

One-Sided Christians. 283

Opening the Gate. 267

Parental Solicitude. 165

Prayer for Children sometimes unavailing. 213

Promises. 223

Recollections Illustrative of Maternal Influence. 37

Reminiscences of the late Rev. T.H. Gallaudet.—By Mrs. G. M. Sykes. 42

Report of Maternal Associations.—Putnam, O. 64

" " " 2d Presb. Church, Detroit, Mich. 84

" " " Salem, Mich. 86

Sabbath Meditations. 81

The Benefits of Baptism.—By Rev. W. Bannard. 120

The Bonnie Bairns. 53

The Boy the Father of the Man. 339

The Boy who never forgot his Mother. 202

The Death-bed Scene. 34

The Editor's Table. 67

The Family Promise.—By Rev. J. McCarroll, D.D. 109

The Importance of Family Religion.—By Rev. H. T. Cheever. 48

The Mission Money, or the Pride of Charity. 205, 234

The Mothers of the Bible.—Zipporah. 101

" " " The Mothers of Israel at Horeb. 133, 188

" " " The Mother of Samson. 197

" " " Naomi and Ruth. 229

" " " Hannah. 261

" " " Ichabod's Mother. 203

" " " Rizpah. 325

" " " Bathsheba. 357

The Mother's Portrait. 310

The Orphan Son and Praying Mother. 378

The Promise Fulfilled. 112, 145

The Riddle Solved. 211

The Stupid, Dull Child. 175

The Treasury of Thoughts. 162

The Wasted Gift, or Just a Minute. 125, 150

The Youngling of the Flock. 196

The Young Men's Christian Association.—By Mrs. L. H. Sigourney. 228

To Fathers.—By Amicus. 7

To my Father. 318

Trials. 227

Why are we not Christians? 346

Woman.—By Rev. M. S. Hutton, D.D. 370



MRS. WHITTELSEY'S

MAGAZINE FOR MOTHERS

AND DAUGHTERS.

* * * * *

Editorial.

A WORD OF EXHORTATION.

Sensible of our accountability to God, of our entire dependence upon his blessing for success in all our undertakings, knowing that of ourselves we can do nothing, but believing that through Christ strengthening us we may accomplish something in his service, we enter upon the duties of another year—the twentieth year of our editorial labors.

With language similar to that which the mother of Moses is supposed to have employed when she laid her tender offspring by the margin of the Nile:—

"Know this ark is charmed With incantations Pharaoh ne'er employed, With spells that impious Egypt never knew; With invocations to the living God, I twisted every slender reed together, And with a prayer did every ozier weave"—

we launched our frail bark upon the tide of public opinion. Since then, with varied success, have we pursued our course—often amid darkness, through difficulties and dangers, and to the present time have we been wafted in safety on our voyage, because, as he did Moses in the ark, "the Lord hath shut us in."

Referring whatever of success has attended our efforts to His blessing, and believing that He has given us length of days, and strengthened our weakness, and poured consolation into our hearts when ready to sink in despair, in answer to persevering and importunate prayer, we come to direct our readers to this source of wisdom and aid,—to urge upon them to engage often in this first duty and highest privilege. Let us go forth, dear friends, to the work we have to do in the education of our families, having invoked the Divine blessing upon our efforts, holding on to the promises of the covenant, and pleading for their fulfillment in reference to ourselves and our households.

As Mrs. H. More has beautifully said: "Prayer draws all the Christian graces into her focus. It draws Charity, followed by her lovely train—her forbearance with faults—her forgiveness of injuries—her pity for errors—her compassion for want. It draws Repentance, with her holy sorrows—her pious resolutions—her self-distrust. It attracts Truth, with her elevated eyes; Hope, with her gospel anchor; Beneficence, with her open hand; Zeal, looking far and wide; Humility, with introverted eye, looking at home."

And who need these graces more than parents, in the government and training of those committed to their charge? Could our Savior rise a great while before day,—forego the pleasures of social intercourse with his beloved disciples, and retiring to the mountains, offer up prayers with strong crying and tears, unto Him who was able to save from death in that he feared, and shall we, intrusted with the immortal destinies of our beloved offspring, refuse to follow his example, and pleading want of time and opportunity for this service, be guilty of unbelief, of indolence, and worldly-mindedness?

You labor in vain, dear readers, unless the arm of the Almighty shall be extended in your behalf, and you cannot receive the blessing except you ask it. Let then your supplications be addressed to your Father in heaven;—pray humbly, believingly, perseveringly, for wisdom and aid, then may you expect to be blessed. So important is this duty, and so much is it neglected, that we could not forbear to urge your attention thereto, ere we entered upon another year.

And will not our Christian friends remember us in their prayers, asking that we may be directed in what we shall say and do this present year, in the work in which we are engaged? And if God shall answer our united petitions, we shall not labor in vain.

* * * * *

Original.

TO FATHERS.

BY AMICUS.

How gladly would the writer gain (were it possible) the ear of every father in the land, if it were but for the short space of one quarter of an hour,—nay, some ten minutes, at a propitious time,—such a time as, perhaps, occasionally occurs, when business cases are not pressing, when the mind is at ease, and the heart has ceased its worldly throbbings. He wants such a quarter of an hour, if it ever exists.

"And for what?" That he may have an opportunity to propose some worldly scheme,—some plan which has reference to the probable accumulation of hundreds of thousands? Nothing of the kind. Fathers at the present day generally need no suggestions of this sort—no impulses from me in that direction. They are already so absorbed, that it is difficult to gain their attention to any matters which do not concern the line of business in which they are engaged.

Look for a moment at that busy, bustling man; you see him walking down Broadway this morning; it is early, quite early. May be he is calling a physician, or is on some visit to a sick friend. He walks so fast; and though early, there is something on his brow which indicates care and anxiety. And yet I think no one of his family is sick, nor do I know of any of his friends who are sick. I have seen that man out thus early so often, and hurrying at just that pace, that I suspect, after all, he is on his way to his place of business. That, doubtless, is the whole secret. He is engaged in a large mercantile concern. It seems to require—at least it takes—all his attention. He is absorbed in it. And, if you repair to his store or office at any hour of the day, you can scarcely see him,—not at all,—unless it be on some errand connected with his business, or with the business of some office he holds, and which must be attended to; and even in these matters you will find him restless. He attends to you so far as to hear your errand; and what then? Why, if it will require any length of time, he says: "I am very busy at this moment, I can't possibly attend to it to-day; will you call to-morrow? I may then have more leisure." Well, you agree for to-morrow. "Please name the hour," you say. He replies—"I can't name any hour; but call, say after twelve o'clock, and I will catch a moment, if I can, to talk over the business."

Now, that merchant is not to blame for putting you off. His business calls are so many and so complex, that he scarcely knows which way to turn, nor what calculations to make. The real difficulty is, he has undertaken too much; his plans are too vast; his "irons," as they say, are too many.

This is the morning aspect of affairs. Watch that merchant during the day,—will you find things essentially different? The morning, which is dark and cloudy and foggy, is sometimes followed by a clear, bright, beautiful day. The mists at length clear off, the clouds roll away, and a glorious sun shines out broadly to gladden the face of all nature. Not so with the modern man of business. It is labor, whirl, toil, all the day, from the hour of breakfast till night puts an end to the active, hurrying concerns of all men. There is no bright, cheerful, peaceful day to him. Scarcely has he time to eat—never to enjoy his dinner,—that must be finished in the shortest possible time: often at some restaurant, rather than with his family. Not one member of that does he see from the time he leaves the breakfast table till night, dark night has stretched out her curtain over all things.

Let us go home with him, and see how the evening passes.

His residence, from his place of business, perchance, is a mile or two distant—may be some fifteen or twenty, in which latter case he takes the evening train of cars. In either case he arrives home only at the setting in of the evening shades. How pleasant the release from the noise and confusion of the city! or, if he resides within the city, how pleasant in shutting his door, as he enters his dwelling, to shut out the thoughts and cares of business! His tea is soon ready, and for a little time he gives himself up to the comforts of home. His wife welcomes him, his children may be hanging upon him, and he realizes something of the joys of domestic life!

Scarcely, however, is supper ended, before it occurs to him that there is a meeting of such a committee, or such an insurance company, to which he belongs, and the hour is at hand, and he must go. And he hies away, and in some business on hand he becomes absorbed till the hours of nine, ten, or eleven, possibly twelve o'clock. He returns again to his home, wearied with the toils of the day,—his wife possibly, but certainly his children, have retired,—and he lays his aching head upon his pillow to catch some few hours of rest, and with the morning light to go through essentially the same busy routine, the same absorbing care, the same wearing, weary process.

This is an outline of the life which thousands of fathers are leading in this country at this present time. We do not pretend that it is true of all,—but is it not substantially true, as we have said, of thousands? And not only of thousands in our crowded marts of commerce, but in our principal towns—nay, even in our rural districts. It is an age of impulse. Every thing is proceeding with railroad speed. Every branch of business is urged forward with all practical earnestness. Every sail is set—main-sail, top-sails, star-gazers, heaven-disturbers—all expanded to catch the breeze, and urge the vessel to her destined port.

This thirst for gain! this panting after fortune! this competition in the race for worldly wealth, or honor, where is it leading the present generation—where?

