7808-
1 1 L W YO R K :
GOLDEN THOUGHTS
MOTHEE, HOME
AND
HEAVEN.
FKOM
POETIC AND PROSE LITERATURE
OF
ALL AGES AND ALL LANDS.
\\ITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY REV. THEO. L. CUYLER, D.D.
' If from our side the first has fled,
And Home be but a name,
Let's strive the narrow path to tread,
That we the last may gain ! "
Page 29.
ILLUSTRATED.
NEW-YORK :
E. B. TREAT, 757 BROADWAY.
R. C. TREAT, CHICAGO. W. H. THOMPSON & CO., BOSTON.
N. D. THOMPSON & CO., ST. LOUIS. SOUTHERN PUBLISHING CO., NEW ORLEANS.
N. G. HAMILTON, CLEVELAND, O.
K B. TREAT,
COPYRIGHT,
R. E. M., Great Kills, N. Y., one
of the oldtimers in the book-agent
busniess, says " 'Mother, Home and
Heaven' was the work of T. DeWitt
Talmadge, rather slushy but in 1890
they were always good. 'Ridpath's
History of the United States' you
had to know from kiver to kiver
to answer all sorts of questions. For
the local school boards, Lossing's
'History of the American Revolu-
tion.' The country agents of that
day and generation were made of
good stuff. They were many of them
well educated, ministers, lawyers,
always had a good knowledge of
human nature. Yes, there was a
good living in the art of selling
books and there is still, both in
city and country."
REV. THEODORE L. CUYLER.
THE compiler of this volume has rendered a most valuable ser-
vice by collecting into one sheaf these golden gleanings. In order
to give his work the greatest richness and variety he has laid under
contribution more than three hundred widely-known authors on
both sides of the Atlantic. In the main, his selections seem to have
been made with excellent taste ; the ruling motive being to choose
these things which would be the most practical and the most profita-
ble. Many of them are already familiar to us all but that very
fact proves their value. There are other readers coming on the
stage of life who need to know these " household words " and one
object of this volume is to carry these coined thoughts of standard
value into a wide and permanent circulation.
My friend who orginated and compiled this work has chosen
three grand themes. They blend together beautifully, and interlock
each other as light, heat and electricity are interlocked in a sun-beam.
The Mother is the fountain-head of the Home. The home is the foun-
tain head of society and of the Church of Christ. And no influences
in the universe contribute so much toward guiding immortal souls
Heavenward as the Home and the Mother.
If I were asked to name any one principle that seems to have an
almost universal application, it would be this one show me the
mother and I will show you the man ! Next to the sovereign grace
of God, the influence of a mother's teachings and example is the
most eifective in moulding character and shaping destiny. Intellec-
3
INTRODUCTION.
tual power even descends most commonly on the maternal side.
Nearly all the most remarkable men have had mothers of more than
ordinary mental calibre. Great men often have weak children ;
great women seldom have.
But it is in the direction of moral training and the development
of character that the mother is most powerfully felt. What a faith-
ful suggestion lies hid in that brief line from Holy Writ " his rnotnei
made him a little coat ! " The woman who wove that little tunic
was Hannah. The lad who wore it was Samuel, who grew from a
beautiful boyhood into the holy prophet and the upright ruler. No
doubt that it was a modest and a comely garment which the Jewish
matron made ; for she was a woman of too much piety and good sense
to treat her consecrated child as if he were a plaything or a doll.
But that "little coat" has a figurative application to every
mother 's high calling. For she not only provides her child from
infancy's first moments with clothing for the body, but moral
" habits " of character and conduct. The mother, more than any
one else, helps to clothe the immortal soul in garments of light and
loveliness, or else in garments of sin and sorrow and shame. She
makes " little coats " which no moth can consume, which never wear
out, and which are worn by her offspring long after she has
mouldered into dust. She weaves her child's habits of thought and
conduct; and does it too, as clothes are made, stitch by stitch. She
does this not only by direct deliberate teachings, but by little words
and acts, and by silent unconscious influence. Hannah's daily life
helped to weave Samuel's noble character. The mother made the man.
What a debt of gratitude the world owes to godly-minded
Monica! She trained up Augustine to be the champion-defender
of the gospel in a day of dark apostasies. But for good, faithful
Susannah Wesley, the world might never have been enriched with
John and Charles, the twain founders of Methodism. Bichard
Cecil says that in his early manhood he tried hard to be an infidel.
But he never could get over the unanswerable argument of his own
mother's godly life and influence. They were too much for him :
they conquered him for Christ. On the other hand, how many
lives have been disfigured by the wretched "botch-work" or the
4
INTRODUCTION.
deformities of such uiind-garmeutb as weak or wicked mothers have
vroven for their children. The brilliant Byron might have been a
very different man if he had had a different mother, and a wiser
early training. Children seldom rise higher than the fountain-head
of the mother's character. Occasional exceptions do not shake the
solid certainty of this rule. Show me the mother and I will show
you the man is a veracious maxim after all. There are tens of
thousands of others who can testify, with the author of this Intro-
duction, that a faithful mother's prayers and teachings were worth
more to them than the fortunes of a score of Girards or Vanderbilts.
Even the diadem which Victoria wears as Queen of Great Britian
and Empress of India shines not with such enviable lustre as that
higher crown of the pure wife and exemplary mother.
While the relation is so vitally important in shaping lives and
determining human destinies, everything which helps to instruct
and inspire mothers for their high calling is of great moment. This
is one purpose for which this volume was complied. Not for the
amusement of a listless hour, but for quickening, reproof, instruction
and encouragement. Amid her routine of home cares, a busy
mother may sometimes take up this book, and open to a page which
shall be to her a word in season an " apple of gold in a basket of
silver." A single sentence may furnish her food for thought. A
brief hint may give her most valuable assistance in the discharge of
her sacred duties. If she is under the shadow of a dark sorrow,
with an empty cradle in her house or the playthings of a lost darling
carefully treasured in her drawer, she may open these pages, and
find some precious words of consolation. There is hardly a house in
which, at some time or other, there has not " been one dead." No
touch makes all of us kin like the touch of bereavement. No writ-
ings have such perennial interest as those which treat of our home
joys and sorrows, and which are inspired by the cradle, the fireside,
the ring of wedlock, the family record, or the casket which holds
our beloved dead.
This volume was prepared for home-use and home-reading. It
treats not only of her who is the queen of the household, but of the
rules by which home may be governed. If the mother is the foun-
5
INTRODUCTION.
tain-head of the household, it is equally true that the household i*
the fountain-head of society. Both the commonwealth and the
church grow out of the family. They both take their character from
the family. The real seed-corn whence our republic sprang was the
Christian households, which stepped forth from the cabin of the
" Mayflower," or which set up the family-altar of the Hollander and
the Huguenot on Manhattan Island or in the sunny South. All our
best characters, best legislation, best institutions, and best church-life
were cradled in those early homes. They were the tap-root of the
republic, and of the American churches.
For one, I care but little for the government which presides ai
Washington in comparison with the government which rules the
eight or ten millions of American homes. No administration can
seriously harm us if our home-life is pure, frugal, and godly. No
statesmanship or legislation can save us, if once our homes become
the abodes of ignorance or the nestling-places of profligacy. The
home rules the nation. If the home is demoralized it will ruin it.
There are several essentials to a good home. Wealth is not one
of those essentials, for in many an abode of honest poverty content-
ment dwells. Out of such lowly cottages and cabins have sprung
our greatest, noblest men and women. The little clapboarded farm
houses of New England have been the nurseries of our greatest
divines, most useful philanthropists and devoted missionaries. The
riches of those humble dwellings were industrious hands and praying
hearts. God's Word was the light of the homestead. The Bible,
the spinning-wheel, and the family altar stood side by side. The
growing refinements of later years have introduced into many rural
habitations the piano, the pictures, and the pile of books. But let
our people see to it that the increase of culture, money and refine-
ment is not attended with any decrease of homespun frugality, do-
mestic purity, and the fear of God.
A truly good home is not only one in which God reigns, but it
must be an attractive spot. Even all the conscientious Christian par-
ents do not seem to find this out. The result is that the theater, the
billiard-saloon, the club, the convivial party manage to " out-bid "
the home, and to draw away the sons and the daughters. It is too often
6
INTRODUCTION.
the fault of his parents, that a sprightly boy prefers pome other even-
ing resort to the stupid or disagreeable place iu which ho eats and
sleeps. If his home were made more attractive he would not peek
the haunts of danger and depravity. And one of the surest methodb
of keeping a husband out of a dramshop, or a son out of the haunts of
sin, is the " expulsive power of a new affection " for their home.
Everything that attracts our children to their homes is very apt to
be, in -the end, an attraction towards Heaven.
As a citizen of Brooklyn, I am proud of the fact that in our
chief public park there stands a monument to the author of " Home,
sweet Home." Those immortal lines have made delicious music by
many an humble fireside. They have inspired encouragement under
many a lowly roof. But John Howard Payne struck a deeper truth
than he may have intended when he wrote, "there is no place like
home" This applies to something more enduring than the heart's
attachment to the spot which sheltered our childhood. For all our
after lives, and our eternal destinies for shaping the character,
forming the habits, determining the choice for good or evil, and fr.r
tile salvation or ruin of the soul "there is no place like home,''
Nothing is so dangerous and damning as a bad home. Nothing ifc
so effective in fitting us for usefulness here and for heaven here-
after as a pure, happy Christ-lighted home ; for like heaven " the
LAMB is the light thereof."
It is because this volume contains so many valuable truths for
fireside reading ; in short, because it is such an excellent Ixnne book,
that I have been drawn to it and have written these words of honest
commendation. When one has not time enough to read an extended
treatise, he may take up this book and find some savory morsel of
wisdom some sweet touch of poetry some timely hint for the
hour, or some rich cluster of truths that shall be like a bunch of
grapes from the King's own garden. Into the cleanly pages of my
friend's volume " nothing entereth which defileth." And there is
many a precious truth here which with God's bleaaing may make
one " wise unto salvation."
7
PAGE
' AI.IKII t. Rev. Dr. John S. C 36:*
Ackers, Elizabeth 378
Addison, Joseph 215
Aldrich, James 290
Alexander, J. Addison 318
Alexander, Rev. Dr. James W... 344
Bacon, Lord 261
Barbauld, Anna Letitia 321
Barker, David 214
v Barr, Sirs. Amelia E 219
Barton, Bernard 853
Baxter, Richard 357
' Beecher, Henry Ward 73, 203, 298
Birkins, Rev. H. II 87
Blair 222
Blanchard, Laman 24
Bonar, Horatius 409
Booth, Rev. B. F 116
Bowring, John 334
Brainard, Mary G 308
" Brooks, Rev. Phillips 205
Browning, Mrs. Elizabeth B 828
Bryant, William C 323
Burchard, Rev. Dr. Samuel D 106
Burr, Mrs 179
Bushnell, Rev. Dr. Horace 65
Byron, Lord 260, 821
Campbell, Thomas. . 43
Carlyle, Thomas 246
Gary, Phoebe 264
FA.R
Cassanovia, E. L .... 30
Cato ... 201
Chaffee, Ada A 268
Chesterfield, Lord 190, 331
Cicero 205
Clarendon, Lord 205
Clay, Henry 269
Colfax, Schuyler 128
Collyer, Rev. Dr. Robert 111
Cook, Rev. Joseph 229
Cook, Eliza 74
Colton, George H 243
Cowper, William 83, 210, 218
Cromwell, Oliver 331
Crosby, Fanny J 27, 103, 343
Crosby, Rev. Dr. Howard 349
Cummings, Rev. Dr. John 361
Cuyler, Rev. Dr. Theo. L. .5, 270,
306, 360, 881
Dane, H. C 121
Deems, Rev. Dr. Charles F 402
Dickens, Charles 136, 245
Downing, Rev. Dr 112
Dryden, John 193
Dwight, Rev. Dr. Timothy 243
Faber, Rev. Dr. F. W...246, 379, 397
Farman, Ella 85
Fields, James T 182
Franklin, Benjamin 235
Fuller.. . 241
LIST OF AUTHORS.
