support to vulgarity, he need not fancy he has seen our best society. But when he finds himself in a circle that is governed by the same laws that govern the most refined circles in his own land—when he meets ladies and gentlemen whose manners are the manners of the true gentlewoman and the true gentleman everywhere, then, and not until then, has he seen our best society ?"

CHAPTER XVII.

HOME LIFE-THE DISCIPLINES OF LIFE-IMMORTAL LIFE.

"Crowned or crucified-the same

Glows the flame

Of her deathless love divine.

Still the blessed mother stands,

In all lands,

As she watched beside thy cradle and by mine."

-EMMA Lazarus.

"Nothing keeps the heart so fresh and young, saves it from bitterness and corrosion through the cares and conflicts and disappointments of life, as the daily enjoyment of a happy home. May I always keep this in remembrance, and do everything that lies in my power to make our home the happiest spot on earth for our children."-From a Mother's Journal of 1856-57.

"Home should be pure and happy, a sacred altar of love, a school for sympathy and forbearance; a centre from which an impulse for wider work may spring, and whence self-sacrifice in daily trifles may swell into the self-sacrifice of a life for universal objects.”

All men move

Under a canopy of love

As broad as the blue sky above.

-REV. S. A. BROOKE.

Doubt and trouble, fear and pain
And anguish-all are sorrows vain-
E'en death itself shall not remain,
Though weary deserts we may tread
A dreary labyrinth may thread

Through dark ways underground be led;
Yet, if we will our guide obey,
The dreariest path, the darkest way
Shall issue out in endless day;
And we on various shores now cast,
Shall meet, our perilous voyage past,
Each in our Father's home at last.

They only miss

The coming to that final bliss-

Who will not count it true that love,
Blessing, not cursing, rules above;
And that in it we live and move.

And one thing further we must know,
That to believe these things are so-
This firm faith never to forego-
Despite of all that seems at strife

With blessings, and with curses rife,

That this is blessing—this is life.”—TRENCH.

A MOTHER once asked a clergyman when she should begin to educate her child-then over three years old. " Madam," was his reply, "you have lost three years already." From the first smile in your infant's eyes, your opportunity begins. Education is a mental railway, beginning at birth, and running on to eternity. No hand can lay it in the right direction but the hand of a mother. The mother's heart is the child's school-room. Children will imitate the faults of their parents more surely than their virtues, and it is not easy to straighten in the woody grape-vines the twists that grew in green tendrils. Evil habits are in no way more effectually propagated among children than by example. Parents must be what they wish their children to be, and when once this great truth has taken possession of a mother's mind, her child becomes her educator, leading her forward, and developing her as no other influence can lead her.

There is no half-way resting-place for humanity; we are always sinking unless we are rising; going backward, unless we are pressing forward. If the heart is not fixed in youth on the progressive love of truth and purity, it will, from its own inherent selfishness, and world- · liness, and sensuousness, sink gradually, but surely, into the false and the impure. The carelessness of youth passes

into the indifference of adult life and the callousness of age. What can be more revolting than an old age, cold, hard, and selfish? Yet this is the natural and almost unavoidable result in hearts whose aspirations are not for those things which cannot grow old, and which the world can neither give nor take away.

Renan tells us that Jesus measured souls only by their love; that he preferred the forgiveness of an injury to a sacrifice; that the love of God, charity, mutual forgiveness, was all that constituted his law. And it is the observance of this law that makes happy homes; that keeps the heart young; that enables mothers to train their children for lives of usefulness and progress here, and for ever increasing happiness and progress hereafter. A heart filled with the love of all that is noble and good, can never grow old; for it will go on growing in all that is lovely and gracious, so long as it lives; and, where there is perpetual growth of the faculties there can be no decay. We grow old, not by but by rust; and we can never become the prey of rust while our faculties are kept bright by the power and the exercise of earnest love. It is by our own weakness and indolence if our spiritual body ever gathers a wrinkle on its brow.

wear,

It is the mother's privilege to plant in the hearts of her children these seeds of love which, if nurtured and fostered, will bear the blossom of perpetual youth, and the fruit of earnest and useful lives. It is her province to train them, so that they will be capable of meeting the duties and emergencies of life, and in so training them, we have seen that she keeps her own heart fresh and young, and insures the growth of the powers wherewith she is endowed. Our talents do not multiply when we fold them in a napkin of indifference, and bury them in the earth of our lower nature. No class of human beings bears a more heavy weight of

responsibility than that which is placed beyond the necessity of effort; and there is none whose position has a stronger tendency to blind it to the calls of duty. Every gift bestowed on us by Providence, whether of mind, body, or estate, is but another talent, for the employment of which we must one day be called to account. Therefore, those parents who occupy positions which place their children beyond the need of effort, should, when the days of their children's school-life draw to a close, help them to select some special duty or employment which will occupy and develop their mental life; and so save them from the inanity, ennui, and selfishness that are sure to follow in the footsteps of idleness

"My son, it is better for you not to go into business; you do not know anything about it, and you have such a distaste for it that you will never succeed," said a discouraged father. The mother exclaimed, "You are as unwise as if you had told him, when he commenced learning to read, that it was better for him not to learn his letters, as he did not already know them, and therefore never could learn to read." The father saw his mistake before it was too late to profit by it, aiding the mother in the end which she had sought to attain through the years of her son's life. And parents must have an end in view, or their labor will be in vain. It is idle to seek for means to accomplish anything until there is a distinct image in the mind of the thing that is to be done. This is as necessary in the forming of character as in the choosing of an occupation.

Do you wish your child not to acquire the habit of evilspeaking? Then you have to form the resolution never to deal lightly with the reputation of another, never to repeat a slander; always to exercise that charity which you wish your child to show toward the erring. Without this