To men who have families—to fathers, who see around them children just emerging from childhood into youth, or verging toward manhood,—this is and should be a subject of the deepest interest.

Fathers! am I wrong when I say you are neglecting your offspring? Neglecting them? do I hear you respond with surprise;—"Am I not daily, hourly stretching every nerve and tasking every power to provide for them, to insure them the means of an honorable appearance in that rank of society in which they were born, and in which they must move? In these days of competition, who sees not that any relaxation involves and necessarily secures bankruptcy and ruin?"

I hear you, and you urge strongly, powerfully your cause. You must, indeed, provide for your household. You must be diligent in business. You may—you ought in some good measure, to keep up with the spirit, the progress of the age. But has it occurred to you that there is danger in doing as you do; that you will neglect some other interests of your children as important, to say the least, as those you have named? Are not your children immortal? Have they not souls of priceless value? Have they not tendencies to evil from the early dawn of their being? And must not these souls be instructed—watched over? Do they not need counsel—warning—restraint? "O yes!" I hear you say, "they must be instructed—restrained—guided—all that, but this is the appropriate business and duty of their mother. I leave all these to her. I have no leisure for such cares myself; my business compels me to leave in charge all these matters to her."

And where, my friend—if I may speak plainly—do you find any warrant in the Word of God for such assumptions as these? Leave all the care of your children's moral and religious instruction, guidance, restraint, to their mother! It is indeed her duty, and in most cases she finds it her pleasure, to watch over her beloved ones. And in the morning of their being, and in the first years of their childhood, it is hers to watch over them, to cherish them, and to bring out and direct the first dawnings of their moral and intellectual being.

But beyond this the duties of father and mother are coincident. At a certain point your responsibilities touching the training of your children blend. I find nothing in the Word of God which separates fathers and mothers in relation to bringing up their children in the ways of virtue and obedience to God.

I know what fathers plead. I see the difficulties which often lie in their path. I am aware of the competition which marks every industrial pursuit in the land. And many men who wish it were different, who would love to be more with their families, who would delight to aid in instructing their little ones, find it, they think, quite impossible so to alter their business—so to cast off pressure and care, as to give due attention to the moral and religious training of their children.

But, fathers, might you not do better than you do? Suppose you should make the effort to have an hour each day to aid your wife in giving a right moral direction to your little ones? How you would encourage her! What an impulse would you give to her efforts! Now, how often has she a burden imposed upon her, which she is unable to bear! What uneasiness and worry—what care and trouble are caused her, by having, in this matter of training the children, to go on single-handed! whereas, were your parental authority added to her maternal tenderness, your children would prove the joy of your hearts and the comfort of your declining years. But as you manage—or rather as you neglect to manage them, a hundred chances to one if they do not prove your sorrow, when in years you are not able well to sustain it. Gather a lesson, my friend, from the conduct of David in respect to Absolom. He neglected him—he indulged him, and what was the consequence? The bright, beautiful, gifted Absolom planted thorns in his father's crown,—he attempted to dethrone him,—he was a fratricide,—he would have been a parricide: and what an end! Oh, what an end! Listen to the sorrowful outpourings of a fond, too fond, unfaithful parent: "My son, oh, my son Absolom,—would to God I had died for thee, oh, Absolom, my son, my son!"

Take another example, and may it prove a warning to such indulgence and such neglect! Eli had sons, and they grew up, and they walked in forbidden ways, and he restrained them not; yet he was a good man: but good men are sometimes most unfaithful fathers, and what can they expect? Shall we sin because grace abounds? Shall we neglect our children in expectation that the grace of God will intervene to rescue them in times of peril? That expectation were vain while we neglect our duty. That expectation is nearly or quite sure to be realized if duty be performed.

But I must insist no longer; I will only add, then, in a word,—that it were far, far better that your children should occupy a more humble station in life—that they should be dressed in fewer of the "silks of Ormus," and have less gold from the "mines of Ind," than to be neglected by a father in regard to their moral and religious training. Better leave them an interest in the Covenant than thousands of the treasures of the world. Your example, fathers,—your counsel—your prayers, are a better bequest than any you can leave them. Think of leaving them in a cold, rude, selfish world, without the grace of God to secure them, without his divine consolation to comfort. Think of the "voyage of awful length," you and they must "sail so soon." Think of the meeting in another world which lies before you and them, and say, Does the wide world afford that which could make amends for a separation—an eternal separation from these objects of your love?

* * * * *

Original.

FAULT-FINDING: ITS EFFECTS.

"What in creation have you done! Careless boy, how could you be so heedless? You are forever cutting some such caper, on purpose to ruin me I believe. Now go to work, and earn the money to pay for it, will you? lazy fellow!"

Coarse and passionate exclamations these, and I am sorry to say they were uttered by Mr. Colman, who would be exceedingly indignant if any body should hint a suspicion that he was, or could be, other than a gentleman, and a Christian. His son, a bright and well-meaning lad of fourteen, had accidentally hit the end of a pretty new walking cane, which his favorite cousin had given him a few hours before, against a delicate china vase which stood upon the mantle-piece, and in a moment it lay in fragments at his feet. He was sadly frightened, and would have been very sorry too, but for the harsh and ill-timed reproof of his father, which checked the humble plea for forgiveness just rising to his lips, and as Mr. Colman left the room, put on his hat and coat in the hall, and closed the street door with more than usual force, to go to his store, the young lad's feelings were anything but dutiful. Just then his mother entered.

"Why James Colman! Did you do that? I declare you are the most careless boy I ever beheld! That beautiful pair of vases your father placed there New Year's morning, to give me a pleasant surprise. I would not have had it broken for twenty dollars."

"Mother, I just hit it accidentally with this little cane, and I'm sure I'm as sorry as I can be."

"And what business has your cane in the parlor, I beg to know? I'll take it, and you'll not see it again for the present, if this is the way you expect to use it. You deserve punishment for such carelessness, and I wish your father had chastised you severely." And taking the offending cane from his hand, she, too, left him to meditations, somewhat like the following:—

"'Tis too bad, I declare! If I had tried to do the very wickedest thing I possibly could, father and mother would not have scolded me worse. That dear little cane! I told Henry I would show it to him on my way to school, and now what shall I say about it? It's abominable—it's right down cruel to treat me so. When I had not intended to do the least thing wrong, only just as I was looking at the bottom of my cane, by the merest accident the head of it touched that little useless piece of crockery. I hate the sight of you," he added, touching the many colored and gilded fragments with the toe of his boot, as they lay before him, "and I hate father and mother, and every body else—and I'm tired of being scolded for nothing at all. Big boy as I am, they scold me for every little thing, just as they did when I was a little shaver like Eddy. What's the use? I won't bear it. I declare I won't much longer." And then followed reveries like others often indulged before, of being his own master, and doing as he pleased without father and mother always at hand to dictate, and find fault, and scold him so bitterly if he happened to make a little mistake. Other boys of his age had left home, and taken care of themselves, and he would too. "I am as good a scholar as any one in school, except Charles Harvey, and I am as strong as any boy I play with, and pity if I can't take care of myself. Home! Yes, to be sure it might be a dear good home, but father is so full of business, and anxious, and thinking all the time, he never speaks to one of us, unless it is to tell us to do something, or to find fault with what is done. And mother—fret, fret, fret, tired to death with the care of the children, and company, and servants, and societies, and every thing—it really seems as if she had lost all affection for us—me, at any rate, and I am sure I don't care for any body that scolds at me so, and the sooner I am out of the way the better. I am sure if father is trying to make money to leave me some of it, I'd a thousand times rather he'd give me pleasant words as we go along, than all the dollars I shall ever get—yes, indeed I had."