PAGE
Gladstone, \V. E 263
Goethe 328
Goldsmith, Oliver 114, 190, 197
Gough, John B 261
Guthrie, Rev. Dr. Thomas.. ..346, 346
Guyon, Madame 324
Hale, Mrs. Sarah J 77
Hall, Rev. Dr. John 297
Hamilton, Rev. Dr 132
Hamilton, R. W 405
Harris, Rev. J. L 354
Haven, Bishop Gilbert 94
Helps, Sir Arthur 197
Hemans, Mrs. Felicia D 309
Henderson, Rev. M. C 96
Henry, Rev. Dr. Matthew 195, 375
Herschel, Sir John 235
Hodge, Rev. Dr. A. A 85, 242
Holland, J. G 233
Holm, Saxe 34
Holmes, Oliver Wendell.. 100, 128, 322
Hood, Thomas 58, 170, 412
Hopkins, Jane Ellis 149
Home, Bishop 340
Houghton, Mary H 281
Humboldt 242
Hunt, Leigh 181
Hunter, William 399
Huntington, C 366
Huntington, Bishop P. D 228
Janes, Bishop E. 8 230
Jay, Rev. William 323
Jocelyn, Mrs. Elizabeth H 393
Johnson, Dr 185
PAOB
Lathrop, Mary F 166
Lincoln, Abraham 24
Longfellow, Henry W.. ..138, 261, 291
Lonsdale, Bishop of 340
Lover, S 28
Lowell, James Russell 301
Lytton, Bulwer 369
Macaulay, Lord 80
MacDonald, George 213
Mackay, Charles 347
Mann, Horace 162, 191
March, Rev. Dr. Daniel. .232, 346, 411
Marsh, Miss 362
Marzials, Frank T 160
Mason, John 822
Matthews, Rev. Dr. J. M 36
McLeod, Mrs. Georgie A. H 302
Millman, Dean 367
Mills, Mrs. Elizabeth 386
Milton, John 313, 328
Mitchell, John K 290
Montgomery, James.. 53, 104, 335, 392
Moody, D. L 119, 206
Moore, Thomas 391, 398
More, Hannah 344
Morris, George P 79, 93
Moultrie, John 297
Muckle, Mary J 29
Mulock, Miss 331
Murray, Rev. W. H. H 159, 166
Newton, John 856
Northrop, Prof. B. G 362
Orrery, Earl of 100
Keble, John 126, 243, 407 Parnell, Thomas '. 280
Ken, Bishop Thomas 352
King, Henry 820
Lamb, Charles 867
Lange, Rev. Dr. Ernst 407
Lason, A. A 216
Paxton, Rev. Dr. W. M 203
Payne, John Howard 333
Pearce, William 351
Perm, William 858
Penrose, Richard 24!)
Perry, Mrs. S. T 292
LIST OF AUTHORS.
PAGE
flerpont, John 304
Pliny 223
Planche, .1. R 315
Pollock, Robert 280
Pope, Alexander 71, 200, 210
Porter, Rev. Dr. Noah 202
Prentice, George D 97, 408
Preston, Mrs. 311
Priest, Nancy A. W 406
Proctor, Bryan W 332
Punshon, Rev. Dr.W. Morley.,231,
253, 267, 831, 385
Read, T. Buchanan 338
Reed, Rev. Dr. Alexander 820
Rice, Mrs. C. L 801
Robertson, Rev. Dr. P. \V 242
Rogers, Samuel 129, 215
Rounds, William M. P 199
Sangster, Margaiet E 146
Saxe, John G 327
Scott, Sir Walter 195
Seneca 267, 328
Shakespeare, William. 191, 225, 244, 314
Sidney, Sir Philip 237
Sigourney, Mrs. L. H 65, 225, 238
Simpson, Bishop 269
Smith, Sidney 244
Southey, Robert 886, 352
Sprague, Charles 337
Spurgeon, Itev. C. H 212, 273
PAGE
Stillings, Henrich ............... 4o.>
Stowe, Mrs. H B .............. 34,
Swain. Charles .................. 106
Talmage, Rev.T. De Witt..",G, 194.
215 263, 267, 273, 323
Taylor, Bishop .................. 134
Taylor, Rev. Dr. William M ...... 240
Tennyson, Alfred ............ 110, 280
Thomson, James ____ 122, 129, 184, 331
Tillotson ........................ 57
Todd, Rev. Dr. John ............ 202
Trafton, Rev. Mark ........... 90, 92
Tupper, Martin F. ........... 128, 295
Turgot ........................ 244
Tweedie, Rev. Dr. W. K ........ 274
Wadsworth. Rev. Dr. Charles ____ 296
Walker, Delia E ................. 358
Walker, Dr. James .............. 331
Watts, Rev. Dr. Isaac ........... 357
Webster, Daniel ............ 203, 388
White, Henry Kirke ............. 79
Whittier, John G ............ 249, 289
Wilcox, Carlos .................. 336
Willis, Nathaniel P ........... 75, 258
Williams, Rev. Dwight .......... 387
Woodworth, Samuel. . . . . ........ 118
Yoemans, William II
Young, Edward
10
Poetical Selections are indicated by bold-face number*.
PAGE
A MOTHER'S LARGE AFFECTION Laman Blanchard 24
MY MOTHER Abraham Lincoln . . 24
MOTHER Fanny Crosby 27
MY MOTHER DEAR 8. Lover 28
MOTHER Joanna BaiUie 28
MOTHER, HOME AND HEAVEN Mary J. Muclde 29
MOTHER E. L. Cassanovia. 80
THE MOTHER AT HOME Mother's Treasury 81
A MOTHER'S LOVE Saxe Holm 34
A MOTHER'S HEART .Macmillan's Magazine 35
THE LOVE PRINCIPLE A. A. Hodge, D.D. 35
A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE J. M. Matthews. D.D. 36
A MOTHER'S PRAYEB Anonymous 42
THE MOTHER Thomas Campbell 43
TIRED MOTHERS Mrs. May Eiky Smith. . 44
MOTHERS OF DISTINGUISHED MJCN Anonymous 46
MOTHERS AND SONS Christian Intelligencer 50
THE MOTHER'S PRATKR Anonymous 52
A MOTHER'S LOVK James Montgomery 58
THE MOTHER'S OPPORTUNITY Anonymous 54
MOTTTERS, Pur YOUB CHILDREN TO BID Mother's Magazine 5(5
tt
CONTENTS.
PAGB
GOOD- NIGHT Kiss Anonymous 67
A GOOD WORD TiUotson 57
MOTHER AND CHILD Thomas Hood 58
Ouu MOTHER Rural New Yorker 59
PARENTAL AUTHORITY Mother's Treasury 61
COURTESIES TO PARENTS 8. 8. Times 63
THE MOTHER'S CHARGE Mrs. L. H. Sigourney. . 65
AUTHORITY OF PARENTS Horace Bushnell, D. D. .. 65
THE DYING MOTHER J. A. Dacus 66
RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS T. F. W. 68
VISIT YOUR PARENTS Anonymous 69
A WORD WITH PARENTS ABOUT TITKTR CHILDREN.. Anonymous 70
CHARMS VERSUS MERIT Alexander Pope 71
THE MOTHER'S SORROW Methodist 72
SORROWS H. W. Seecher 73
/ THE OLD ARM-CHAIR Eliza Cook 74
MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS N. P. Willis 75
MOTHER'S VACANT CHAIR T. D Witt Talmage. ... 76
THE MOTHER'S WONDROUS POWER. Mrs. Sarah J. Hale 77
RESPECT FOR MOTHERS Anonymous 78
To MY MOTHER Henry Kirke White 79
MY MOTHER George P. Morris 79
TRIBUTE TO A MOTHER Lord Macaulay 80
THE MOTHER'S MISSION Anonymous 80
OLD AGE . M. W. E. 81
MY MOTHER'S HANDS Anonymous 82
MY MOTHER'S PICTURE William Cowper 83
THE MOTHER AS TEACHER A. W, K. 84
How MAMMA PLAYS Etta Farman 85
MOTHER'S EMPIRE Rev. H. H. Birkins 87
FOR His MOTHER'S SAKE Anonymous 89
WIFE AND MOTHER , Ret. Mark Trafton 90
BE KIND UNTO THE OLD .Anonymous. 90
THE OLD FOLKS Congregationalist 91
12
CONTENTS.
PAG
MOTIIEK, THE QUEEN OF HXB iloji Ren. Mark Trafton 92
MY MOTHER'S BIBLE George P. Morris 98
MY MOTHER'S BIRLK Bishop Gilbert Haven 94
MY MOTHER'S QKA VK Reo. M. C. Henderson 96
MOTHERS, SPARE YOOISEL v its Anonymous 97
MY MOTHER'S GUAVK George D. Prenlue 93
HOME Oliver Wendell Holmes 100
DOMESTIC HAPPINESS Earl of Orrery 100
HOME Fanny Crosby 103
HOME . .James Montgomery 104
HOME DEFINED Charles Swain 105
THE HOME OF CHILDHOOD Samuel D. Burchard, D.D. . 106
HOME SONGS Anonymous 109
THE OLD HOME Alfred Tennyson 110
HOME SHADOWS Robert Collyer, D.D Ill
HOME ADORNMENTS Rev. Dr. Downing 112
v/ SCENES OF MY CHILDHOOD Samuel Woodworth 118
LONGINGS FOR HOME Oliver Goldsmith 114
HOME GOVERNMENT WHAT is IT f MotJter's Treasury 115
HOME GOVERNMENT ITS IMPORTANCE Rev. B. F. Booth 116
HOME TRAINING OF CHILDREN D. L. Moody ' 119
HOME AFFECTION H. C. Dane 121
HOME TEACHING James Thomson 122
HOME INSTRUCTION Hon. Schuyler Coif ax. 123
HOME INFLUENCES Saturday Evening Post 124
THE SMILES OF HOME John Keble 126
HOME COURTESY Anonymous 127
THE HAPPY HOME Martin F. Tupfxr 128
HOME OF OUK CHILDHOOD Oliver Wendell Uolinet 128
AJJ IDEAL HOME Samuel Revert ._ . . . 129
13
OONTENT8.
TAGR
HOME James Thomson. .: 129
Hoxx RELIGION Mother's Treasury 180
KIND WORDS AT HOMR Anonymous 132
A HAPPY HOMK I)Fi^i> Bffti. Dr. Hamilton. .... 132
FAMILY PRATERS Christian at Work 133
FREQUENT PRAYEK Bishop Taylor 134
No TIME TO PRAT Anonymous 135
v THE CHILDREN . . . DicLeitwn. 136
THE CHILDREN H.'W. Longfellow 138
THE RIGHTS OP CHILDREN LitteWs Living Age 139
SUFFERINGS OF CHILDHOOD Appleton's Journal 140
GOVERNMENT OF CHILDREN Boston Post 142
KIND WORDS Saturday Evening Post. . 143
NOT ONE CHILD TO SPARE Mrs. Ethel L. Beers 144
BABIES AND THEIR RIGHTS M, E. Sangster 146
THE CHILDREN'S BED-TIME Jane Ellis Hopkins 149
THE EVENING PRAYER Anonymous 151
HOME AND ITS QUEEN Scribner's Monthly 152
GIRLS' INFLUENCE Anonymous 153
To OUR GIRLS Mary F. Lathrop 155
A PLEA FOR THE BOY New York Evening Post. . 156
' BOYHOOD Rev. W. H. H. Murray. . 159
MY BOY Frank T. Marzials 160
CHILDREN OF THE RICH AND 1'uoit, CONTRASTED. .James Russell Lowell .... 161
BE KIND, BOYS Horace Mann 162
GOOD MANNERS Anonymous 163
KIND MANNERS AT HOME Anonymous 16^
HOME, NEXT TO HEAVEN Anonymous 165
HOME AMUSEMENTS Rev. W. H. H. Murray. . 165
A CHEERFUL HOME Friends' Intelligencer 168
THE FARMER'S HOME William H. Yoemans 169
HOME MEMORTJ i Thomas Hood 1 70
SINGING IN TI , FAMILY Arumymou* 178
ART IN THE FAMILY Baltimore American 178
14
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CONVERSATION Churchman 175
SPEAK. CHEERFUL WORDS Anonyinou* 178
NONE LIVETH TO HIMSELF Anonymous 177
SPEAK A GOOD WOBD Anonymous 178
SMILE Mrs. Burr 179
JOY BRINGERS Anonymous 180
GRUMBLERS Anonymous 180
LOVE TO OUR FELLOW MEN (Abou Ben Adhem) . . Leigh Hunt 181
^ WORDS TO BOYS James T. Fields 182
THE LIGHT OF A CHEERFUL FACE Anonymous 183
DOMESTIC BLISS James Thomson 184
THE BRIGHT SIDE The Interior 185
WORTH OF LOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SIDB Dr. Johnson 185
THE EVENING HEARTHSTONE Anonymous 186
CHEERFULNESS Anonymous 187
COURTESY AT HOME Christian Weekly 188
CHRISTIAN COURTESY Anonymous 190
SELF-RESPECT IN COMPANY Lord Chesterfield 190
MODELS Oliver Goldsmith 190
N THE MORALITY OF MANNERS. . . Horace Mann 191
THE WITCHERY OF MANNER Anonymous 19'-
BEST MEN, MOULDED OUT OF FAULTS Shakespeare 19-
CULTIVATE PATIENCE Anonymous 193
BEWARE THE FURY OF A PATIENT MAN John Dryden. 193
A WOMAN'S CARES T. De Witt Talmage 194
WOMAN'S EQUALITY Matthew Henry, D.D 195
WOMAN Sir Walter Scott 195
TELL YOUR WIFE Pacific Rural Press 196
HOSPITALITY Oliver Goldsmith 197
TRUE HOSPITALITY / Sir Arthur Helps 197
THE RULE OF HOSPITALITY Wttttiam M. F. Sound. . 19'.'
