them of the rapids toward which they are tending,the whirlpool of unregulated passion in which so many barks go down.

There are some careful and conscientious mothers, who, watching the gradual change from infancy and childhood to youth and maturity, and who, marking how often additional knowledge is accompanied by additional sin, wish that their children's ignorance of evil might be prolonged, and are inclined to fancy that knowledge itself is but a doubtful blessing. This idea proceeds rather from a negative hatred of evil than from a positive love of good, and its error lies in mistaking innocence for virtue.

Innocence is lovely in the child, because in harmony with its nature; but our path in life is not backward but onward, and virtue can never be the offspring of mere innocence. If we are to progress in the knowledge of good, we must also progress in the knowledge of evil. Every experience of evil brings its own temptation, and according to the degree in which the evil is recognized and the temptations resisted, will be the value of the character into which the individnal will develop. Innocence may be beautiful, but can never be strong, while the whole essence of virtue lies in its strength to resist and power to endure. If the innocence of childhood be replaced by the firm principles of integrity and honor, the loss will be really a great gain. It is only where the knowledge of evil is unattended by appreciation of its nature, where temptations are yielded to and not resisted, that we are induced to grieve over the departure of that innocence which was so beautiful in earlier years.

It is not so much the knowledge of evil that is to be feared as the ignorance of positive good to overcome it; not the advance of one part of our nature, but the failure to advance in the higher and nobler parts. As the stature

and power of the full-grown man is superior to that of the little child, so is the strength and energy of virtue superior to the innocence that only ignores the evil without having tasted the good.

Knowledge, to be truly valuable, must be guided by wisdom, and the essence of all wisdom consists in discovering and obeying the laws of the Creator. This can render even the loss of innocence itself the means of developing our highest nature. The real danger to be feared for the rising generation, is not so much that they should learn about evil as that they should not learn about good. Positive good will soon crowd out evil, while, if we could, by our utmost energies, simply guard the mind from all approaches of sin, we should at the most only accomplish a negative work, which would fail in producing a virtuous character. Let mothers then be careful to sow the seeds of positive moral goodness, as well as to eradicate the weeds that will occupy the soil of every heart that is left uncultivated.* Planted thickly with the seeds of truth, integrity, self-denial, and love, a rich harvest of noble character will be yielded, while the utmost toil will fail to keep down the weeds of vice in the heart where positive

* To all who have a purpose and a high hope in rearing their children, Harriet Martineau's little book on "Household Education" will be found a wise and helpful counsellor, as well as possessing great interest. There is no discoursing about things in a vague, uncertain way. Nor are words spent in picking flaws without suggesting remedies. The difficulties in the case are always duly considered. Indeed, the whole book is a study for any one having the care of children. One reading will not suffice. We like to think of the eager gratitude with which many a perplexed and anxious mother will turn its pages and glean therefrom not only comfort and encouragement, but, what is still more to be desired, a clearer knowledge of her duty, and a more reasonable assurance that through patient endeavor she can yet become a better and truer mother than she has ever been.

virtues do not grow. And yet, as we have seen, character is not wholly dependent upon either instruction or training. It is the result of the use which each individual makes of the lessons of life. God will have deep-tilled soil, bearing such harvest as he shall sow for; whence, at autumn, we all take either our ripe sheaves or our worthless ones with us. Suffering, keen anguish of spirit, is the tax which intellect, or intelligence, or advanced mental culture must always pay for its gains in the individual. We must endure much and go through bitter trials ere character is perfected. And what a rich treasure is a deep character, a fertile life. How instinctively we honor those who, in spheres infinitely various, fulfil in fair measure sixty if not a hundred, thirty if not sixty fold, the hope of God in us! says the Rev. Joseph May. Who but loves to see in society those who live unselfishly to serve good aims; who rise above sensuality, and fashion, and frivolity; who look about for good deeds to do, whether humble or important; whose hands are ever busy at home or abroad; whose hearts are ever tender to the next appeal; who listen willingly and respond surely; who take hold, not egotistically, not because they live to manage, refusing machination, fearless of criticism, rebuffs, and ingratitude, unwearied and selfforgetful, doing such work as they can do quietly, simply, unpretentiously, for each good cause.

Though suffering be the price of such a character, welcome be the suffering. The world is the field where life's prizes are won. As Bushnell says: There are no fires that will melt out our drossy and corrupt particles like God's refining fires of duty and trial, living, as he sends us to live, in the open field of the world's sins and sorrows, its plausibilities and lies, its persecution, animosities, and fears, its eager delights and bitter wants.

By our fruits we are known. A character, says Emer

son, is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza; read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing. Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment; a breath that is stronger for good or for evil than any power that lies in mere words, though we preach sermons and make books of which there is no end. Character reveals itself in myriad ways, but most in the brotherly sympathy which we show our kind. The right which our fellow-men have to whatsoever aid our hands can afford, says the Rev. William H. Furness, is sacred and inalienable, far beyond the right which we claim to the perishing possessions of the world, and is not to be denied by us, save to the wrong of our own souls.

"There is no civilized country in the world where so much license is permitted in the intercourse of young men and women as in the United States; it gives to the foreigner travelling here a singular idea of American morality, and leads, for instance, to the production of such a play as ' Uncle Sam,' which presents a picture that may be exaggerated in most particulars, but which at the same time conveys a suggestion that if proper decorum were exhibited by the young people, the idea of such a play would not have entered the mind of its author. He knew that if he had seen young men and women acting toward each other in France as he had seen young Americans doing, he would reach a conclusion unfavorable to the purity of their relations.

"It is the personal contact of the man which does more to conquer the woman than his speech or his good looks. A statue of Praxiteles vivified with the soul of wit and original thought, standing away from her, must make slow progress toward her heart. Proximity in talk, where the words fall close to the ear, is effective. The affinities of nature are revealed in the power of the touch. The nobler part of man looks upward, and the baser downward; the aspirations of the soul would wing their flight to the clouds, but the inclinations of the body keep them to the earth. It is for this that the young woman must be safe-guarded against the weaknesses of this superior kind of animal-man.

“It has been said that our young men can safely be trusted not to take advantage of long tête-à-têtes with young women to do anything they would not do in presence of the mothers; but it is better not to have too much confidence in masculine rectitude under such circumstances. It is well for the young woman that the man is educated as her social protector, for if he were not, she would be morally in a lower scale than she is to-day; he is not always a social protector, and the family cannot afford to take the risk of his being a black sheep.