The above scene, I am sorry to say, is but a sample of what occurred weekly, and I fear I might say daily, or even hourly, to some member of the family of Mr. Colman, and yet Mr. and Mrs. Colman were very good sort of people—made a very respectable appearance in the world, regular at church with their children—ate symbolically of the body, and drank of the blood, of that loving Savior, who ever spake gently to the youthful and the erring—and meant to be, and really thought they were, the very best of parents. Their children were well cared for, mentally and physically. They were well fed, well clothed, attended the best schools—but as they advanced beyond the years of infancy, there was in each of them the sullen look, or the discouraged tone, the tart reply, or the vexing remark, which made them any thing but beloved by their companions, any thing but happy themselves. At home there was ever some scene of dispute, or unkindness, to call forth the stern look, or the harsh command of their parents—abroad, the mingled remains of vexation and self-reproach, caused by their own conduct or that of others, made them hard to be pleased—and so the cloud thickened about them, and with all outward means for being happy, loving and beloved, they were a wretched family. James, the eldest, was impetuous and self-willed, but affectionate, generous, and very fond of reading and study, and with gentle and judicious management, would have been the joy and pride of his family, with the domestic and literary tastes so invaluable to every youth, in our day, when temptations of every kind are so rife in our cities and larger towns, that scarcely is the most moral of our young men safe, except in the sanctuary of God, or the equally divinely appointed sanctuary of home. But under the influences we have sketched, he had already begun to spend all his leisure time at the stores, the railroad depots, wharves, engine-houses, and other places of resort for loiterers, where he saw much to encourage the reckless and disobedient spirit, which characterized his soliloquy above quoted. Little did his parents realize the effects of their own doings. Full of the busy cares of this hurrying life, they fancied all was going on well, nor were they aroused to his danger, until some time after the scene of the broken vase, above alluded to, when his more frequent and prolonged absence from home, at meal times, and until a late hour in the evening, caused a severe reprimand from his father. With a heart swelling with rage and vexation, James went to his room—but not to bed. The purpose so long cherished in his mind, of leaving parental rule and restraint, was at its height. He opened his closet and bureau, and deliberately selected changes of clothing which would be most useful to him, took the few dollars he had carefully gathered for some time past for this purpose, and made all the preparation he could for a long absence from the home, parents, and friends, where, but for ungoverned tempers and tongues, he might have been so useful, respected and happy. When he could think of no more to be done, he looked about him. How many proofs of his mother's careful attention to his wishes and his comfort, did his chamber afford! And his little brother, five years younger, so quietly sleeping in his comfortable bed! Dearly he loved that brother, and yet hardly a day passed, in which they did not vex, and irritate, and abuse each other. He was half tempted to lie down by his side, and give up all thoughts of leaving home. But no. How severe his father would look at breakfast, and his mother would say something harsh. "No. I'll quit, I declare I will—and then if their hearts ache, I shall be glad of it. Mine has ached, till it's as hard as a stone. No, I've often tried, and now I'll go. I won't be called to account, and scolded for staying out of the house, when there is no comfort to be found in it." And again rose before his mind many scenes of cold indifference or harshness from his parents, which had, as he said, hardened his heart to stone. "I'll bid good bye to the whole of it. Little Em,—darling little sister! I wish I could kiss her soft sweet cheek once more. But she grows fretful every day, and by the time she is three years old, she will snap and snarl like the rest of us. I'll be out of hearing of it any way." And he softly raised the window sash, and slipped upon the roof of a piazza, from which he had often jumped in sport with his brothers, and in a few moments was at the depot. Soon the night train arrived, and soon was James in one of our large cities—and inquiring for the wharf of a steamer about to sail for California; and when the next Sabbath sun rose upon the home of his youth, he was tossing rapidly over the waves of the wide, deep, trackless ocean, one moment longing to be again amid scenes so long dear and familiar, and the next writhing, as he thought of the anger of his father, the reproaches of his mother. On he went, often vexed at the services he was called to perform, in working his passage out, for which his previous habits had poorly prepared him. On went the stanch vessel, and in due time landed safely her precious freight of immortal beings at the desired haven—but some of them were to see little of that distant land, where they had fondly hoped to find treasure of precious gold, and with it happiness. The next arrival at New York brought a list of recent deaths. Seven of that ship's company, so full of health and buoyancy and earthly hopes, but a few short months before, were hurried by fevers to an untimely, a little expected grave. And on that fatal list, was read with agonized hearts in the home of his childhood, the name of their first-born—James Colman, aged sixteen.

Boys! If your father and mother, in the midst of a thousand cares and perplexities, of which you know nothing—cares, often increased seven-fold, by their anxieties for you, are less tender and forgiving than you think they should be, will you throw off all regard for them, all gratitude for their constant proofs of real affection, and make shipwreck of your own character and hopes, and break their hearts? No—rather with noble disregard of your own feelings, strive still more to please them, to soothe the weary spirit you have disturbed, and so in due time you shall reap the reward of well-doing, and the blessing of Him, who hath given you the fifth commandment, and with it a promise.

Fathers! Provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged, for the tempter is ever at hand to lead them astray. The harsh reproof—the undeserved blame—cold silence, where should be the kind inquiry, or the affectionate welcome—oh, how do these things chill the young heart, and plant reserve where should be the fullest confidence, if you would save your child.

Mothers! Where shall the youthful spirit look for the saving influence of love, if not to you? The young heart craves sympathy. It must have it—it will have it. If not found at home, it will be found in the streets, and oh, what danger lurks there! Fathers and mothers—see to it, that if your child's heart cease to beat, your own break not with the remembrance of words and looks, that bite like a serpent and sting like an adder!

ELLEN ELLISON.

* * * * *

Original.

CHINESE DAUGHTERS.

Changhai, Aug. 15th, 1851.

MY DEAR MRS. WHITTELSEY:

In order to keep before my own mind a deep interest for this people, and to awaken corresponding sympathies in my native land, I make short monthly memorandums of my observations among the Chinese. They are indeed a singular people, with manners and customs peculiar to themselves; and it would seem that, in domestic life, every practice was the opposite of our own; but in the kindly feelings of our nature, those whom I have seen brought under the influence of Christian cultivation, are as susceptible as those of any nation on earth. At first they are exceedingly suspicious of you,—they do not, they cannot understand your motives in your efforts to do them good; and it is not until by making one's actions consistent with our words, and by close observation on their part, that you enjoy their confidence.

Since I last wrote I have been quite indisposed. During my husband's absence in committee my nurses were Chinese girls, one eleven, the other thirteen years of age. No mother who had bestowed the greatest care and cultivation upon her daughters, could have had more affectionate attention than I had from these late heathen girls,—they were indeed unto me as daughters,—every want was anticipated, and every thing that young, affectionate hearts could suggest, was done to alleviate my pain. One has been four years, the other a year and a-half, under instruction. Christianity softens, subdues, and renders docile the human mind, before the dark folds of heathenism have deepened and thickened with increasing years.

One of these pupils, after reading in the New Testament the narrative of Christ's sufferings, one day asks—"Why did Jesus come and suffer and be crucified?" I then explained to her as well as I could in her own tongue. She always seems thoughtful when she reads the Scriptures. Will some maternal association remember in prayer these Chinese girls?

During the current month a vile placard has been published against foreigners, and some of the pupils have been railed at by their acquaintances for being under our instruction. One, on returning from a visit to her friends, told me the bitter and wicked things that were said and written; I asked her if she had found them true? she said "No." I asked her if foreigners, such as she had seen, spoke true or false? She said "always true." Did they wish to kill and destroy the Chinese as the placard stated? She replied, "No; but they helped the poor Chinese when their own people would not." The mothers were somewhat alarmed lest we were all to be destroyed. We told them there was nothing to fear, and their confidence remained unshaken.

The school has enjoyed a recess of a week from study, but they do not go to their own homes, except to return the same day. Our house is just like a bee-hive, with their activity at their several employments; and usually some deprivation is a sufficient punishment for a dereliction from any duty.

Who will pray for these daughters? Who will sympathize with the low-estate of the female sex in China? I appeal to the happy mothers and daughters of America, our dear native land. Though severed from thee voluntarily, willingly, cheerfully, yet do we love thee still; thy Sabbaths hallowed by the voice of prayer and praise; thy Christian ordinances blessed with the Spirit's power. Oh, when will China, the home of our adoption, be thus enlightened, and her idol temples turned into sanctuaries for the living God?

Affectionately, ELIZA J. BRIDGMAN.

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Original.

MINISTERING SPIRITS.

LINES WRITTEN FOR A LITTLE GIRL BY AN EPISCOPAL CLERGYMAN.

Do ANGELS minister to me— Can such a wonder ever be? Oh, sure they are too great; Too glorious with their raiment white, And wings so beautiful and bright, Upon a child to wait.

Yet so it is in truth, I know, For Jesus Christ has told us so, And that to them is given The loving task to guard with care And keep from every evil snare The chosen ones of heaven.

And so if I am good and mild, And try to be a holy child, My angel will rejoice; And sound his golden harp to Him Who dwells among the cherubim, And praise Him with his voice.

But if I sin against the Lord, By evil thought or evil word, Or do a wicked thing; Ah! then what will my angel say? Oh, he will turn his face away, And vail it with his wing.

Then let us pray to Him who sends His angels down to be our friends, That, strengthened by his grace, I may not prove a wandering sheep, Nor ever make my angel weep, Nor hide his glorious face.

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Original.

A TEMPTATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Not long since, in one of the cities on the Atlantic seaboard, there was a lad employed in a large jewelry establishment. A part of his duty was to carry letters to the post-office, or to the mail-bag on the boat, when too late to be mailed in the regular way. On one occasion, after depositing his letters, he observed a part of a letter, put in by some other person, projecting above the opening in the bag. Seizing the opportunity he extracted this letter without being seen, and took it home. On examination he found it contained a draft for one thousand dollars. Forging the name of the person on whom it was drawn, he presented the draft at a bank and drew the money, and very soon afterwards proceeded to a distant western city.

After a little while, the draft was missed and inquiries made. It was found that this lad had been near the mailbag on the day when the missing letter had been put in it, that he was unusually well provided with money, and that he had suddenly disappeared. Officers of justice were commissioned to find him. They soon traced him to his new residence, charged him with his crime, which he at once confessed, and brought him back to meet the consequences of a judicial investigation. After a short imprisonment he was released on bail, but still held to answer, and thus the case stands at present. He must of course be convicted, but whether the penalty of the law will be inflicted in whole or in part, it will be for the Executive to say.