NEVER BE ASHAMED TO OWN THE WBONG Alexander Pope 200
DON'T BE Too SENSITIVE Anonymous 201
'" THE FIUST VIRTUE is TO RESTRAIN THE TONGUE.. Goto 201
15
CONTENTS.
I'ACiK
ADVICE TO A YOUNG MAN John Todd, D.D. 202
ADYICJC TO YOUNG MEN Noah Porter, D.D. 202
EDUCATION H. W. Beecher 203
PRINCIPLES VERSUS HORSEMEN OB CHABIOTB W. M. PaxUm,D.D 203
THE SECURITY OP THE NATION Daniel Webster 203
COUNSELS TO THE YOUNG Anonymous 204
THE PROBLEM OP LIFE Phillips Brooks 205
EXAMPLE Lord Clarendon 205
GREAT MEN INSPIRED Cicero 205
To YOUNG MEN D. L. Moody 206
ABILITY AND OPPORTUNITY Herald and Presbyter. . . . 208
HAPPINESS Alexander Pope 210
DOMESTIC HAPPINESS William Cowper > . 210
FAMILY LIFE, A TEST OF PIETY Golden Rule 211
AIM AND OBJECT IN LIFB Rev. C. H. Spurgcon . . . 212
SELFISHNESS William Cowper 213
LIFE AND RELIGION ARE ON* George MacDonald 213
MAKE YOUR MARK David Barker. 214
THE USES OF ADVERSITY Joseph Addison 215
THE GOOD ARE BETTEB MADE BY ILL Samuel Ifogers 215
TROUBLES STRENGTHEN THE SOUL T. De Witt Talmage ... 215
FOLLY OF FRETTING A. A. Lason 216
NEVER MIND Anonymous 218
LITTLE TROUBLES Mrs. Amelia E. Barr. . . 219
ANXIETY is THE POISON OK Li FK Blair 222
MANY DISHES BRING MANY Liai^>jia Pliny 222
TRANSIENT TEOUBLES Anonymous 223
WORKING AND WAITING Anonymous 224
CONTENT Mrs. L. H. Sigourney. . 225
DISCORDANCE Shakespeare 225
LET BYGONES BE BYGONES Chamber*' Journal 226
THE CHRISTIAN AT HOME Anonymous. 227
i LELIGION IN THE FAMILY Bishop F. D. Iluntingtvn. 22R
OKBTAINTDES IN RELIGION lim. Joseph Cook 228
1
CONTENTS.
PAOR
WINNING SOULS Bishop E. 8. Janet 230
THE AGENCIES FOB GOOD W. Morley Punshon, LL.D. 231
YOUB MISSION Daniel March, D.D 232
> THE NOBILITY OF SEBYICE J. 0. Holland 283
WHATEVER You Do, Do IT WELL Anonymous 234
"' INDUSTRY Benjamin Franklin 235
ART ITS APPLICATION Sir John Herschel 235
KNOW THYSELF Mrs. L. H. Sigourney 236
NOBLE THOUGHTS Sir Philip Sidney 237
IMPORTANCE OF CHARACTER Methodist Recorder 238
INFLUENCE OF CHARACTER Wm. M. Taylor, D.D 240
A GUILTY CONSCIENCE is LIKE A WHIRLPOOL. .Fuller 241
STRENGTH OF CHARACTER F. W. Robertson, D.D 242
CHARACTER, WE TAKE WITH Us Humboldt 242
TENDENCY OF CHARACTER A. A. Hodge, D.D 242
WORTH OF CHARACTER George H. Colton 243
SPOTLESS REPUTATION Shakespeare 243
EARNESTNESS OF PURPOSE Timothy Dwight, D.D 243
AMBITION John Keble 243
WANT OF DECISION Sidney Smith 244
COLUMBUS' FAITH Turgot 244
DON'T BE DISCOURAGED Anonymous < 245
INFLUENCE Charles Dickens 245
' EARTHLY INFLUENCE Thomas Carlyle 246
POWER OF INFLUENCE F. W. Faber, D.D 246
POWER OF INFLUENCE . Christian Weekly 247
PERPETUITY OF INFLUENCE J. Q. Whittier 249
DOING GOOD Richard Penrose 249
SYMPATHY, NOT LOST Anonymous 251
TRIALS Anonymous. 252
TRIALS, A TEST OF CHARACTER W. Morley Punshon, LL.D. 253
ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS IN LIFE A. D. F 254
PRESS ON! N. P. Willis. 258
AMBITION Anonymous. 259
B 17
CONTENTS.
PAGB
TEARS OF SYMPATHY Byron 260
"' A WORTHY AMBITION John B. Gough 261
COMMON TRUTHS Lord Baton ' 261
* THE SUMMIT GAINED BY SLOW DEGREES H. W. Longfellow 261
MAKE HOME LIFE BEAUTIFUL Prof. B. O. Northrop 262
WOMAN AT HOME T. De Witt Talmage 263
THE CHARM OF WOMAN W. E. Gladstone, M.P. 263
THE HOMESTEAD Phoebe Gary 264
HOME T. De Witt Talmage 267
THE POWER OF KINDNESS Wm. Morley Punshon, LL.D. 267
RULE OF CONDUCT Seneca 267
FIRESIDE MUSINGS Ada A. Chaffee 268
EARLY INFLUENCES Bishop Simpson 269
PREFERENCE FOR THE RIGHT Henry Olay 269
A PLEA FOR HOME Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D. 270
MAKE SOME ONE HAPPY T. De Witt Talmage 273
MAN'S BEST POWERS POINT HIM GODWARD Rev. 0. H. Spurgeon 273
THE TRIALS OF HOME W. K. Tweedie, D.D 274
SANCTIFIED AFFLICTIONS Watchman and Reflector 278
1 'Tis BETTER TO HAVE LOVED AND LOST Alfred Tennyson 280
IMMORTALITY Robert Pollock 280
DEATH, THE PATH TO GOD Thomas Parndl. 280
CONSOLATION Mary H. Houghton 281
OUR LAMBS Anonymous 284
MY BABY Evangelist 287
v CHILDHOOD John G. Whittier 289
OUR DEAR ONES James Aldrich 290
'Tis A BLESSING TO LIVB John K. Mitchell. 290
THE LITTLE CHILDREN Henry W. Longfellow 291
ARE ALL THE CHILDREN IN ? Mrs. 8. T. Perry 292
ARE THE CHILDREN AT HOME I Mrs. M. E. Songster. 298
A LINK BETWEEN ANGELS AND MEN Martin F. Tvpper 295
DEATH OF CHILDREN Charles Wadsworth, D.D. 296
MY EOT John Moultru . . 297
18
CONTENTS.
PAOB
QUIET USEFULNESS John Hall, D.D. 297
HOME BEREAVEMENTS Henry Ward Beecher .... 298
THE ANGEL-CHILD Mrs. 0. L. Rice 301
/ AN ANGEL MET MY GAZE James Russell Lowell. . . 301
EMPTY CRADLES Mrs. &. A. H. McLeod.. 302
MY CHILD John Pierpont 304
SONSHINE FOR THE SORROWING Theo. L. Cuyler, D.D. . 806
WE KNOW NOT WHAT is BEFORE Us Mary G. Brainard 308
PASSING AWAY Mrs. F. D. Remans 309
BY-AND-BYE Mrs. Preston 311
BROKEN TIES Christian Weekly 312
LIVE WELL John Milton 313
LIFE A PLAY Shakespeare 314
COMPUTATION OF LIFE J. R. Planche 315
LIFE'S EPITAPH Congregationalist 316
THE LIFE CLOCK Anonymous 317
LIFE'S BOUNDARY LINE, OR THE DOOMED MAN J. A. Alexander, D.D.. 318
BREVITY OF LIFE Henry King 320
RESPONSIBILITIES OF LIFE Alexander Reed, D.D. . . 320
LIFE Lord Byron 821
MYSTERY OF LIFE Anna Letitia Barbauld. . 321
*' BOUNDARIES OF LIFE Oliver Wendell Holmes. . 322
THE VANITY OF LIFE Edward Young 322
LIFE. A BOOK John Mason 822
OUR LIFE A SERMON T. De Witt Talmage. . . . 323
v How TO LIVE William 0. Bryant 323
GOD'S DEMANDS Rev. William Jay 323
THE VOYAGE OF LIFE Madame Guyon 323
CHRISTIAN LIVING N. T. Observer. 327
FALSE PRIDE IN LIFE John G. Saxe 827
LIFE REACTING UPON LIFB Mrs. E. B. Browning. . . 828
OUR LIVES ARE ALBUMS John Milton 328
MUTUAL DEPENDENCE Seneca. 828
Do TO-DAY THY NEAREST DUTY Goethe 827
10
CONTENTS.
PAGE
YOUNG MEN LEA VINO HOME Christian Voice* 829
WORLDLY PLEASURES AND THEIR INFLUENCE.. Dr. Jama Walker 831
THE RESULT OP ACTIONS, THE CRITERION OP
JUDGMENT ... Lord Chesterfield 331
SCORN PLEASURE WHICH GFVES PAIN James Thomson , 331
LABOR is THE TRUE ALCHEMIST TT. Morley Punshon, LL.D. . 331
STRIKE WHILE THE IRON is HOT Oliver Cromwell. 331
RETURNING HOME Miss Mulock. 332
TRAVELLING HOME Bryan W. Proctor 382
HOME, SWEET HOME John Howard Payne 333
MEMORY OP HOME T. Buchanan Bead 333
JOYS OF HOME John Bowring 834
HARVEST HOME James Montgomery 335
OUR LAST FAREWELLS Carlos Wilcox 336
FAREWELL TO HOME Robert Southey 336
THE FAMILY MEETING Gharks 8p*ague . . 33 7
THE WAY TO HEAVEN Bishop of Lonsdd* . . 840
THOUGHTS OP HEAVEN. Bisftop Home 340
HEAVEN Fanny J. Crosby 343
THE APOSTLE JOHN'S IDEA op HEAVEN J. W. Alexander, D.D 344
PAUL'S ESTIMATE OP HEAVEN Hannah More 844
HEAVEN, A HOME Thomas Guthrie, D.D 345
IN HEAVEN, HANDS CLASP FOREVER Greek Proverb 345
HEAVEN Daniel March, D.D 346
HEAVEN, A CITY Thomas Guthrie, D.D 346
HEAVEN, A RESTING-PLACE Charles Mackay 347
MY FATHER'S HOUSE Mrs. H. B. Stowe 348
THE HEAVENLY PLACE Howard Crosby, D.D 349
THOUGHTS OP HEAVEN William Pearce 851
20
CONTENTS.
RECOGNITION la HBAYKN .................. Robert Southey ............. 852
HEAVENLY RECcxranroN ................. . .Bishop Thomas Km ........ 852
ATTRACTIONS OF HEAVEN .................. Bernard Barton ............ 858
THE TRUEST END OP LIFE ................. William Penn ............. 353
ENTERING HEAVEN ........................ Bet. J. L. Harris .......... 854
" THE WONDERS OF HEAVEN ................. John Newton. .............. 356
DELIGHTS OF HEAVEN ..................... Dr. Isaac Watts. ........... 357
IGNORANCE OF THE FUTURE LIFB. . ......... Richard Baxter. .. ........ 857
BEAUTIFUL HEAVEN ....................... Delia E. Walker ........... 858
SONGS IN HEAVEN ......................... If. T. B. ............... . , 359
HYMNS OF HEAVEN ........................ TJieo. L. Guyler, D.D ...... 860
ECHOES FROM HEAVEN ..................... John Gumming, D.D ....... 361
HEAVENLY REALITIES ...................... Miss Marsh ............... 362
THE CHRISTIAN IN HEAVEN ............... John 8. G. Abbott, D.D ..... 363
THE LAND OF BEULAH ..................... G. Huntington ............. 366
1 THE SILENT SHORE ........................ Charles Lamb. ............. 367
THE DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS ............ Dean Millman ............. 367
HEAVEN NOT FAR AWAY .................. Anonymous ............... 368
THERE is NO DEATH ....................... Bulwer Lytton ............. 369
OUR FRIENDS IN HEAVEN .................. Anonymous. .............. 371
MINISTERING ANGELS ...................... Kingswood Chronicle ........ 374
THREE UNCHANGEABLES ................... Matthew Henry, D.D ....... 375
THE STARLESS CROWN ..................... J. L. H ................. . 876
BRINGING OUR SHEAVES WITH Us .......... Elizabeth Ackers ............ 878
THE SHORE OF ETERNITY .................. F. W. Fdber, D.D ......... 879
HYMNS OF LONGING FOB REST .............. Theo. L. Cuyler, D.D ...... 881
AT EVENTIDE IT SHALL BE LIGHT .......... Anonymous .............. 884
REUNION IN HEAVEN ...................... W. Morley Punshon, LL.D... 885
WHAT MUST IT BE TO BE THERE f ......... Mrs. Elizabeth Mitt* ........ 886
JOY IN THE MORNING ..................... Rev. Dwight Williams ...... 887
v MY RESPONSIBILITY TO GOD ................ Daniel Webster . ............ 888
THE SUNSET HOUR OF LIFB ............... Anonymous ............... 889
THE JOY OF INCOMPLETENESS .............. Sunday Magazine .......... 890
THERE'S NoTHma TBUB BUT HBAVRW ...... Thomas Moore. ............ 891
21
CONTENTS.