Meanwhile the circumstances suggest some thoughts which may be worth the reader's attention. This lad was a member of a Sunday school, but irregular in his attendance, and this latter fact may in some degree explain his wandering from the right path. He might, indeed, have been a punctual attendant on his class, and still have fallen into this gross sin, but it is not at all probable. And it is curious and instructive, that wherever any inmates of prisons, houses of refuge, or other places of the kind, are found to have been connected with Sunday-schools, it is nearly always stated in accompaniment that they attended only occasionally and rarely.

Again, how much weight is there in Job's remarkable expression (ch. 31:5), I have made a covenant with my eyes! The eye, the most active of our senses, is the chiefest inlet of temptation, and hence the apostle John specifies "the lust of the eyes" as a leading form or type of ordinary sins. The lad in the case before us allowed his eye to dwell on the letter, until the covetous desire to appropriate it had grown into a fixed purpose. Had he made the same covenant as Job, and turned his eye resolutely away as soon as he felt the first wrongful emotion in his heart, the result had been widely different. But he rather imitated the unhappy Achan, who, in recounting his sin, says, "When I saw among the spoils a Babylonish garment and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold, then I coveted them." A fool's eyes soon lead his hands astray.

Here also we see the deceitfulness of the heart. A mere boy of fifteen years, of good ordinary training, at least in part connected with a Sunday-school, and not prompted by any urgent bodily necessity, commits a crime punishable by fine and imprisonment. Had any one foretold to him a week before even the possibility of this occurrence, how indignantly would he have spurned the very thought! That he should become, and deservedly so, the inmate of a felon's cell—how monstrous the supposition! Yet so it came to pass. The heart is deceitful above all things, and he who trusts in it is "cursed." Multitudes find their own case the renewal of Hazael's experience. When Elijah told him the enormities he, when on the throne of Syria, would practice, he exclaimed—"Is thy servant a dog that he should do these things?" He was not then, but he afterwards became just such a dog.

But if the heart be deceitful, sin is scarcely less so. When the poor boy first clutched his prize, as he esteemed it, he promised himself nothing but pleasure and profit, but how miserably was he deceived! After he had converted the draft into money, and thus rendered its return impossible without detection, he saw his guilt in its true character, and for many nights tossed in torment on a sleepless bed, while at last he was made to take his place along with hardened convicts in a city prison. Thus it always is with sin. Like the book the apostle ate in vision, it is sweet as honey in the mouth, but bitter in the belly. Like the wine Solomon describes, it may sparkle in the cup and shoot up its bright beads on the surface, but at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. The experiment has been tried times without number, from the beginning in Eden down to our own day, by communities and by individuals, but invariably with the same result. The way of transgressors is hard, however it may seem to them who are entering upon it a path of primrose dalliance. And surely "whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise."

Finally, how needful is it to pray—"Lead us not into temptation." Snares lie all around us, whether old or young, and it is vain to seek an entire escape from their intrusion. The lad we are considering, had not gone out of his way to meet the temptation by which he fell. On the contrary, he was doing his duty, he was just where he ought to have been. Yet there the adversary found him, and there he finds every man. The very fact that one is in a lawful place and condition is apt to throw him off his guard. There is but one safeguard under grace, and that is habitual watchfulness. Without this the strongest may fall—with it, the feeblest may stand firm. O for such a deep and abiding conviction of the keenness of temptation and the dreadful evil of sin as to lead all to cry mightily unto God, and at the same time be strenuous in effort themselves—to pray and also to watch.

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Original.

MEMOIR OF MRS. VAN LENNEP.

The following review, written by Mrs. D.E. Sykes, of the Memoir of Mrs. M.E. Van Lennep, we deem among the finest specimens of that class of writings. The remarks it contains on the religious education of daughters are so much in point, and fall in so aptly with the design of our work, that we have obtained permission to publish it. We presume it will be new to most of our readers, as it originally appeared in the New Englander, a periodical which is seldom seen, except in a Theological Library.

An additional reason for our publishing it is, our personal interest both in the reviewer, who we are happy to say has become a contributor to our pages, and the reviewed—having been associated with the mothers of each, for a number of years, in that most interesting of all associations, "The Mother's Meeting."

For eleven years, Mary E. Hawes, afterwards Mrs. Van Lennep, was an attentive and interested listener to the instructions given to the children at our quarterly meetings—and it is interesting to know that her mother regards the influence of those meetings as powerfully aiding in the formation of her symmetrical Christian character.

An eminent painter once said to us, that he always disliked to attempt the portrait of a woman; it was so difficult to give to such a picture the requisite boldness of feature and distinctness of individual expression, without impairing its feminine character. If this be true in the delineation of the outer and material form, how much more true is it of all attempts to portray the female mind and heart! If the words and ways, the style of thinking and the modes of acting, all that goes to make up a biography, have a character sufficiently marked to individualize the subject, there is a danger that, in the relating, she may seem to have overstepped the decorum of her sex, and so forfeit the interest with which only true delicacy can invest the woman.

It is strange that biography should ever succeed. To reproduce any thing that was transient and is gone, not by repetition as in a strain of music, but by delineating the emotions it caused, is an achievement of high art. An added shade of coloring shows you an enthusiast, and loses you the confidence and sympathy of your cooler listener. A shade subtracted leaves so faint a hue that you have lost your interest in your own faded picture, and of course, cannot command that of another. Even an exact delineation, while it may convey accurately a part of the idea of a character, is not capable of transmitting the more volatile and subtle shades. You may mix your colors never so cunningly, and copy never so minutely every fold of every petal of the rose, and hang it so gracefully on its stem, as to present its very port and bearing, but where is its fragrance, its exquisite texture, and the dewy freshness which was its crowning grace?

So in biography, you may make an accurate and ample statement of facts,—you may even join together in a brightly colored mosaic the fairest impressions that can be given of the mind of another—his own recorded thoughts and feelings—and yet they may fail to present the individual. They are stiff and glaring, wanting the softening transition of the intermediate parts and of attending circumstances.

And yet biography does sometimes succeed, not merely in raising a monumental pile of historical statistics, and maintaining for the friends of the departed the outlines of a character bright in their remembrance; but in shaping forth to others a life-like semblance of something good and fair, and distinct enough to live with us thenceforward and be loved like a friend, though it be but a shadow.

Such has been the feeling with which we have read and re-read the volume before us. We knew but slightly her who is the subject of it, and are indebted to the memoir for any thing like a conception of the character; consequently we can better judge of its probable effect upon other minds. We pronounce it a portrait successfully taken—a piece of uncommonly skillful biography. There is no gaudy exaggeration in it,—no stiffness, no incompleteness. We see the individual character we are invited to see, and in contemplating it, we have all along a feeling of personal acquisition. We have found rare treasure; a true woman to be admired, a daughter whose worth surpasses estimation, a friend to be clasped with fervor to the heart, a lovely young Christian to be admired and rejoiced over, and a self-sacrificing missionary to be held in reverential remembrance. Unlike most that is written to commemorate the dead, or that unvails the recesses of the human heart, this is a cheerful book. It breathes throughout the air of a spring morning. As we read it we inhale something as pure and fragrant as the wafted odor of

"——old cherry-trees, Scented with blossoms."

We stand beneath a serene unclouded sky, and all around us is floating music as enlivening as the song of birds, yet solemn as the strains of the sanctuary. It is that of a life in unison from its childhood to its close; rising indeed like "an unbroken hymn of praise to God." There is no austerity in its piety, no levity in its gladness. It shows that "virtue in herself is lovely," but if "goodness" is ever "awful," it is not here in the company of this young happy Christian heart.

We have heard, sometimes, that a strictly religious education has a tendency to restrict the intellectual growth of the young, and to mar its grace and freedom. We have been told that it was not well that our sons and daughters should commit to memory texts and catechisms, lest the free play of the fancy should be checked and they be rendered mechanical and constrained in their demeanor, and dwarfish in their intellectual stature. We see nothing of this exemplified in this memoir. One may look long to find an instance of more lady-like and graceful accomplishments, of more true refinement, of more liberal and varied cultivation, of more thorough mental discipline, of more pliable and available information, of a more winning and wise adaptation to persons and times and places, than the one presented in these pages. And yet this fair flower grew in a cleft of rugged Calvinism; the gales which fanned it were of that "wind of doctrine" called rigid orthodoxy. We know the soil in which it had its root. We know the spirit of the teachings which distilled upon it like the dew. The tones of that pulpit still linger in our ears, familiar as those of "that good old bell," and we are sure that there is no pulpit in all New England more uncompromising in its demands, more strictly and severely searching in its doctrines.

But let us look more closely at the events of this history of a life, and note their effect in passing upon the character of its subject.

MARY, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Hawes, of Hartford, Conn., was born in 1821. Following her course through her youth, we are no where surprised at the development of any remarkable power of mind. She was prayerful and conscientious, diligent in acquiring knowledge, enthusiastic in her love of nature, evincing in every thing a refined and feminine taste, and a quick perception of the beautiful in art, in literature, and in morals. But the charm of her character lay in the warmth of her heart. Love was the element in which she lived. She loved God—she loved her parents—she loved her companions—she loved everybody. It was the exuberant, gushing love of childhood, exalted by the influences of true piety. She seems never to have known what it was to be repelled by a sense of weakness or unworthiness in another, or to have had any of those dislikes and distastes and unchristian aversions which keep so many of us apart. She had no need to "unlearn contempt." This was partly the result of natural temperament, but not all. Such love is a Christian grace. He that "hath" it, has it because he "dwelleth in God and God in him." It is the charity which Paul inculcated; that which "thinketh no evil," which "hopeth" and "believeth all things." It has its root in humility; it grows only by the uprooting of self. He who would cultivate it, must follow the injunction to let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of heart esteem others better than himself. As Jesus took a little child and set him in the midst to teach his disciples, so would we place this young Christian woman in the assemblies of some who are "called of men Rabbi, Rabbi," that they may learn from her "which be the first principles" of the Christian life.

But let no one suppose that there was any weakness or want of just discrimination in the subject of this memoir. It is true that the gentler elements predominated in her character, and her father knew what she needed, when he gave her the playful advice to "have more of Cato." Without Christian principle she might have been a victim of morbid sensitiveness, or even at the mercy of fluctuating impulses; but religion supplied the tonic she needed, and by the grace of God aiding her own efforts, we see her possessed of firmness of purpose and moral courage enough to rebuke many of us who are made of sterner stuff.

For want of room we pass over many beautiful extracts from the memoir made to exhibit the traits of her character, and to illustrate what is said by the reviewer.

In September, 1843, Miss H. was married to the Rev. J. Van Lennep, and in the following October sailed with him for his home in Smyrna. Our readers have learned from the letter of Rev. Mr. Goodell, which we lately published, through what vicissitudes Mrs. Van Lennep passed after her arrival at Constantinople, which had been designated as her field of labor.

It was there she died, September 27, 1844, in the twenty-third year of her age, only one year and twenty-three days from her marriage-day, and before she had fully entered upon the life to which she had consecrated herself. Of her it has been as truly as beautifully said:

"Thy labor in the vineyard closed, Long e'er the noon-tide sun, The dew still glistened on the leaves, When thy short task was done."

And yet this life, "so little in itself," may be found to have an importance in its consequences, hardly anticipated at first by those who, overwhelmed by this sudden and impetuous providence, were ready to exclaim, "To what purpose is this waste?" Her day of influence will extend beyond the noon or the even-tide of an ordinary life of labor. "Sweet Mary Hawes" (as she is named by one who never saw her, and whose knowledge of her is all derived from the volume we have been reviewing), shall long live in these pages, embalmed in unfading youth, to win and to guide many to Him, at whose feet she sat and learned to "choose the better part." Her pleasant voice will be heard in our homes, assuring our daughters that "there is no sphere of usefulness more pleasant than this;" bidding them believe that "it is a comfort to take the weight of family duties from a mother, to soothe and cheer a wearied father, and a delight to aid a young brother in his evening lesson, and to watch his unfolding mind." They shall catch her alacrity and cheerful industry, and her "facility in saving the fragments of time, and making them tell in something tangible" accomplished in them. They shall be admonished not to waste feeling in discontented and romantic dreaming, or in sighing for opportunities to do good on a great scale, till they have filled up as thoroughly and faithfully as she did the smaller openings for usefulness near at hand.

She shall lead them by the hand to the Sabbath-school teacher's humble seat, on the tract distributor's patient circuit, or on errands of mercy into the homes of sickness and destitution,—into the busy sewing-circle, or the little group gathered for social prayer. It is well too that they should have such a guide, for the offense of the Cross has not yet ceased, and the example of an accomplished and highly educated young female will not fail of its influence upon others of the same class, who wish to be Christians, and yet are so much afraid of every thing that may seem to border on religious cant, as to shrink back from the prayer-meeting, and from active personal efforts for the salvation of others. Her cheerful piety shall persuade us that "it is indeed the simplest, the easiest, the most blessed thing in the world, to give up the heart to the control of God, and by daily looking to him for strength to conquer our corrupt inclinations, to grow in every thing that will make us like him." Her bright smile is worth volumes to prove that "Jesus can indeed satisfy the heart," and that if the experience of most of us has taught us to believe, that there is far more of conflict than of victory in the Christian warfare,—more shadow than sunshine resting upon the path of our pilgrimage, most of the fault lies in our own wayward choice. The child-like simplicity and serene faith of this young disciple, shall often use to rebuke our anxious fears, and charm away our disquietudes with the whisper—"that sweet word, TRUST, tells all." Her early consecration of her all to the great work of advancing the Redeemer's kingdom, shall rouse us who have less left of life to surrender, to redouble our efforts in spreading like "love and joy and peace," over the earth, lest when it shall be said of her, "She hath done what she could," it shall also be added, "She hath done more than they all."

There has been no waste here,—no sacrifice but that by which, in oriental alchemy, the bloom and the beauty of the flower of a day is transmitted into the imperishable odor, and its fragrance concentrated, in order that it may be again diffused abroad to rejoice a thousand hearts. If any ask again, "To what purpose was this waste?"—we answer, "The Lord had need of it."

* * * * *

We are indebted to God for the gift of Washington: but we are no less indebted to him for the gift of his inestimable mother. Had she been a weak and indulgent and unfaithful parent, the unchecked energies of Washington might have elevated him to the throne of a tyrant, or youthful disobedience might have prepared the way for a life of crime and a dishonored grave.

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Original.

INSTRUCTION OF THE YOUNG IN THE DOCTRINES AND PRECEPTS OF THE GOSPEL.

MRS. A. G. WHITTELSEY:

DEAR MADAM—It is among the recollections of my early youth, that your departed husband was pastor of one of the churches in the southern section of Litchfield County, Conn. Among the distinguishing religious characteristics of that portion of country, at that period, was the soundness of the Congregational churches in the faith of the gospel: the means for which, in diligent use, were, the faithful preaching of the gospel in its great and fundamental doctrines and precepts; and catechetical instruction, in the family and in the school. I am not informed as to the present habits there, on the latter means. But knowing what was the practice, extensively, in regard to the instruction of children and youth, and what its effects on the interests of sound piety and morals in those days, I feel myself standing on firm ground for urging upon the readers of your Magazine, the importance of the instruction of the young in the doctrines and duties of the gospel. The position taken in your Magazine, on that great and important subject, Infant Baptism, is one which you will find approved and sustained by all who fully appreciate the means for bringing the sons and daughters of the Church to Christ. I hope that in its pages will also be inculcated all those great and distinguishing doctrines and commands of our holy religion, which, in the Bible, and in the minds of all sound and faithful men, and all sound confessions of Christian faith, stand inseparably associated with Infant Baptism.

Such instruction should be imparted by parents themselves; not left to teachers in the Sabbath-school alone; as soon as the minds of children begin to be capable of receiving instruction, of any kind, and of being impressed, permanently, by such instruction. It should be imparted frequently—or, rather, constantly,—as God directed his anointed people: "And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down and when thou risest up." It should be done with clearness and simplicity, adapted to the minds of children and youth; with particularity; and with a fullness, as regards "the whole word of God," which shall not leave them uninstructed in any doctrine or command in the sacred word. These points in the manner of instructing the young are suggested, with an eye to the fact, that since the establishment of Sunday-schools, there is a temptation for parents to leave to others this important work; that it is therefore delayed till the age at which children have learned to read,—by which time, some of the best opportunities for impressing truth have become lost—because also there is infrequency and omission of duty; and because there is not always the requisite pains taken to have children understand what is taught; and indefinite ideas on the doctrines and precepts of the gospel are the consequences; and because there is an inclination, too often indicated, to pass over some doctrines and precepts, under the notion that they are distasteful, and will repel the young mind from religion. We set down as a principle of sound common sense, as well as religion, that every truth of the Bible which is concerned in making men wise unto salvation, is to be taught to every soul whose salvation is to be sought, and that at every period of life.

Let a few words be said, relative to the advantages of thorough and faithful instruction of the young, in the doctrines and duties of the gospel. It pre-occupies and guards their minds against religious error. It prepares them early and discriminately to perceive and understand the difference between Bible truth, and the words taught by men, however ingenious and plausible. It exerts a salutary moral influence, even before conversion takes place,—which is of high importance to a life of correct morality. It prepares the way for intelligent and sound conversion to God, whenever that desirable event takes place; and for subsequent solidity and strength of Christian character, to the end of life. Added to these, it may in strict propriety be asserted, that the influence of thorough instruction in the sound and sacred truths of God's word is inestimable upon the intellect as well as on the heart. Divine truth is the grand educator of the immortal mind. It is therefore an instrumentality to be used in childhood and youth, as well as in adult years.

The objection often made, to omit instruction as advocated in this article,—that children and youth cannot understand it,—is founded in a mistake. Thousands and thousands of biographies of children and youth present facts which obviate the objection and go to correct the mistake. It is the beauty of what our Savior called "the kingdom of God,"—the religion of the gospel,—that while it is to be "received" by every one "as a little child," it is received by many "a little child," who is early taught it. But on the other hand, it is an affecting and most instructive fact, that of multitudes who are left uninstructed in early life, in the truths of the gospel; that Scripture is proved but too true, "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."

May your Magazine, dear Madam, be instrumental in advancing the best interests of the rising generation, by its advocacy of bringing up children "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord;" into which enters, fundamentally, teaching to the young,—by parents themselves,—and that "right early," constantly, clearly, particularly and fully, the truths of the gospel; the sure and unerring doctrine and commands of the Word of God. With Christian salutations, yours truly,

E. W. HOOKER. South Windsor, Conn., August, 1851.

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Original.