PAGH
DEPARTURE OP FRIENDB . .James Montgomery 392
No SECTS IN HEAVEN Mrt. Slie. H. Jocelyn... 393
HEAVEN F. W. Faber, D.D 397
ANTICIPATION OP HEAVEN Thomas Moore 398
A HOME IN HEAVEN William Hunter 399
THOSE MANSIONS ABOVE Parish Visitor 400
AT HOME IN HEAVEN Charles F. Deems, D.D.. 402
MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN United Presbyterian 404
FORETOKENS OP HEAVEN S. W. Hamilton 405
BLESSED ARE THE HOME-SICK Henrich Stillings 405
JOTS OP HEAVEN Nancy A. W. Priest 406
UNVAILED HEAVEN Ernst Lange, D.D 407
WHAT is HEAVEN ? John Kelle 407
IMMORTALITY George D. Prentice 408
TIME AND ETERNITY Horatius Bonar 409
No NIGHT IN HEAVKN Anonymous 410
No SORROW THERE Daniel March, D.D 411
FAREWELL LIPE, WELCOME LITE Thomas Hood 412
THE END Anonymout 413
BENEDICTION Anonym&ut 414
*2Y a mother's large ajfectivn
Hears with a mysterious sense,-
Breathings that escape detection
Whisper faint, and fine inflection
Thrill in her with power intense.
Childhood's honeyed words untaught,
Hiveth she in loving thought,
Tones that never thence depart.
For sh* listens with her heart,
LAMAN BLANCHARD.
All that lam or hope to be I owe to my mother.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
THE MOTHER'S TREASURE.
MOTHER.
^WRITTEN EXPRESSLY FOR THIS WORK.]
By Fanny J. Crosby.
HE light, the spell-word of the heart,
Our guiding star in weal or woe,
Our talisman our earthly chart
That sweetest name that earth can know.
We breathed it first with lisping tongue
When cradled in her arms we lay;
Fond memories round that name are hung
That will not, cannot pass away.
We breathed it then, we breathe it still,
More dear than sister, friend, or brother ;
The gentle power, the magic thrill.
Awakened at the name of mother.
MY MOTHER DEAR
8. Lover.
>HERE was a place in childhood that I remember well,
And there a voice of sweetest tone bright fairy tales did
tell,
And gentle words, and fond embrace, were given with joy to mo,
When I was in that happy place upon my mother's knee.
When fairy tales were ended, " Good night," she softly said,
And kissed, and laid me down to sleep, within my tiny bed,
And holy words she tanght me then methinks I yet can see
Her angel eyes, as close I knelt beside my mother's knee.
In the sickness of my childhood, the perils of my prime,
The sorrows of my riper years, the cares of ev'ry time,
When donbt and danger weighed me down, then pleading all for me,
It was a fervent prayer to Heaven that bent my mother's knee.
MOTHER.
Joanna Baffli*.
'HEN we are sick, where can we turn for snccor,
When we are wretched, where can we complain I
And when the world looks cold and snrly on us,
Where can we go to meet a wanner eye
With such snre confidence as to a mother I
28
MOTHER, HOME AND HEAVEN.
Mary J. Muekb,
>HEHE are three words that sweetly blend,
That on the heart are graven ;
A precious soothing balm they lend
They're Mother, Home and Heaven !
They twine a wreath of beauteous flowers,
Which, placed on memory's urn,
"Will e'en the longest, gloomiest hours
To golden sunlight turn 1
They form a chain whose every link
Is free from base alloy ;
A stream where whosoever drinks
Will find refreshing joy 1
They build an altar where each day
Love's offering is renewed ;
And peace illumes with genial ray
Life's darkened solitude !
If from our side the first has fled,
And Home be but a name,
Let's strive the narrow path to tread,
That we the last may gain 1
MOTHER
E. L. Cassanovia.
life's commotions dismal fears
Mid cares and woes, and floods of tears,
How sweetly breaks upon the ear
Some word of comfort or of cheer ;
Yet of our friends there's not another
Who speaks as gently as our mother.
Here disappointments crowd each day,
Our brightest hopes soon fade away,
And friends long trusted oft deceive ;
We scarcely know whom to believe,
Yet, though we fear to trust each other,
We're not afraid to trust our mother.
Yet here where there's so much deceit,
Some friends we have we love to meet ,
There's love we know that will endure.
Not sordid, selfish, but all pure ;
But though beloved by sister, brother,
There's none that love us like our mother.
Among the names to mortals given,
There's none like mother, home and heaven ;
For home's no home without her care ;
And heaven, we know she will be there ;
Then let us, while we love each other,
Remember and be kind to mother.
THE MOTHER AT HOME.
RCHBISHOP LEIGHTON says, " FiU the bushel with good
wheat, and there will be no room for chaff and rubbish."
This is a good thought for every mother while tending her
children, and watching the growth of their power in body and mind.
" As soon as they be born," the Bible says, " children go astray,
speaking lies." So soon, therefore, will a Christian mother begin to
" train her child in the way he should go," that good habits may be
formed, ready to carry out good principles as the child grows old
enough to understand the reason for his conduct.
Good moral habits are essential to the healthf ulness of the home ;
and these may be best taught by the watchful mother's training.
One important part of her work is to remove hindrances out of her
children's way to health and happiness. No dirt, or dirty habits,
for example, should be permitted. Washing their hands and faces
many times in the day will often remove a sense of discomfort
which makes them fretful, as also will giving them food at regular
periods. Ragged dress, too, and broken fastenings, add a feeling
of degradation, that a careful mother will prevent as far as possible
by keeping their clothes whole, neat, and clean. Making their own
garments, we may here remark, gives useful employment to girls,
and is an important aid in training them up to thrifty habits. Many
families go in rags because they never learned to sew; while the
same wages in the hands of those who know how to employ that
useful " one-eyed servant," the needle, keep the household looking
always respectable.
81
THE MOTHER AT HOME.
Children also should have time to play. Happiness is a great
promoter of health. The Bible mentions " boys and girls playing
in the streets," as one sign of national prosperity. They do not
need expensive toys A little French prince turned from his new
year's present of toys from an empress grandmother to watch some
peasants making dirt pies, and, it is said, begged the queen his
mother to allow him to join in the sport which seemed so charming
to his childish eye, as offering some scope to his ingenuity. A few
old bits of wood, or scraps of broken crockery, stones, and oyster-
shells, afford inexhaustible amusement, cost nothing, and do not
spoil ; while if the mother will now and then put in a word to show
an interest in her little ones' games, her own spirit will be refreshed
and cheered by their light-heartedness.
Children are wonderful imitators, so that it is comparatively easy
to lead them early into good ways. They are never so happy as
when trying to do what they see older people do. Their plays
chiefly consist in copying elders. The little cottager "makes
believe " to go to market, to plant a garden, to make hay, to wash,
to build, to cook, and to teach in school. The boys are never
merrier than when playing at horses, or in some other way aspiring
to be like their elders. Many of these games bring the bodily
organs into excellent exercise, and strengthen and build up the
system wonderfully. These amusements, too, often really prepare
the children for the actual business of life, so that they the sooner
become helpful to their parents. They should be watched and
encouraged therefore in their play to habits of thoughtfulness and
self-reliance.
Let it be remembered also, that, while by all means it is well to
send children to school, the largest portion of their education,
whether for good or evil, is carried on at home, often unconsciously,
in their amusements, and under the daily influence of what they
32
THE MOTHER AT HOME.
see and hear about them. It is there that " subtle brains and lis-
som fingers " find scope, and learn to promote the well-being of the
community. "We cannot tell what duties our children may be
called to perform in after-life; many of England's greatest men
were born poor cottagers. But we can, in a great measure, preserve
their brains and limbs from injury ; we cau cultivate their faculties,
and teach them to exercise all their senses, to use their hands
diligently and skillfully, to observe with their eyes, to listen to good
instruction; in short, we can, by God's help, teach them, as the
prophet says, " to choose the good and refuse the evil." We can
encourage them to be apt to learn, so that they may with -readiness
set about any duty which God may place before them.
Are the children naughty? Must they be punished? "The Lord
loveth the son whom He chasteneth;" "As many as I love I
rebuke and chasten," are texts which will mitigate the anger of both
father and mother, and teach them to adopt such means of correc-
tion as shall improve instead of harden their children's minds. Is a
little daughter lame and sickly ? Does a son get into a hard place ?
" Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that
f eaV Him ; " " As one whom his mother comf orteth, so will I com-
fort you," saith the Lord.
Does work fail and removal among strangers seem inevitable?
The children's conclusion that " Father will see about it," " Mother
will! be with us," are phrases full of deeper meaning to their parents'
ears as they raise their hearts to God, and remember, " Thou corn-
passest my path;" "Thou knowest my way;" "Though I walk
through the midst of trouble Thou wilt revive me."
"Within Thy circling power I stand.
On every side I find Thine hand :
Awake, asleep, at home, abroad,
I am surrounded still by God."
c 33
A MOTHER'S LOVE.
And when strength fails, and a dear child is languishing into
another life beyond the grave, who can tend the dying bed like a
mother? In whom is there so much trust as in a father's love?
Talk about duty to children, there is no pleasure sweeter than that
of training them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,
repaid as it is by their fervent friendship in after-life, and the hope
of presenting them washed in a Saviour's blood and faultless before
the great white throne at the last day. Mother's Treasury.
A MOTHER'S LOYE.
(TYPICAL OF GOD'S LOVE.)
a cradle rocking, rocking,
Silent, peaceful, to and fro ;
Like a mother's sweet looks dropping
On the little face below,
Hangs the green earth, swinging, turning,
Jarless, noiseless, safe and slow ;
Falls the light of God's face bending
Down and watching us below.
And as feeble babes that suffer,
Toss and cry, and will not rest,
Are the ones the tender mother
Holds the closest, loves the best :
So, when we are weak and wretched,
By our sins weighed down, distressed,
Then it is that God's great patience
Holds us closest, loves us best.
84
A MOTHER'S HEART.
LITTLE dreaming, such as mothers know ;
A little lingering over dainty things ;
A happy heart, wherein hope all aglow
Stirs like a bird at dawn that wakes and sings,
And that is all.
A little clasping to her yearning breast ;
A little musing over future years ;
A heart that prays : " Dear Lord, thou knowest best
But spare my flower life's bitterest rain of tears "
And that is all.
A little spirit speeding through the night ;
A little home grown lonely, dark and chill ;
A sad heart groping blindly for the h'ght ;
A little snow-clad grave beneath the hill
And that is all.
A little gathering of life's broken thread ;
A little patience keeping back the tears ;
A heart that sings, " Thy darling is not dead,
God keeps her safe through his eternal years "
And that is all. Macmillcm's
love principle is stronger than the force principle.
Dr. A. A. Uodgt.
85
A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE.
/. M. Matthews, D. D.
have read history to little purpose if we have not observed
that there are periods when corruption seems to acquire a
peculiar and fearful sway in our world; and these sad
changes are generally attributed to the influence of some distin-
guished leader or leaders in wickedness, who impress their own cor-
rupt image on the generation in which they live. But if we trace
the evils to their true source, we must go farther back than to the
men who stand thus prominent in producing them. Had I time, I
would here show, that all those great changes from bad to worse
which have rendered nations so corrupt as to consign them to ruin,
have been effected through the corrupting influence of mothers, act-
ing on those in childhood, who in manhood became the leading men
of their day. Such, the holy Scriptures inform us, was the real cause
of that awful wickedness which brought the waters of the deluge on
the earth. It was not till " the sons of God took to them wives of
the daughters of men " (thus contracting unhallowed and forbidden
alliances), that " the wickedness of man became so great in the earth,
that it repented the Lord that he had made man, and he said, I will
destroy man which I created from the face of the earth." And
what is so marked as the immediate cause of the wide-spread
depravity which called for the destruction of a world, is equally
marked in other parts of the Scriptures, as the grand source of ruin
to the nations whose history they record. Have you never observed
how frequently they allude to the mothers of Israel and of Judah's
kings, when in the days of the nation's decline the throne passed in
36
A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE.
such rapid succession from one king to another, " who did evil in the
sight of the Lord " ? The career of guilt and declension was some-
time checked by the raising up of one good king who walked in
the way of the Lord. Such was Josiah, of whom we are told, " his
mother's name was Jedediah ; " a name which at once announces her
piety and worth. But see how the parentage of the wicked and
idolatrous kings is noted. We are told of Abijah, the grandson of
Solomon, who was perhaps the first who filled the land with idolatry,
that his mother's name was Maachah. Of Ahaziah, the son of Ahab,
who did evil exceedingly in the sight of the Lord, we are told that
his mother was Jezebel, who stirred up his father Ahab to sin. In
like manner we are told of Jehoahaz, that his mother's name was
Haiimtal ; of Jehoiakim, that his mother's name was Zebadah ; of
Jehoiachin, that his mother's name was Nehushta : names which,
taken in connection with their history, sufficiently show the evil
courses they pursued, and the consequent evil influence they would
exert.