THE DEATH-BED SCENE.

The following death-bed conversation of a beloved daughter, detailed to us by her mother, exhibits such sweet resignation and trust in God, that we give it a place in our Magazine. Would that we all might be prepared to resign this life with cheerfulness, and with like hopes enter upon that which is to come!

"Mother," said she, "I once thought I could be a Christian without making a profession of religion, but when God took my little Burnet from me, I knew he did it to subdue the pride of my heart and bring me to the foot of the Cross. Satan has been permitted to tempt me, but the Savior has always delivered me from his snares."

I was absent from her one day for a short time; when I returned she looked at me with such a heavenly expression, and said:

"Mother, I thought just now I was dying; I went to the foot of the Cross with my burden of sins and sorrows, and left them there. Now all is peace; I am not afraid to die."

Her father coming, she took his hand in hers and said:

"My dear father, if I have prayed for one thing more than another, it has been for your salvation, but God, doubtless, saw that my death (which will, I know, be one of the greatest trials you have ever met with) is necessary to save you; and although I love my parents, husband and children dearly as any one ever did, and have every thing in this world that I could wish for, yet I am willing to die—Here, Lord, take me."

Her sister coming in, she said to her:—"My dear Caroline, you see what a solemn thing it is to die. What an awful thing it must be for those who have no God. Dear sister, learn to love the Savior, learn to pray, do not be too much taken up with the world, it will disappoint you."

After saying something to each one present, turning to me, she said:

"My dear mother, I thank you for your kind care of me, for keeping me from places of dissipation. I thought once you were too strict, but now I bless you for it. I shall not be permitted to smooth your dying pillow, but I shall be ready to meet you when you land on the shores of Canaan. Dear mother, come soon."

To Mr. H. she said:—"Dear husband, you were the loadstone that held me longest to the earth, but I have been enabled to give you up at last. I trust you are a Christian, and we shall meet in heaven. Take care of our children, train them up for Christ, keep them from the world." She then prayed for them. After lying still for some time, she said:

"Mother, I thought I was going just, now, and I tried to put up one more prayer for my husband, children, and friends, but (looking up with a smile), would you believe I could not remember their names, and I just said, Here they are, Lord, take them, and make them what thou wouldst have them, and bring them to thy kingdom at last."

When she was almost cold, and her tongue stiffened, she motioned me to put my head near her.

"My dear child," said I, "it seems to distress you to talk, don't try."

"Oh, mother, let me leave you all the comfort I can, it is you who must still suffer; my sufferings are just over; I am passing over Jordan, but the waves do not touch me; my Savior is with me, and keeps them off. Never be afraid to go to him. Farewell! And now, Lord Jesus, come, O come quickly. My eyes are fixed on the Savior, and all is peace. Let me rejoice! let me rejoice!"

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NOTICES OF BOOKS.

"ROGER MILLER," OR "HEROISM IN HUMBLE LIFE,"—Is the title of a small "Narrative"—a reprint from a London Edition, by Carter and Brothers, 235 Broadway, New York.

The field of benevolent action of this holy man, was that great metropolis—London. His life and character were in fact a counterpart of our own Harlan Page. The somewhat extended "Introduction" to this reprint was prepared by Dr. James Alexander. We feel justified in saying, with his extensive experience, and his keen perceptions of truth and of duty in such matters, this Introduction is worth all the book may cost.

The main thought of the work suggests "The condition of our metropolitan population"—points out the "true remedy" for existing evils—shows us the value of "lay agency," and "how much may be done by individuals of humble rank and least favored circumstances."

Every parent has a personal interest to aid and encourage such benevolent action. Vice is contagious. Let our seaboard towns become flagrantly wicked—with "railroad speed" the infection will travel far and wide. Mothers are invited to peruse this little volume—as an encouragement to labor and pray, and hope for the conversion of wayward wandering sons—for wicked and profligate youth.

Roger Miller, whose death caused such universal lamentation in the city of London, was for many years a wanderer from God, and was at length converted by means of a tract, given him by the "way-side," by an old and decrepit woman.

"NEWCOMB'S MANUAL"—Is a carefully prepared little volume, containing Scripture questions, designed for the use of Maternal Associations at their Quarterly Meetings.

"MARY ASHTON"—Is the title of a little work recently issued from the press, delineating the difference between the character of the London boarding-school Miss, and one of nearly the same age, educated and trained by the devoted, affectionate care of a pious mother. The influence which the latter exerts upon the former is also set forth during the progress of the story. Those readers who are fond of delineations of English scenery and of the time-hallowed influences of the old English Church, will be pleased with the style of the volume, while some few mothers may possess the delightful consciousness of viewing in Mary Ashton the image of their loved ones now laboring in the vineyard of the Lord, or transferred to his more blessed service in the skies. But few such, alas! are to be found among even the baptized children of the Church; those on whom the dew and rain gently distilled in the privacy of home and from the public sanctuary bring forth the delightsome plant. God grant that such fruits may be more abundant!

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Original.

RECOLLECTIONS ILLUSTRATIVE OF MATERNAL INFLUENCE.

In thinking over the scenes of my childhood the other day, I was led to trace the path of some of my youthful companions into life; and I could not but be struck with the fact, that in almost every instance, both the character and the condition were referable, in a great measure, to the influence of the mother. Some of them were blessed with good mothers, and some were cursed with bad ones; and though the conviction is not in all the cases marked with equal distinctness, yet in several of them, the very image and superscription of the mother remains upon the child to this day. I sometimes visit the place which was the scene of my early training, and inquire for those who were the playmates of my childhood, and I receive answers to some of my inquiries that well nigh make me shudder; but when I think of the early domestic influence, especially the maternal influence, to which some of them were subjected, there is nothing in the account that I hear concerning them, but what is easily explained. For the cause of their present degradation and ruin, I have no occasion to go outside of the dwelling in which they were reared. I am glad to put on record, for the benefit of both mothers and their children, two of the cases which now occur to me, as illustrative of different kinds of maternal influence.

One of the boys who attended the same school with me, and whose father's residence was very near my father's, was, even at that early period, both vulgar and profane in his talk. He seemed destitute of all sense and propriety, caring nothing for what was due from him to others, and equally regardless of the good-will of his teacher and of his companions. When I returned to the place, after a few years' absence, and inquired for him, I was told that he was growing up, or rather had grown up, in habits of vice, which seemed likely to render him an outlaw from all decent society: that even then he had no associates except from the very dregs of the community. In my visits to my native place ever since, I have kept my eye upon him, as a sad illustration of the progress of sin. He has been for many years—I cannot say an absolute sot—but yet an intemperate drinker. He has always been shockingly profane; not only using the profane expressions that are commonly heard in the haunts of wickedness, but actually putting his invention to the rack to originate expressions more revolting, if possible, than anything to be found in the acknowledged vocabulary of blasphemy. He has been through life an avowed infidel—not merely a deist, but a professed atheist,—laughing at the idea both of a God and a hereafter; though his skepticism, instead of being the result of inquiry or reflection, or being in any way connected with it, is evidently the product of unrestrained vicious indulgence. His domestic relations have been a channel of grief and mortification to those who have been so unfortunate as to be associated with him. His wife, if she is still living, lives with a broken heart, and the time has been when she has dreaded the sound of his footsteps. His children, notwithstanding the brutalizing influence to which they have been subjected, have, by no means, sunk down to his standard of corruption; and some of them at least would seem ready to hang their heads when they call him "father." I cannot at this moment think of a more loathsome example of moral debasement than this person presents. I sometimes meet him, and from early associations, even take his hand; but I never do it without feeling myself in contact with the very personification of depravity.

Now, I am not surprised at all this, when I go back to the time when he had a mother, and remember what sort of a mother she was. She was coarse and vulgar in her habits; and I well recollect that the interior of her dwelling was so neglected, that it scarcely rose above a decent stable. The secret of this, and most of her other delinquencies was, that she was a lover of intoxicating drinks. I believe she sometimes actually made a beast of herself; but oftener drank only so much as to make her silly and ridiculous. It happened in her case, as in many similar ones, that her fits of being intoxicated were fits of being religious; and though, when she was herself, she never, to my knowledge, made any demonstrations of piety or devotion; yet the moment her tongue became too large for her mouth, she was sure to use it in the most earnest and glowing religious professions. A stranger might have taken her at such a time for a devoted Christian; but alas! her religion was only that of a wretched inebriate.

Now who can think it strange that such a mother should have had such a son? Not only may the general corrupt character of the son be accounted for by the general corrupt influence of the mother, but the particular traits of the son's character may also be traced to particular characteristics of the mother, as an effect to its legitimate cause. The single fact that she was intemperate, and that her religion was confined to her fits of drunkenness, would explain it all. Of course, the education of her son was utterly neglected. No pains were taken to impress his mind with the maxims of truth and piety. He was never warned against the power of temptation, but was suffered to mingle with the profane and the profligate, without any guard against the unhallowed influences to which he was exposed. This, of itself, would be enough to account for his forming a habit of vice—even for his growing up a profligate;—for such are the tendencies of human nature, that the mere absence of counsel and guidance and restraint, is generally sufficient to insure a vicious character. But in the case to which I refer, there was more than the absence of a good example—there was the presence of a positively bad one—and that in the form of one of the most degrading of all vices. The boy saw his mother a drunkard, and why should he not become a drunkard too? The boy saw that his mother's religious professions were all identified with her fits of intoxication, and why should he not grow up as he did, without any counteracting influence? why should he not settle down with the conviction that religion is a matter of no moment? nay, why should he not become what he actually did become,—a scoffer and an atheist? Whenever I meet him, I see in his face, not only a reproduction of his mother's features, but that which tells of the reproduction of his mother's character. I pity him that he should have had such a mother, while I loathe the qualities which he has inherited from her, or which have been formed through the influence of her example.

The other case forms a delightful contrast to the one already stated, and is as full of encouragement as that is full of warning. Another of my playmates was a boy who was always noticed for being perfectly-correct and unexceptionable in all his conduct. I never heard him utter a profane or indecent word. I never knew him do a thing even of questionable propriety. He was bright and playful, but never mischievous. He was a good scholar, not because he had very remarkable talents, but because he made good use of his time—because he was taught to regard it as his duty to get his lessons well, and he could not be happy in any other course. His teachers loved him because he was diligent and respectful; his playmates loved him, because he was kind and obliging; all loved him, because he was an amiable, moral, well-disposed boy. He evinced so much promise, that his parents, though not in affluent circumstances, resolved on giving him a collegiate education, and in due time he became a member of one of our highest literary institutions. There he maintained a high rank for both scholarship and morality, and graduated with distinguished honor. Not long after this, his mind took a decidedly serious direction, and he not only gave himself to the service of God, but resolved to give himself also to the ministry of reconciliation. After passing through the usual course and preparation for the sacred office, he entered it; and he is now the able and successful minister of a large and respectable congregation. He has already evidently been instrumental of winning many souls. I hear of him from time to time, as among the most useful ministers of the day. I occasionally meet him, and see for myself the workings of his well-trained mind, and his generous and sanctified spirit. I say to myself, I remember you, when you were only the germ of what you are; but surely the man was bound up in the boy. I witness nothing in your maturity which was not shadowed forth in your earliest development.

Here again, let me trace the stream to its fountain—the effect to its cause. This individual was the child of a discreet and faithful Christian mother. She dedicated him to God in holy baptism, while he was yet unconscious of the solemn act. She watched the first openings of his intellect, that no time might be lost in introducing the beams of immortal truth. She guarded him during his childhood, from the influence of evil example, especially of evil companions, with the most scrupulous care. She labored diligently to suppress the rising of unhallowed tempers and perverse feelings, with a view to prevent, if possible, the formation of any vicious habit, while she steadily inculcated the necessity of that great radical change, which alone forms the basis of a truly spiritual character. And though no human eye followed her to her closet, I doubt not that her good instructions were seconded by her fervent prayers; and that as often as she approached the throne of mercy, she left there a petition for the well-doing and the well-being, the sanctification and salvation of her son. And her work of faith and labor of love were not in vain. The son became all that she could have asked, and she lived to witness what he became. She lived to listen to his earnest prayers and his eloquent and powerful discourses. She lived to hear his name pronounced with respect and gratitude in the high places of the Church. He was one of the main comforters of her old age; and if I mistake not, he was at her death-bed, to commend her departing spirit into her Redeemer's hands. Richly was that mother's fidelity rewarded by the virtues and graces which she had assisted to form. Though she recognized them all as the fruits of the Spirit, she could not but know that in a humble, and yet very important sense, they were connected with her own instrumentality.

Such has been the career of two of the playmates of my childhood. They are both living, but they have been traveling in opposite directions,—I may say ever since they left the cradle. And so far as we can judge, the main reason is, that the one had a mother whose influence was only for evil, the other, a mother who was intent upon doing good. Both their mothers now dwell in the unseen world; while the one is represented on earth by a most loathsome specimen of humanity, the other by a pure and elevated spirit, that needs only to pass the gate of death to become a seraph.

Mothers, I need not say a word to impress the lessons suggested by this contrast. They lie upon the surface, and your own hearts will readily take them up. May God save you from looking upon ruined children, and being obliged to feel that you have been their destroyers! May God permit you to look upon children, whom your faithfulness has, through grace, nurtured not only into useful members of human society, but into heirs of an endless glorious life!

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Original.

REMINISCENCES OF THE LATE REV. THOMAS H. GALLAUDET.

BY MRS. G. M. SYKES.

There is a little legend of the Queen of Sheba and wise King Solomon, which is fragrant with pleasant meaning. She had heard his wonderful fame in her distant country, and had come "with a very great company, and camels that bare spices, and gold in abundance, and precious stones;" this imposing caravan had wound its way over the deserts, and the royal pilgrim had endured the heat and weariness of the way, that she "might prove the king with hard questions, at Jerusalem." This we have upon the highest authority, though for this particular test we must be content with something less. Entering his audience-chamber one day, she is said to have produced two crowns of flowers, of rare beauty, and apparently exactly alike. "Both are for thee, O wise king," said she, "but discern between them, which is the workmanship of the Most High, and which hath man fashioned in its likeness?"

We read of costly oriental imitations of flowers in gold and silver, in pearls, and amethysts, and rubies. How shall Solomon the King detect the cunning mimicry? Solomon the Wise has determined. He causes the windows looking upon the gardens of his ivory palace to be thrown open, and immediately the crown of true flowers is covered with bees.

Like King Solomon's bees are the instincts of childhood, sure to detect the fragrance of the genuine blossom in human nature, and settle where the honey may be found. It was a rare distinction of the good man whose name stands at the head of this chapter, that children everywhere loved him, and recognized in him their true friend. An enduring monument of his love for children, and his untiring efforts to do them good is found in the books he has written for them. His Child's Book on the Soul, has, if I am not mistaken, been translated into French, German, and Modern Greek, and has issued from the Mission-press at Ceylon, in one or more of the dialects of India. It has also been partially rendered into the vernacular at the missionary stations, in opposite parts of the world. His Child's Book on Repentance, and his Histories of the Patriarchs, published by the American Tract Society, are the result of diligent study. The Life of Moses may be specified, as having cost him most laborious investigation; and it is true of them all that there is in them an amount of illustrative Biblical research, and a depth of mental philosophy, which more ambitious writers would have reserved for their theological folios. But even his books, widely as they are known and appreciated, convey but an imperfect idea of the writer's power to interest and benefit children. They cannot present his affectionate, playful manner, nor the genial and irresistible humor of his intercourse with them. Mothers were glad to meet Mr. Gallaudet, but they were more glad to have their children meet him, even in the street; for a kind word, or a smile of pleasant greeting, told every young friend, even there, that he was remembered and cared for,—and these things encourage children to try to deserve favor.

In person, Mr. G. was rather short and slender, but with an erectness of carriage, and a somewhat precise observance of the usages of refined society, which gave him an unfailing dignity of appearance. A certain quaintness of manner and expression was an irresistible charm about him. Sure I am, that one little girl will always remember the kind hand stretched out to seize her own,—and the question after the manner of Mrs. Barbauld: "Child of mortality, whither goest thou?"

His most remarkable personal characteristic was the power of expression in his face. The quiet humor of the mouth, and the bright, quick glance of the eye, were his by nature; but the extraordinary mobility of the muscles was owing, probably, to his long intercourse with deaf mutes. It was a high intellectual gratification to see him in communication with this class of unfortunates, to whom so large a proportion of the labors of his life was devoted. It is said that Garrick often amused his friends by assuming some other person's countenance. We are sure Mr. Gallaudet could have done this. We remember that he did astonish a body of legislators, before whom there was an exhibition, by proving to them that he could relate a narrative to his pupils by his face alone, without gesture. This power of expression has a great attraction for children. Like animals, they often understand the language of the face better than that of the lips; it always furnishes them with a valuable commentary on the words addressed to them, and the person who talks to them with a perfectly immovable, expressionless countenance, awes and repulses them. In addition to this, our friend was never without a pocketful of intellectual bon-bons for them. A child whom he met with grammar and dictionary, puzzled for months over the sentence he gave her, assuring her that it was genuine Latin:—

"Forte dux fel flat in guttur."

To another he would give this problem, from ancient Dilworth:—

"If a herring and a half cost three-halfpence, how many will eleven pence buy?"

Persons who are too stately to stoop to this way of pleasing childhood, have very little idea of the magic influence it exerts, and how it opens the heart to receive "the good seed" of serious admonition from one who has shown himself capable of sympathy in its pleasures.

Those whose privilege it has been to know Mr. Gallaudet in his own home, surrounded by his own intelligent children, have had a new revelation of the gentleness, the tenderness and benignity of the paternal relation. Many years since I was a "watcher by the bed," where lay his little daughter, recovering from a dangerous illness. He evidently felt that a great responsibility was resting upon a young nurse, with whom, though he knew her well, he was not familiar in that character. I felt the earnest look of inquiry which he gave me, as I was taking directions for the medicines of the night. He was sounding me to know whether I might be trusted. At early dawn, before the last stars had set, he was again by the bed, intent upon the condition of the little patient. When he was satisfied that she was doing well, and had been well cared for, he took my hand in his, and thanked me with a look which told me that I had now been tried, and found faithful and competent.