Now, why was this all so carefully noted ? It was to show that
the bane of the nation was found in the nurseries of her kings,
where their infant minds were tainted and poisoned by their Jezebel
mothers ; and that being thus early led into sin, when in after-life
they gained the throne, their baleful influence was felt in spreading
wickedness around them, till their nation was carried away into cap-
tivity, and their land left a desolation. It was the corrupt queen-
mothers corrupting the minds of their infant sons, who were to be,
in future, kings, that primarily and mainly drew down the anger of
God ; nor was it till this insidious source of evil had been for gener-
ations at work, that hope finally perished.
But if maternal influence is thus powerful for evil, it is equally
powerful for good, when rightly and wisely employed. Nor do I
believe the assertion at all too strong, when I say, that the greatest
37
A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE.
and best of those whom we count among the great and good of
our race, have always derived the elements of their characters from
maternal care bestowed on them in childhood. If , in all the annals
of the human race, there be an exception to our position, let
it be named; let us be told where it is. It cannot be found in
the pages of sacred history. The testimony here, respecting those
whose names it has embalmed for immortality, is all one way.
Such, it tells us, was the training under which the childhood of
Moses was passed. The faith and piety of his mother was so strong,
that "she did not fear the king's wrath;" thus showing herself a
fit mother for a son who was to be the deliverer of Israel from
Egyptian bondage, and the lawgiver to the redeemed nation. And
who does not see the hand and design of God in that wonderful
train of events which secured to the child of such high destiny, the
care of a mother so peculiarly fitted for her task? Under a like
happy influence was the childhood of David passed, as he acknowl-
edges in his subsequent days of power and fame : " O Lord,
truly I am Thy servant ; I am Thy servant, and the son of Thine
handmaid : Thou hast loosed my bonds. I will offer to Thee the
sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord : "
thus in the days of his highest prosperity and greatest fame, recog-
nizing his pious mother's influence, not only as having mainly
contributed to elevate him to Israel's throne, but as having been
the bright star which kept alive his hope in the darkest hour of
his previous troubles. To the same cause, as already observed, in
the case of Josiah, are we taught to attribute, in great measure,
the wisdom and power which distinguished such of Judah's kings
as " did that which was right in tke sight of the Lord." Again :
John, the forerunner of our Saviour, is said to have had none greater
than himself of all who had been born of women. But his mother
was Elizabeth, a woman who "walked in all the commandments
38
A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE.
and ordinances of the Lord blameless." Again : among the apostles
of onr Lord was one distinguished as "a son of thunder;" and
another privileged to "lean on his Master's bosom," and to
receive very special tokens of His love. But when we are told of
the piety and holy ambition of their mother, we may account, at
least in part, for their distinction among the twelve (Matt. xx. 20,
21). And not to mention others from the sacred Scriptures, as
Timothy, whose "unfeigned faith dwelt first in his grandmother
Lois, and his mother Eunice ;" on whom, let me ask, has the
Saviour's mantle ever fallen, or in whom has His Spirit ever dwelt,
with peculiar manifestation, who may not be added to the cloud of
witnesses on this point ? In far-gone times, look into the biographies
of Polycarp, Augustine, Justin, Gregory, and others of the Fathers ;
and in latter days, look to the childhood of Matthew Henry,
Edwards, Dwight, Payson, and the whole army of those, at home
and abroad, who are this day owned and hailed as the champions
of truth, and you will find them all, without exception, to have
been the sons of pious and faithful mothers. NOT is it only from
the great and illustrious in the Church that we may collect
such facts. Look around you, and see what are the families
from which religion derives its most devoted and faithful friends.
From what dwellings come the sacramental host who fill the
Lord's table when it is spread, and not only there confess His name
before men, but are the foremost in efforts to spread His name
through the world ? Do they come from families where the mother,
though she may rule as a queen of fashion, and is perhaps rich in
every worldly endowment, yet loves not God, and finds no place
for him in her heart and her labors? Far from it. They
come, and come almost exclusively, from households where tht
mother is a Christian ; where the nursery for the family is a nursery
for the church ; where the first lispings of childhood are accents oi
A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE.
prayer, and the first thoughts of the heart thoughts of God aiid of
His Christ.
" Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined."
But who bends the twig? Who has the mind or character in
hand while it is yet so flexible and ductile that it can be turned
in any direction, or formed in any shape? It is the mother.
From her own nature, and the nature of her child, it results that
its first impressions must be taken from her. And she has every
advantage for discharging the duty. She is always with her child
if she is where mothers ought to be sees continually the work-
ings of faculties ; where they need to be restrained, and where led
and attracted. Early as she may begin her task, let her be assured,
that her labor will not be lost because undertaken too soon.
Mind, from the first hour of its existence, is ever acting ; and soon
may a mother see that, carefully as she may study her child, quite
as carefully is her child studying her. Let her watch the varying
expression of its speaking face, as its eyes follow her, and she will
perceive its mind is imbibing impressions from everything it sees
her do ; and thus showing, that, before the lips have begun to
utter words, the mind has begun to act, and to form a character.
Let her watch om ; and when, under her care, the expanding facul-
ties have begun to display themselves in the sportiveness of play,
how often will she be surprised to find the elements of character
already fixed, when she has least expected it. She has but to watch,
and she will find the embryo tyrant or philanthropist, warrior or
peace-maker, with her in her nursery ; and then, if ever, her con-
stant prayer should be, " How shall I order the child, and what shall
I do unto him ?" For, what he is to be, and what he is to do, in any
of these characters, she must now decide. It is a law of our being
that makes it so ; a law that I could wish were written on every
mother's heart by the finger of God, and on the walls of her nursery
40
A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE.
in letters of gold, that the mind of childhood is like wax to receive,
but like marble to hold, every impression made upon it, be it for
good or for evil. Let her then improve her power as she ought,
"being steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work"
wliich God requires at her hands ; and let her know that her labor
is not in vain in the Lord. For, even though her own eyes may not
be privileged to witness in her child all that is noble and great and
good, she may at least save him when her course on earth is finished.
It is no picture of the imagination that I hold out, when I ask you to
come and see the son of a faithful mother, who has long pursued his
course of crime, till he seems hardened against everything good or
true ; yea, at times " sits in the seat of the scorner," and scoffs at
everything holy and good but yet, hardened and dead as his heart
may seem, as to everything else you may urge, there is one point on
which, till his dying day, he can be made to feel. You touch it
when you remind him of what he saw and felt when a child under
the care of a tender mother. His sensibilities there he never utterly
loses ; and often, often, by that, as the last cord which holds him
from utter perdition, is the prodigal drawn back and restored; so
that, though "dead, he is alive again," though once "lost, he is
found."
Such are some of the illustrations of a mother's power to do good
to those most dear to her, and of the responsibility that springs from
it. There is no influence so powerful as hers on the coming destinies
of the church and the world. She acts a part in forming the minis
ters of religion and the rulers of the land, without which all subse
queut training is comparatively vain. And to her, also, it falls to
train those who are to be mothers when she is gone, and to do for
their generation what she has done for hers.
41
A MOTHER'S PBAYER.
>HE sweetest sound heard through our earthly home,
The brightest ray that gleams from heaven's dome,
The loveliest flower that e'er from earth's breast rose,
That purest flame that, quivering, gleams and glows,
Are found alone, where kneels a mother mild,
With heart uplifted, praying for her child.
The stream of tears can never cease to flow
Long as life's sun shall shine on us below ;
And many angels have been sent by God
To count the tear-drops wept upon life's road ;
But of all the tears that flow, the least defiled
Are when a mother prays beside her child.
Because it is to mortal eyes unseen,
Ye call it foolishness, a childish dream,
In vain, ye cannot rob me of that thought,
That legend with such heavenly sweetness fraught,
That blessed angels have for ages smiled
To see a mother praying for her child. Anonymous.
FT is the mother who moulds the character, and fixes the destiny
r\- 4-l/i nl^l/3
of the child.
42
THE MOTHER
Thomas Campldl.
at the couch where infant beauty sleeps,
Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps ;
She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies,
Smiles on her slumbering child with pensive eyes,
And weaves a song of melancholy joy,
" Sleep, image of thy father, sleep, my boy :
No lingering hour of sorrow shall be thine ;
No sigh that rends thy father s heart and mine ;
Bright as his manly sire the son shall be
In form and soul ; but ah ! more blest than he !
Thy fame, thy worth, thy filial love, at last,
Shall soothe this aching heart for all the past,
With many a smile my solitude repay,
And chase the world's ungenerous scorn away.
" And say, when summoned from the world and thee,
I lay my head beneath the willow-tree,
Wilt thou, sweet mourner ! at my stone appear,
And soothe my parted spirit lingering near ?
Oh, wilt thou come, at evening hour, to shed
The tears of memory o'er my narrow bed ;
With aching temple on thy hand reclined,
Muse on the last farewell I leave behind,
Breathe a deep sigh to winds that murmur low,
And think on all my love, and all my woe ? "
So speaks affection, ere the infant eye
Can look regard, or brighten in reply,
43
TIBED MOTHERS.
But when the cherub lip hath learnt to claim
A mother's ear by that endearing name ;
Soon as the playful innocent can prove
A tear of pity, or a smile of love,
Or cons his murmuring tasks beneath her care,
Or lisps, with holy look, his evening prayer,
Or gazing mutely pensive, sits to hear
The mournful ballad warbled in his ear ;
How fondly looks admiring hope the while,
At every artless tear, and every smile !
How glows the joyous parent to descry
A guileless bosom, true to sympathy 1
TIKED MOTHEES.
Mrs. May Rilty Smith.
LITTLE elbow leans upon your knee
Your tired knee that has so much to bear ;
A child's dear eyes are looking lovingly
From underneath a thatch of tangled hair.
Perhaps you do not heed the velvet touch
Of warm, moist fingers holding you so tight ;
You do not prize the blessing overmuch
You almost are too tired to pray to-night.
But it is blessedness ! A year ago
I did not see it as I do to-day
We are all so dull and thankless, and too slow
To catch the sunshine till it slips away.
44
TIRED MOTHERS.
And now it seems surpassing strange to me
That while I wore the badge of motherhood
I did not kiss more oft and tenderly
The little child that brought me only good.
And if, some night, when you sit down to rest,
You miss the elbow from your tired knee ;
This restless curly head from off your breast ;
This lisping tongue that chatters constantly ;
If from your own, the dimpled hands had slipped,
And ne'er would nestle in your palm again ;
If the white feet into the grave had tripped
I could not blame you for your heartache then.
I wonder so that mothers ever fret
At their little children clinging to their gowns ;
Or that the foot-prints, when the days are wet,
Are ever black enough to make them frown I
If I could find a little muddy boot,
Or cap, or jacket, on my chamber floor
If I could kiss a rosy, restless foot,
And hear it patter in my house once more ;
If I could mend a broken cart to-day,
To-morrow make a kite to reach the sky
There is no woman in God's world could say
She was more blissfully content than I !
But, ah, the dainty pillow next mine own
Is never rumpled by a shining head,
My singing birdling from its nest has flown
The little boy I used to kiss is dead !
43
MOTHERS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN.
>IMOTHY, from a child, knew the Scriptures, being taugLc
them by his mother and his grandmother.
Dr. Dodridge's mother taught him the history of the
Old and New Testaments before he could read. This was done by
means of Dutch tiles in the chimney. Her wise and pious reflec-
tions upon the stories there represented, made good impression on
his mind ; and he never lost them.
Bishop Hall says that he could bless the memory of his mother,
who taught him so much divine truth, and gave him so many pious
lectures.
J. S. C. Abbott says in his " Mother at Home," that in a college
where one hundred and twenty young men were preparing for the
ministry, it was found that more than one hundred had been led to
Christ by their mothers.
John Randolph, of Roanoke, was deeply attached to his mother,
and her death had a melancholy and striking effect upon him ever
afterwards. She was but thirty-six years old when she died. Cut
off in the bloom of youth and beauty, he always retained a vivid
remembrance of her person, her charms, and her virtues. He
always kept her portrait hanging before him in his chamber. The
loss to him was irreparable. She knew him she knew the delicacy
f his heart, the waywardness and irritability of his temper. "1
am a fatalist," said he, " I am all but friendless only one human
being ever knew me. She only knew me my mother." He
always spoke of her in terms of the warmest affection. Many anU
MOTHERS OF DISTINGUISHED MEK.
many a time during Ms life did he visit the old churchyard at
Matoax, in its wasted solitude, and shed tears over the grave of his
mother, by whose side it was the last wish of his heart to be buried.
Henry Clay, the pride and honor of his country, always ex-
pressed feelings of profound affection and veneration for his mother.
A habitual correspondence and enduring affection subsisted between
them to the last hour of life. Mr. Clay ever spoke of her as a model
of maternal character and female excellence, and it is said that he
never met his constituents in Woodford county, after her death,
without some allusion to her, which deeply affected both him and his
audience. And nearly the last words uttered by this great states-
man, when he came to die, were, " Mother, mother, mother." It is
natural for us to feel that she must have been a good mother, that
was loved and so dutifully served by such a boy, and that neither
could have been wanting in rare virtues.
Benjamin Franklin was accustomed to refer to his mother in the
tenderest tone of filial affection. His respect and affection for her
were manifested, among other ways, in frequent presents, that con-
tributed to her comfort and solace in her advancing years. In one
of his letters to her, for example, he sends her a moidore, a gold
piece f the value of six dollars, " toward chaise hire," said he, " that
you may ride warm to meetings during the winter." In another he
gives her an account of the growth and improvement of his son and
daughter topics which, as he well understood, are ever as dear to
the grandmother as to the mother.
Thomas Gray, author of " Elegy in a Country Churchyard," was
most assiduous in his attentions to his mother while she lived, and,
after her death, he cherished her memory with sacred sorrow. Mr.
Mason informs us that Gray seldom mentioned his mother without
a sigh. The inscription which he placed over her remains speaks of
her as " the careful, tender mother of many children, one of whom
47
MOTHERS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN.
alone had the misfortune to survive her." How touching is this
brief tribute of grateful love ! Volumes of eulogy could not increase
our admiration of the gentle being to whom it was paid her patient
devotion, her meek endurance. Wherever the name and genius of
Gray are known, there shall also his mother's virtues be told for a
memorial of her. He was buried, according to his directions, by the
eide of his mother, in the churchyard at Stoke. After his death her
gowns and wearing apparel were found in a trunk in his apartments,
just as she had left them. It seemed as if he could never take tho
resolution to open it, in order to distribute them to his female rela-
tions, to whom, by his will, he bequeathed them.
Amos Lawrence always spoke of his mother in the strongest terms
of veneration and love, and in many letters to his children and
grandchildren, are found messages of affectionate regard for his
mother, such as could have emanated only from a heart overflowing
with filial gratitude. Her form, bending over his bed in silent
prayer, at the hour of twilight, when she was about leaving him for
the night, was among the earliest and most cherished recollections of
his early years and his childhood's home.
SEBGKAOT S. PKENTISS. From his mother Mr. Prentiss inherited
those more gentle qualities that ever characterized his life qualities
that shed over his eloquence such bewitching sweetness, and gave to
rjs social intercourse such an indescribable charm. A remarkably
characteristic anecdote illustrates his filial affection. When on a
visit, some years ago, to the North, but after his reputation had
become wide-spread, a distinguished lady, of Portland, Me., took
pains to obtain an introduction, by visiting the steamboat in whicn
she learned he was to take his departure in a few moments.
" I have wished to see you," said she to Mr. Prentiss, " for iny
heart has often congratulated the mother who has such a son."
"Rather congratulate the son on having such a mother" was hit
48
MOTHERS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN.
instant and heartfelt reply. This is but one of the many instances in
which the most distinguished men of all ages have been proud to
refer to the early culture of intellect, the promptings of virtue, or
the aspirations of piety, and to the influence of the mother's early
training.
FKAKCIS MABION. General Marion was once a plodding young
farmer, and in no way distinguished as superior to the young men of
the neighborhood in which he lived, except for his devoted love and
marked respect for his excellent mother, and exemplary honor and
truthfulness. In these qualities he was eminent from early child-
hood, and they marked his character through life. We may remark,
in this connection, that it is usual to affect some degree of astonish-
ment when we read of men whose after fame presents a striking
contrast to the humility of their origin ; yet we must recollect that it
is not ancestry and splendid descent, but education and circumstances,
which form the man. It is often a matter of surprise that distin-
guished men have such inferior children, and that a great name is
seldom perpetuated. The secret of this is as often evident: the
mothers have been inferior mere ciphers in the scale of existence.
All the splendid advantages procured by wealth and the father's
position, cannot supply this one deficiency in the mother, who gives
character to the child.
Sam Houston's mother was an extraordinary woman. She was
distinguished by a full, rather tall and matronly form, a fine carriage,
and an impressive and dignified countenance. She was gifted with
intellectual and moral qualities, which elevated her, in a still more
striking manner, above most of her sex. Her life shone with purity
and benevolence, and yet she was nerved with a stern fortitude,
which never gave way in the midst of the wild scenes that checkered
the history of tke frontier settlers. Mrs. Houston was left with the
heavy burden of a numerous family. She had six sons and three
D 49
MOTHEBS AND SONS.
daughters, but she was not a woman to succumb to misfortune, and
she made ample provision, for one in her circumstances, for their
future care and education. To bring up a large family of children
in a proper manner is, under the most favorable circumstances, a
great work ; and in this case it rises into sublimity ; for there is no
finer instance of heroism than that of one parent, especially a mother,
laboring for that end alone. The excellent woman, says Goethe, is
she who, if her husband dies, can be a father to her children.
As wife and mother, a woman is seen in her most sacred and
dignified character, as such she has great influence over the characters
of individuals, over the condition of families, and over the destinies
of empires. It is a fact that many of our noblest patriots, our most
profound scholars, and our holiest ministers, were stimulated to their
excellence and usefulness by those holy principles which they derived
in early years from pious mothers.
Our mothers are our earliest instructors, and they have an influ-
ence over us, the importance of which, for time and eternity,
surpasses the power of language to describe.
Every mother should be a Sabbath School teacher. Her own
children should be her class; and her home should be her school-
house. Then her children will bless her for her tenderness and care ;
for her pious instructions, her fervent prayers, and the holy exam-
ple. Anonymous.
MOTHERS AND SONS.
OST boys go through a period, when they have great need of
patient love at home. They are awkward and clumsy,
sometimes strangely willful and perverse, and they are des-
50
MOTHERS AND SONS.
perately conscious of themselves, and very sensitive to the least word
of censure or effort at restraint. Authority frets them. They are
leaving childhood, but they have not yet reached the sober good sense
of manhood. They are an easy prey to the tempter and the sophist.
Perhaps they adopt skeptical views, from she^r desire to prove that
they are independent, and can do their own thinking. Now is the
mother's hour. Her boy needs her now more than when he lay in his
cradle. Her finer insight and serener faith may hold him fast, and
prevent his drifting into dangerous courses. At all events there is
very much that only a mother can do for her son, and that a son can
receive only from his mother, in the critical period of which we are
thinking. It is well for him, if she have kept the freshness and
brightness of her youth, so that she can now be his companion and
friend as well as mentor. It is a good thing for a boy to be proud
of his mother ; to feel complacent when he introduces her to his
comrades, knowing that they cannot help seeing 'what a pretty
woman she is, so graceful, winsome, and attractive ! There is always
hope for a boy when he admires his mother, and mothers should
care to be admirable in the eyes of their sons. Not merely to pos-
sess characters which are worthy of respect, but to be beautiful and
charming, so far as they can, in person and appearance. The neat
dress, the becoming ribbon, and smooth hair are all worth thinking
about, when regarded as means of retaining influence over a soul,
when the world is spreading lures for it on every side.
Above all things, mothers need faith. Genuine, hearty, loving
trust in God, a life of meek, glad acquiescence in His will, lived
daily through years in the presence of sons, is an immense power.
They never can get away from the sweet memory that Christ was
their mother's friend. There is a reality in that which no false rea-
loning can persuade them to regard as a figment of the imagination.
Christian, Intelligencer.
51
THE MOTHER'S PRAYER.
UT in the wide world, somewhere roaming.
In the misty chill of this twilight gloaming.
Homeless and friendless, with only the care
Which Heaven provides for the birds of the air ;
"Without shelter or bread,
Only sad stars overhead,
And a heart overwhelmed with devouring despair
Out in the wide world somewhere somewhere.
With garments all tattered, and filthy, and worn ;
With feet that are blistered, and shoes that are torn ;
With eyes that are heavy, and drooping, and dim ;
And a heart that is vailed in the dust of his sin,
Besmeared with the slime
Of evil and crime,
You would not think it, but down deep within,
A door stands ajar, and you may go in.
In the bygone hours of the old long ago,
^Before the winter of vice, with its ice and its snow,
Had chilled that faint heart, I once held the key
This object of pity once sat on my knee ;
I smoothed the fair head,
And kissed the lips, so red ;
O, cruel the hand that has taken from me
This gem from my heart-life's sad mystery !
52
A MOTHER'S LOVE.
O, wide world so mighty, so vast, and so old 1
O, wide world so heartless, unfriendly, and cold !
Despise not this wretch, for once he was fair
As the jewel which decks the young maiden's hair.
O, rescue this one,
For he is my son,
And God hath forgotten a mother's prayer,
As it wanders world-wide somewhere somewhere.
Rum, the accursed, which evermore brings
Its withering woe to peasant and kings,
Hath blighted this life, so gifted and rare,
And left it a wreck, unsightly and bare.
While loving hearts must ache,
And sometimes break,
Will Heaven not heed importunate prayer ?
And rescue the wandering sometime somewhere f
Anonymous.
A MOTHEK'S LOVE.
James Montgomery.
MOTHEK'S love, how sweet the name !
What is a mother's love ?
A noble, pure and tender flame,
Enkindled from above,
To bless a heart of earthly mould ;
The warmest love that ccm grow cold ;
This is a mother's love.
53
THE MOTHER'S OPPORTUNITY.
'OTHERS, you are the divinely-appointed teachers and guides
of your children ; and any attempt to free yourselves from
your duty is in direct opposition to the will of God. If you
neglect them, the consequences are swift and sure, and how fearful
thoy are, let those broken-hearted mothers tell who have bowed in
anguish over their lost sons; who, neglecting them in childhood,
have at last seen them dead to every manly virtue.
Let me say to you who still have the opportunity to do so, train
your children, whether boys or girls, to usefulness. Give them
something to do. And as soon as they can walk, teach them to
bring any little thing to you, and as they grow older let them do all
they can to help you. Spend most of your time with your young
children. Sleep near them ; attend to washing and dressing them ;
let them eat at the table with father and mother ; read, talk, play,
walk with them ; be their companion and guide in all things and at
all times. When the father can leave his work to take a little recre-
ation, let him take it with the children, making it a special holiday.
Don't be in haste to send them to school, but teach them at home.
Oral instruction can be given while you are doing your work, and
for a while will be of much more benefit than many hours of study.
As soon as they want playmates, see that they have those of their
own age, who have been well cared for at home, and are truthful.
Let them play in or near the house, that you may observe the char-
acter of their intercourse. Never send children to school to get rid
of the care or trouble of them at home, but when the right time
comes, let them see that it is wholly for their good that you part
64
THE MOTHER'S OPPORTUNITY.
with them. If possible, go often to the school-room yourself
nothing gives children so much encouragement. Always allow them
to tell you all that has happened to interest or annoy them while
absent from home. Never think anything which affects the happi-
ness of your children too small a matter to claim your attention.
Use every means in your power to win and retain their confidence
Do not rest satisfied without some account of each day's joys or
sorrows. It is a source of great comfort to the innocent child to tell
all its troubles to mother, and do you lend a willing ear. For know
you, that as soon as they cease to tell you all these things, they have
chosen other confidants, and therein lies the danger. O mother!
this is the rock on which your son may be wrecked at last. I charge
you to set a watch upon it. Be jealous of the first sign that he is
not opening all his heart to you.
Boys who are thus cared for and trained find more to please and
amuse them at home than away. They are thus saved from tempta-
tion. But if they are neglected until they arrive at the age when
they would wish to go out evenings, there is small hope that any but
arbitrary measures will prevent or secure obedience, and then it
hardly can be called obedience. It is much more pleasant to apply
the " ounce of prevention " than the " pound of cure " in such cases.
When boys know that their society is valued highly at home, and
that all its pleasures are marred by their absence, they will willingly
stay if they can have something to occupy their time. Anonymous.
OOME hearts, like evening primroses, open most beautifully in
the evening of life.
55
MOTHEKS, PUT TOUR CHILDREN TO BED.
X HERE may be some mothers who feel it to be a self-denial to
leave their parlors, or fire-sides, or work, to put their children
to bed. They think that the nurse could do just as well ;
that it is of no consequence who "hears the children say their
prayers.'' Now, setting aside the pleasure of opening the little bed
and tucking the darling up, there are really important reasons why
the mother should not yield this privilege to any one. In the first
place, it is the time of all times when a child is inclined to show its
confidence and affection. All its little secrets come out with more
truth and less restraints ; its naughtiness through the day can be
reproved and talked over with less excitement, and with the tender-
ness and calmness necessary to make a permanent impression. If
the little one has shown a desire to do well and be obedient, its
efforts and success can be acknowledged and commended in a manner
that need not render it vain or self-satisfied.