Not only was he a man made of tender charities, but he was an observant, thoughtful man, considerate of the little as well as the great wants of others. I can never forget his gentle ministrations in the sick room of my most precious mother, who was for many years his neighbor and friend. She had been brought to a condition of great feebleness by a slow nervous fever, and was painfully sensitive to anything discordant, abrupt, or harsh in the voices and movements of those about her. Every day, at a fixed hour, this good neighbor would glide in, noiselessly as a spirit, and, either reading or repeating a few soothing verses from the Bible, would kneel beside her bed, and quietly, in a few calm and simple petitions, help her to fix her weak and wavering thoughts on that merciful kindness which was for her help. Day after day, through her slow recovery, his unwearied kindness brought him thither, and gratefully was the service felt and acknowledged. I never knew him in the relation he afterwards sustained to the diseased in mind, but I am sure that his refined perceptions and delicate tact must have fitted him admirably for his chaplaincy in the Retreat.

I retain a distinct impression of him as I saw him one day in a character his benevolence often led him to assume, that of a city missionary; though it was only the duties of one whom he saw to be needed, without an appointment, that he undertook. How he found time, or strength, with his feeble constitution, for preaching to prisoners and paupers, and visits to the destitute and dying, is a mystery to one less diligent in filling up little interstices of time.

I was present at a funeral, where, in the sickness or absence of the pastor, Mr. Gallaudet had been requested to officiate. It was on a bleak and wintry day in spring: the wind blew, and the late and unwelcome snow was falling. There was much to make the occasion melancholy. It was the funeral of a young girl, the only daughter of a widow, who had expended far more than the proper proportion of her scanty means in giving the girl showy and useless accomplishments. A cold taken at a dance had resulted in quick consumption, and in a few weeks had hurried her to the grave. Without proper training and early religious instruction, it was difficult to know how much reliance might safely be placed on the eagerness with which she embraced the hopes and consolations of the Gospel set before her on her dying bed. Her weak-minded and injudicious mother felt that she should be lauded as a youthful saint, and her death spoken of as a triumphant entrance into heaven.

There was much to offend the taste in the accompaniments of this funeral. It was an inconsistent attempt at show, a tawdry imitation of more expensive funeral observances. About the wasted face of the once beautiful girl were arranged, not the delicate white blossoms with which affection sometimes loves to surround what was lovely in life, but gaudy flowers of every hue. The dress, too, was fantastic and inappropriate. The mother and little brothers sat in one of the two small rooms; the mother in transports of grief, which was real, but not so absorbing as to be forgetful of self and scenic effect. The little boys sat by, in awkward consciousness of new black gloves, and crape bands on their hats. Everything was artificial and painfully forlorn; and the want of genuineness, which surrounded the pale sleeper, seemed to cast suspicion on the honesty and validity of her late-formed hope for eternity.

But the first words of prayer, breathed forth, rather than uttered, in the low tones the speaker was most accustomed to use, changed the aspect of the poor place. He was genuine and in earnest.

The mother's exaggerated sobs became less frequent, and real tears glistened in eyes that, like mine, had been wandering to detect absurdities and incongruities. We were gently lifted upwards towards God and Heaven. We were taught a lesson in that mild charity which "thinketh no evil,"—which "hopeth all things, and endureth all things;" and when the scanty funeral train left the house, I could not but feel that the ministration of this good man there had been—

"As if some angel shook his wings."

We preserve even trifling memorials of friends whom we have loved and lost; and even these recollections, deeply traced, though slight in importance, may bear a value for those who knew and estimated the finely organized and nicely-balanced character of the man who loved to "do good by stealth," and who has signalized his life by bringing, in his own peculiar and quiet way, many great enterprises from small beginnings.

Norwich, Ct.

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Original.

THE IMPORTANCE OF FAMILY RELIGION.

BY REV. HENRY T. CHEEVER.

It is a very general remark, at the present time, throughout our country, and the complaint comes back, especially from the great West, through those who are familiarly acquainted with society there, that there is a growing spirit of insubordination in the family, and, of course, in the State; and it is ascribed to laxity and neglect in the Mothers as much as in the Fathers. Its existence is even made the matter of public comment on such occasions as the celebration of the landing of our Pilgrim Fathers, those bright exemplars of family religion. And grave divines and theological professors, in their addresses to the people, deprecate it as a growing evil of the times.

Now, without entering into other specifications here, may it not be that a chief reason for the increase of family insubordination is to be found in the DECREASE OF FAMILY RELIGION? By this we mean Religion in the household; in other words, the inculcation and observance of the duties of religion in American families, in their organized capacity as separate religious communities. Family religion, in this sense, implies the acknowledgment of God in the family circle, by the assembling of all its members around the domestic altar, morning and evening, and by united prayer and praise to the God of the families of all flesh; by the invocation of God's blessing and the giving of thanks at every social repast; by the strict observance of the Sabbath; and by the religious instruction and training of children and servants, and the constant recognition of God's providence and care. This constitutes, and these are the duties of family religion—duties which no Christian head of a family, whether father or mother, can be excused from performing. They are duties which all who take upon themselves the responsibilities of the family should feel it a privilege to observe.

The duty of family prayer, especially by the one or the other head of the household, as the leading exercise of the family religion, should be performed with seriousness, order and punctuality. John Angell James very properly asks if the dwellings of the righteous ought not to be filled with the very element of piety, the atmosphere of true religion. "Yet, how few are the habitations, even of professors, upon entering which the stranger would be compelled to say, Surely this is the house of God, this is the gate of heaven! It may be that family prayer is gone through with, such as it is, though with little seriousness and no unction. But even this, in many cases, is wholly omitted, and scarcely anything remains to indicate that God has found a dwelling in that house. There may be no actual dissipation, no drunkenness, no card-playing, but, oh! how little of true devotion is there! How few families are there so conducted as to make it a matter of surprise that any of the children of such households should turn out otherwise than pious! How many that lead us greatly to wonder that any of the children should turn out otherwise than irreligious! On the other hand, how subduing and how melting are the fervent supplications of a godly and consistent father, when his voice, tremulous with emotion, is giving utterance to the desires of his heart to the God of heaven for the children bending around him! Is there, out of heaven, a sight more deeply interesting than a family, gathered at morning or evening prayer, where the worship is what it ought to be?"

It is hardly to be supposed that any pious heads, or pious members, of American households, are in doubt whether family worship be a duty. We are rather to take it for granted, as a duty universally acknowledged among Christians, nature itself serving to suggest and teach it, and the word of God abundantly confirming and enforcing it, both by precept and example. God himself being the author and constitutor of the family relation, it is but a dictate of reason that He should be owned and acknowledged as such, "who setteth the children of men in families like a flock, who hath strengthened the bars of thy gates, and hath blessed thy children within thee." Of whom it is said, "Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward."

It is this great Family-God, whose solemn charges, by his servant Moses, are as binding upon Christian families now as of old upon the children of Israel—Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might: and these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down and when thou risest up.

This is God's command, and He will hold every parent responsible for the religious instruction of his or her children. In such an education for God, which is the duty of the parent and the right of the child, the habit of family worship constitutes an essential part. Nothing can make up for the want of this. Neither the best of preaching and instruction in the sanctuary or Sabbath-school, nor the finest education abroad, in the boarding-schools or seminaries, will at all answer for the daily discipline of family religion. This is something which no artificial accomplishment can supply. A religious home education, under the daily influence of family worship, and the devout acknowledgment of God at the frugal board, and the godly example and instruction of a pious parentage, are more influential upon the future character and destiny of the child than all the other agencies put together.

The true divine origin of the domestic economy is to train children, by habits of virtue, obedience, and piety in the family, to become useful members of society at large and good subjects of the State, and above all to be fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of faith. In order to this the strict maintenance of family religion is absolutely essential. It is therefore laid down as an axiom that no State can be prosperous where family order and religion are generally neglected. The present condition of France, and the so far successful villainy of her perjured usurper, are in proof of this position, which was understood by one of her statesmen a few years ago, when he said with emphasis on his dying bed, "What France wants is family religion; what France wants is family religion."

On the contrary, every State will be prosperous, whatever its political institutions, where family religion and healthy domestic discipline are strictly maintained. Disorderly and irreligious families are the hot-beds of disorderly and irreligious citizens; on the other hand, families in which God is honored, and the children educated under the hallowed influences of family religion, are heaven's own nurseries for the State and the Church. The considerations which should urge every Christian householder to be strict in the maintenance of family religion are therefore both patriotic and religious. The good results of such fidelity and strictness on the part of parents are by no means limited to their own children, as the experience of a pious tradesman, related to his minister in a conversation on family worship, most instructively proves.

When he first began business for himself, he was determined, through grace, to be particularly conscientious with respect to family prayer. Morning and evening every individual of his household was required to be present at the domestic altar; nor would he allow his apprentices to be absent on any account. In a few years the benefits of such fidelity in daily family religion manifestly appeared; the blessings of the upper and nether springs followed him; health and happiness crowned his family, and prosperity attended his business.