We must make it a habit to talk to our children, in order to get
from them an expression of their feelings. "We cannot understand
the character of these little beings committed to our care unless we
do. And if we do not know what they are, we shall not be able to
govern them wisely, or educate them as their different natures
demand. Certainly it would be unwise to excite young children by
too much conversation with them just before putting them to bed.
Every mother who carefully studies the temperament of her chil-
dren will know how to manage them in this respect. But of this all
mothers may be assured, that the laa^ words at night are of great
56
THE GOOD-NIGHT KISS.
importance, even to the babies of the flock ; the very tones of the
voice they last listened to make an impression upon their sensitive
organizations. Mothers, do not think the time and strength wasted,
which you spend in reviewing the day with your little boy or girl ;
do not neglect to teach it how to pray, and pray for it in simple and
earnest language, which it can understand. Soothe and quiet its
little heart after the experiences of the day. It has had its disap-
pointments and trials as well as its play and pleasures ; it is ready to
throw its arms around your neck, and take its good-night kiss.
Mother's Magazine.
THE GOOD-NIGHT KISS.
LWAYS send your little child to bed happy. Whatever c-ares
may trouble your mind, give the dear child a warm good-
night kiss as it goes to its pillow. The memory of this, in the
stormy years which may be in store for the little one, will be like
Bethlehem's star to the bewildered shepherds ; and welling up in the
heart will rise the thought : " My father, my mother loved me /"
Lips parched with fever will become dewy again at this thrill of
useful memories. Boss your little child before it goes to sleep.
Anonymous.
A GOOD word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill, require*
only our silence, which costs us nothing. Tittotson.
57
MOTHEK AND CHILD.
Thomas Hood.
thy mother, little one 1
Boss and clasp her neck again 1
Hereafter she may have a son
Will kiss and clasp her neck in rain.
Love thy mother, little one 1
Gaze upon her living eyes,
And mirror back her love for thee !
Hereafter thou may'st shudder sighs
To meet them when they cannot see.
Gaze upon her living eyes 1
Press her lips the while they glow
With love that they have often told 1
Hereafter thou may'st press in woe,
And kiss them till thine own are cold.
Press her lips the while they glow 1
Oh, revere her raven hair
Although it be not silver gray !
Too early, death, led on by care,
May snatch save one dear lock away.
Oh, revere her raven hair 1
Pray for her at eve and morn,
That Heaven may long the stroke defer ;
For Thou may'st live the hour forlorn,
When thou wilt ask to die with her.
Pray for her at eve and morn !
68
OUE MOTHER
UK mother's lost her youthfulness.
Her locks are turning gray,
And wrinkles take the place of smiles -
She's fading every day.
We gaze at her in sorrow now,
For though we've ne'er been told
We can but feel the weary truth
Our mother's growing old.
Our mother's lost her youthfulness,
Her eyes grow dim with tears,
Yet still within her heart there shines
Some light of other years ;
For oft she'll speak in merry tones,
Smile as in youth she smiled,
As o'er her heart some memory steals
Of when she was a child.
Our mother's lost her youthfulness,
The light step has grown slow,
The graceful form has learned to stoop,
The bright cheek lost its glow.
Her weary hands have grown so thin,
Her dear hand trembles now ;
" Passing away," in sad, deep lines,
Is traced upon her brow.
59
OUR MOTHEB.
Our mother's lost her youthfulness,
Her smiles are just as kind,
IJer tones to us are soft as erst,
Where should we dearer find ?
But as we note the trembling tongue,
And mark the stooping form,
A sad voice whispers to our hearts,
" Ye cannot keep her long."
Our mother's lost her youthfulness,
We see it every day,
And feel more drearily the truth,
She soon must pass away.
Ah ! even now the " boatman pale "
We fear is hovering nigh ;
Waiting with white sails all unfurled,
He will not heed our cry.
But gently bear the wearied form
Into the phantom bark,
She will not fear CHRIST went before,
The way will not be dark :
And safe beyond the troubled stream,
Her tired heart's strife o'er,
Our angel mother, glorified,
Will grow old nevermore.
Rural New Yorker.
that day lost whose low-descending sun
Views from thy hand no worthy action done.'
60
PARENTAL AUTHORITY.
very height of human wickedness is described in the Holy
Book as "lawlessness." Subjection to the holy, just, and
good law of the Most High God is the essential condition of
well-being here, and the essential element of glory hereafter. In
keeping with this, human beings come into this world in a state of
dependence and subjection, and for about one-half of the average
term of human life that is their proper and natural state.
I cannot doubt that the great idea of the long pupilage of man is
just that the principle and habit of obedience, of submission to
authority, may be wrought into his inmost nature that, taught to
obey an earthly parent, even from infancy, he may pass from sub-
jection to the earthly father to subjection to the heavenly one.
Reverent obedience of the child to parents is the preparation for
reverent obedience of the man to God. The one is the stepping-
stone to the other. It is asked in the Epistle of John, " If a man
love not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom
he hath not seen?" In the same spirit and with at least equal
emphasis it may be asked, " If a child honor not the father whom
he hath seen, how shall he honor his Father whom he hath not
seen ?" There is rebellion against God in our inmost nature. Well,
train up a child in willfulness and insubordination, and what must
you expect as the result of nature's tendencies and such a training
commingled.
Law is everywhere here. There is law in the Bible. There is
law in our souls. There are laws written with a pen of iron upon
61
PABENTAL AUTHORITY.
our bodily frames. There are laws upon earth and sky and to
send forth from your home a lawless creature, is to send forth a
blind man to walk among pitfalls and precipices, to offer up an
immortal nature to the god of misrule.
In a religious point of view it seems to me just of the last
importance that the parent should exercise over his children a
sovereign authority. There must be no permitted resistance to his
will. Obedience must be the primary law of the family. Does this
have a sound of harshness? But it is the Bible way! The con-
fidence in regard to Abraham was that he would commcmd his
children after him. Children are bidden by the apostle to obey
their parents. It is the essential requisite of a ruler in God's house
that he should be able to rule in his own house, having his children
m subjection. And authority is not tyranny. As the authority of
God is not tyranny, neither is the authority of a parent, rightly used.
If it is rightly used, it will be used under the feeling of tender love
and affectionate interest. . The children themselves will more and
more come to feel that; and feeling it, to render a willing and
cheerful obedience to it. We parents should rule in love in
Christian love BUT WE SHOULD KULE.
Parental authority, like all authority, needs a wise hand to wield
it. There is needed especially great wisdom in the exercise of it,
when the boy is passing into the man. At that stage of human life
when you have the feeling of independence beginning to come
when you have so often the passions of manhood to deal with with-
out manhood's checks and sense no one can tell what the blessing is
of having, say, a father to whom a son has been in the habit of look-
ing with submissive reverence, and who has the wisdom to use his
influence aright.
But altogether, we may depend on it that there is nothing more
ruinous than disobedience allowed in our little ones. I may even
62
COURTESIES TO PARENTS.
venture to say, that it is great cruelty and great sin in us to permit
it, out of, it may be, an indolent easiness of mind, or an unwise soft-
ness of disposition. The parent is to rule in home, the world of
childhood, as the Great Parent rules in the world, the home of man-
hood. Mother's Treasury.
COUKTESIES TO PABENTS.
lean upon their children, and especially their sons,
much earlier than either of them imagine. Their love is a
constant inspiration, a perennial fountain of delight, from
which other lips may quaff, and be comforted thereby. It may be
that the mother has been left a widow, depending on her only son
for support. He gives her a comfortable home, sees that she is well
clad, and allows no debts to accumulate, and that is all. It is con-
siderable, more even than many sons do, but there is a lack. He
seldom thinks it worth while to give her a caress ; he has forgotten
all those affectionate ways that kept the wrinkles from her face, and
make her look so much younger than her years ; he is ready to put
his hand in his pocket to gratify her slightest request, but to give of
the abundance of his heart is another thing entirely. He loves his
mother ? Of course he does ! Are there not proofs enough of his
filial regard ? Is he not continually making sacrifices for her
benefit ? What more could any reasonable woman ask ?
Ah, but it is the mother-heart that craves an occasional kiss, the
support of your youthful arm, the little attentions and kindly cour-
tesies of life, that smooth down so many of its asperities, and make
the journey less wearisome. Material aid is good so far as it goes,
but it has not that sustaining power which the loving, sympathetic
63
COURTESIES TO PARENTS.
heart bestows upon its object. You think she has out-grown these
weaknesses and f ollies, and is content with the crust that is left ;
but you are mistaken. Every little offer of attention, your escort
to church or concert, or for a quiet walk, brings back the youth of
her heart ; her cheeks glow, and her eyes sparkle with pleasure, and
oh ! how proud she is of her son !
Even the father, occupied and absorbed as he may be, is not
wholly indifferent to these filial expressions of devoted love. He
may pretend to care very little for them, but having faith in their
sincerity, it would give him serious pain were they entirely withheld.
Fathers need their sons quite as much as the sons need the fathers,
but in how many deplorable instances do they fail to find in them a
staff for their declining years !
My son, are you a sweetener of life ? You may disappoint the
ambition of your parents ; may be unable to distinguish yourself as
they fondly hoped ; may find your intellectual strength inadequate
to your own desires, but let none of these things move you from a
determination to be a son of whose moral character they need never
be ashamed. Begin early to cultivate a habit of thoughtfulness and
consideration for others, especially for those whom you are com-
manded to honor. Can you begrudge a few extra steps for the
mother who never stopped to number those you demanded during
your helpless infancy ? Have you the heart to slight her requests, or
treat her remarks with indifference, when you cannot begin to meas-
ure the patient devotion with which she bore with your peculiarities ?
Anticipate her wants, invite her confidence, be prompt to offer assis-
tance, express your affections as heartily as you did when a child,
that the mother may never grieve in secret for the son she has lost.
S. S. Times.
64
THE MOTHER'S CHARGE.
Mrs L. H. Sigourney.
Jill) say to mothers what a hoi j charge
Is theirs ; with what a kingly power their love
Might rule the fountains of the new-born mind.
Warn them to wake at early dawn and sow
Good seed, before the world has sown its tares.
AUTHORITY OF PARENTS.
Horace Bushnell, D.D.
is a great mistake to suppose that what will make a child stare
or tremble impresses more authority. The violent emphasis,
the hard, stormy voice, the menacing air, only weaken author-
ity. Is it not well understood, that a bawling and violent teamster
has no real government of his team ? Is it not practically seen that
a skillful commander of one of those huge floating cities, moved by
steam on our American waters, manages and works every motion by
the waving of the hand, or by signs that pass in silence, issuing no
order at all, save in the gentlest undertone of voice ? So when there
is, or is to be, a real order in the house, it will come of no hard and
boisterous, or fretful and termagant way of commanding. Gentle-
ness will speak the word of firmness, and firmness will be clothed in
that of true gentleness.
D 65
THE DYING MOTHER.
the gem upon my bosom.
Let me feel the sweet, warm breath,
For a strange chill o'er me passes,
And I know that it is death.
I would gaze upon the treasure
Scarcely given ere I go ;
Feel her rosy, dimpled fingers
Wander o'er my cheek of snow.
I am passing through the waters,
But a blessed shore appears ;
Kneel beside me, husband dearest,
Let me kiss away thy tears.
Wrestle with thy grief, my husband,
Strive from midnight until day,
It may leave as angel's blessing
When it vanisheth away.
Lay the gem upon my bosom,
'Tis not long she can be there ;
See 1 how to my heart she nestles,
'Tis the pearl I love to wear.
If, in after years, beside thee
Sits another in my chair,
Though her voice be sweeter music,
And her face than mine more fair ;
If a cherub calls thee " father !"
Far more beautiful than this ;
66
THE DYING MOTHER.
Love thy first-born, O my husband J
Turn not from the motherless.
Tell her sometimes of her mother
You can call her by my name !
Shield her from the winds of sorrow r
If she errs, O gently blame !
Lead her sometimes where I'm sleeping-,
I will answer if she calls,
And my breath shall stir her ringlets,
When my voice in blessing falls ;
Her soft black eye will brighten,
And wonder whence it came ;
In her heart, when years pass o'er her,
She will find her mother's name.
It is said that every mortal
"Walks between two angels here,
One records the ill, but blots it
If before the midnight drear
Man repenteth if uncancelled,
Then he seals it for the skies ;
And her right hand angel weepeth,
Bowing low with veiled eyes.
I will be her right hand angel,
Sealing up the good for heaven,
Striving that the midnight watches
Find no misdeed unforgiven.
You will not forget me, husband,
When I'm sleeping 'neath the sod ;
0, love the jewel given us
As I loved thee next to God ! J. A. Dacu*.
67
RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS.
T. F. W.
>I[E home is the fountain of civilization. Americans are a
home-making people. Our laws are made in the home.
There are trained the voters who shape the course of our
country. The things said there give bias to character far more than
do sermons and lectures, newspapers and books. No other audiences
are so susceptible and receptive as those gathered about the table and
the fireside. No other teachers have the acknowledged divine right
to instruct that is granted without challenge to parents. The fount-
ain of our national life is under their hand. They can make it send
forth waters bitter or sweet, for the death or the healing of the
people.
Intemperance strikes first and most fatally at the home. The
evils most dangerous to social order depend upon dram-drinking for
their existence. This too is the scene of its most cruel and beastly
devilisms. Here it smites, and stabs, and kills. The home must be
guarded against its outrages, or the country will be ruined.
The best work against intemperance must be done in this centei
and seat of power. Parents have it in their power to train their
children to abhor that which is evil and cleave to that which is
good; and they owe them this duty. They bring their children
into existence. They hold them under their hand till the young life
has taken a bias that will last through eternity. Usually the tiny,
tilting craft has its prow turned toward heaven or hell before the
parent's hand lets go the helm. This ought to startle careless people
out of their indifference. It ought to drive them to lives of piety ;
for how can they teach that which they have not learned ? How
can they impart what they do not possess ?
68
VISIT YOUR PARENTS.
Parents must teach by example. Precept has no authority
unless backed by example. For the children's sake all liquors ought
to be banished from the home. The story is most pitiful, and quite
too common to need repetition : " I learned to drink at my father's
table. My mother's hand first passed me the cup that is working
my damnation."
In every home there ought to be the right reading on this, as on
every by-subject. We are what we read or we read what we are-
as you will. One thing is certain; if we really care much about
this horrible traffic, we will see to it that our children have books
and papers that will keep them in sympathy with the efforts made
for its prohibition.
By personal example, by look, by reading, and by prayer, we
may make an atmosphere that shall set and keep our households
right on this great question. Only thus can we hope to save our-
selves, and those whom God has given to be with us, from the tide
that sweeps to destruction so many of the noblest and best.
VISIT YOUK PARENTS.
you live in the same place, let your steps be if possible daily
a familiar one in the old home ; if you are miles away yea
many miles away make it your business to go to your
parents. In this matter do not regard tune or expense ; the one is
well spent, and the other will be, even a hundred-fold, repaid.
When some day the word reaches you, flashed over the telegraph,
that your mother is gone, you will not think them much, those
hours of travel which at last bore you to the loved one's side.
Anonymous.
A WORD WITH PARENTS ABOUT THEIR CHILDREN,
'HAT pride is felt by parents in the honest success of their
boys. How they like to hear of his good and manly be-
havior in school, in the counting-house, or on deck, where
lives are to be saved or liberty preserved ! That parent has lived to
some purpose who has his children rooted and grounded in sound
principles. Equipping well the son or daughter for the voyage of
life, is a duty the neglect of which is sure to entail sorrow and shame.
When a minister's boy goes wrong, the whole world is informed of
the fact with apparent glee, by those who have no taste for things
religious. It is clearly expected, then, that the minister's family,
like himself, should be living epistles, known and read of all men.
Then again, when the son or daughter of a religious family mingles
freely with worldlings, in the ball-room and at the theater, the finger
of reproach is justly pointed at Christ's followers, and the majority
are held responsible for the acts or neglects of a few. Religion and
science unite in positive language, that the defects of the parents are
discoverable in the children.
The only cure for this disorder whatever it may be is the
grace of God, the love and friendship of Jesus. The parent, then
father or mother who is conscious of dangerous personal proclivities,
occupies vantage ground above every other teacher, however quali
fied, in dealing with his child. He knows the besetting sin, and
with heaven's aid, can overcome it. Those parents who leave the
education of their children almost altogether to the sacred or secular
teacher, have intrusted the most important business of life to hands
70
A WORD WITH PARENTS ABOUT THEIR CHILDREN.
not fully competent to discharge it. The good housewife bestows
much care upon the curtains, the carpets, the pictures, and the statu-
ary within the home ; while the sons and daughters, with bad books,
impure associates, and misleading plays, are gradually drifting, if not
already there, on to dangerous ground. It is.proper to remind these
drowsy parents that stains on pictures and dirt on curtains are minor
evils, unjustifiable as they are, compared with the unmanly act of the
boy or the frivolous amusements of the daughter. "We are safe in
assuming that the parents of Joseph, Samuel, and Timothy, were of
superior stock. Grace makes magnificent pictures when it lodges in
good, natural soil, in which there are, as we are taught, various
degrees. Parents who expect noble children must themselves lead
noble lives. In time, and the sooner the better; we will attach more
value to the law of heredity. We will then try to do much for
posterity by bequeathing blood and habits that will help and not
hinder the race.
Nice families! What a comfort and ornament they are to
society ! There are pleasant homes with the poets and others with
orators, but the greatest joy is evening at home with cultured people
who know much of Divine things, whose lives are attuned to words
that cheer and deeds that ennoble. You are sure to find in such
homes grandmotherly and motherly influence modeled after that
which made Timothy an example for all the ages. We are not
doing enough in the right direction for our children. If we would
have more fragrance and fruit we must prune and pray, beginning
within and working outward. Anonymous.
CHAEMS strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
Pope.
71
THE MOTHER'S SORROW.
S the waters roll in on the shore with incessant throbs, night
ami day, and always, not alone when storms prevail, but in
calms as well, so it is with a mother's heart bereaved of her
children. There is no grief like unto it, Rachael weeping for her
children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are not ! With
what long patience, what burden and suffering, does the mother wait
until the child of her hope is placed in her arms and under the sight
of her eyes ! She remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a
man is born into the world.
Who can read, or, if he saw, could utter the thoughts of a mother
during all the days and night in which she broods the helpless thing ?
Every true mother takes home the full meaning of the angel's
word ; that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called
the Son of God. The mother does not even whisper what she
thinks, and the whole air is full of gentle pictures, every one on the
background of the blue heavens.
The child grows, grows in favor of God and man ; and every
admiring look cast upon it, even by a stranger, sends light and glad-
ness to the mothers heart. Wonderful child ! The sun is brighter
for it! The whole earth is blessed by its presence! Sorrows,
pains, weariness, self-denials, for its sake, are eagerly sought and
delighted in. ,
But the days come when the little feet are weary ; when the
night brings no rest ; when the cheek is scarlet, the eye changed, and
the smile no longer knows how to shine. All day, all night, it is the
72
THE MOTHER'S SOBEOW.
mother's watch. Her very sleep is but a vailed waking. Joy ; the
child is coming back to health ! Woe ; it is drifting out again, away
from consciousness and pain. It is far, far out toward toward dark-
ness. It disappears !
The mother's heart was like a heaven while it lived ; now it has
ascended to God's heaven, and the mother's heart is as the gloom of
midnight. Wild words of self-reproach at length break out, as when
a frozen torrent is set loose by spring days. She that has lavished
her life-force upon the child turns upon herself with fierce charges
of carelessness, of thoughtlessness. She sees a hundred ways in
which the child would have lived but for her ! All love is turned
into self-crimination. Tears come at length to quench the fire of
purgatory. But grief takes new shapes every hour, till the nerve
has lost its sensibility, and then she coldly hates her unnatural and
inhuman heart that will not feel.
A child dying, dies but once; but the mother dies a hundred
tunes. When the sharpness is over, and the dullness of an overspent
brain is past, and she must take up the shuttle again, and weave the
web of daily life, pity her not that she must work, must join again
the discordant voices, and be forced to duties irksome and hateful.
These all are kindly medicines. A new thought is slowly preparing.
It is that immovable constancy and strength which sorrow gives
when it has wrought the Divine intent. Methodist.
ORROWS are often like clouds, which though black when
they are passing over us, when they are past become as if
they were the garments of God, thrown off in purple and
gold along the sky. H. W. Beechtr.
78
1
THE OLD ARM CHAIR.
Eliza Cook.
LOVE it I love it, and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that old arm chair !
^ I've treasured it long as a sainted prize
I've bedewed it with tears, and embalmed it with sighs ;
'Tis bound by a thousand bands to my heart,
Not a tie will break, not a link will start.
"Would you learn the spell ? a mother sat there ;
And a sacred thing is that old arm chair.
In childhood's hour I lingered near
The hallowed seat with listening ear ;
And gentle words that mother would give,
To fit me to die, and teach me to live.
She told me shame would never betide,
With truth for my creed, and God for my guide ;
She taught me to lisp my earliest prayer,
As I knelt beside that old arm chair.
I sat and watched her many a day,
When her eyes grew dim and her locks were gray ;
And I almost worshipped her when she smiled
And turned from her Bible to bless her child.
Years rolled on, but the last one sped
My idol was shattered my earth star fled :
I learnt how much the heart can bear,
When I saw her die in that old arm chair.
74
MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS.
'Tis past ! 'tis past ! but I gaze on it now
With quivering breath and throbbing brow :
'Twas there she nursed me 'twas there she died,
And memory flowed with lava tide
Say it is folly, and deem me weak,
While the scalding tears run down my cheek.
But I love it I love it, and cannot tear
My soul from my mother's old arm chair.
MAKY, THE MOTHEK. OF JESUS.
N. P. WiU*.
T God's right hand sits one who was a child,
Bom as the humblest, and who here abode
Till of our sorrow he had suffered all.
They who now weep, remember that he wept.
The tempted, the despised, the sorrowing, feel
That Jesus, too, drank of these cups of woe.
And oh, if our joys he tasted less,
If all but one passed from his lips away
That one, a mother's love by his partaking,
Is UJce a thread of heaven spun through our life,
And we in the untiring watch, the tears,
The tenderness and fond trust of a mother,
May feel a heavenly closeness unto God
For such, all human in its blest excess,
Was Mary's love for Jesus.
75
MOTHER'S VACANT CHAIK.
T. De Witt Talmage.
fs|l GO a little farther on in your house, and I find the mother 5 *
chair. It is very apt to be a rocking-chair. She had so many
^* cares and troubles to soothe, that it must have rockers. I
remember it well. It was an old chair, and the rockers were
almost worn out, for I was the youngest, and the chair had rocked
the whole family. It made a creaking noise as it moved, but there
was music in the sound. It was just high enough to allow us chil-
dren to put our heads into her lap. That was the bank where we
deposited all our hurts and worries. Oh, what a chair that was. 'It
was different from the father's chair it was entirely different. You
ask me how ? I cannot tell, but we all felt it was different. Per-
haps there was about this chair more gentleness, more tenderness,
more grief when we had done wrong. When we were wayward,
father scolded, but mother cried. It was a very wakeful chair. In
the sick day of children, other chairs could not keep awake ; that
chair always kept awake kept easily awake. That chair knew all
the old lullabies, and all those worldless songs which mothers sing to
their sick children songs in which all pity and compassion and
sympathetic influences are combined. That old chair has stopped
rocking for a good many years. It may be set up in the loft or the
garret, but it holds a queenly power yet. When at midnight you
went into that grog-shop to get the intoxicating draught, did you not
hear a voice that said, " My son, why go in there ?" and a louder
than the boisterous encore of the theater, a voice saying, " My son,.
76
MOTHER'S VACANT CHAIR.
what do you here ?" And when you went into the house of sin, a
voice saying, " What would your mother do if she knew you were
here ?" and you were provoked at yourself, and you charged yourself
with superstition and fanaticism, and your head got hot with your
own thoughts, and you went home and you went to bed, and no
sooner had you touched the bed than a voice said, " What a prayer-
less pillow !" Man ! what is the matter ? This ! You are too near
your mother's rocking-chair. " Oh, pshaw !" you say, " there's noth-
ing in that. I'm five hundred miles off from where I was born I'm
three thousand miles off from the Scotch kirk whose bell was the first
music I ever heard." I cannot help that. You are too near your
mother's rocking-chair. " Oh !" you say, " there can't be anything
in that ; that chair has been vacant a great while." I cannot help
that. It is all the mightier for that ; it is omnipotent, that vacant
mother's chair. It whispers. It speaks. It weeps. It carols. It
mourns. It prays. It warns. It thunders. A young man went off
and broke his mother's heart, and while he was away from home his
mother died, and the telegraph brought the son, and he came into
the room where she lay, and looked upon her face, and cried out, " O
mother, mother, what your life could not do your death shall effect.
This moment I give my heart to God." And he kept his promise.
Another victory for the vacant chair. With reference to your
mother, the words of my text were fulfilled : " Thou shalt be missed
because thy seat will be empty."
WONDEOUS power! how little understood !
Entrusted to the mother's mind alone,
To fashion genius, form the soul for good.
Mrs. Scvrah J. Hale.
77
KESPECT FOK MOTHEES.
FEW days ago we heard a stripling of sixteen designate the
mother who bore him as the old woman. By coarse husbands
we have heard wives so called occasionally, though in the
latter case the phrase is more often used endearingly. At all times,
as commonly spoken, it jars upon the ears and shocks the sense.
An old woman should be an object of reverence above and beyond
almost all other phases of humanity. Her very age should be her
surest passport to courteous consideration.
The aged mother of a grown-up family needs no other certificate
of worth. She is a monument of excellence, approved and war-
ranted. She has fought faithfully " the good fight " and come off
conqueror. Upon her venerable face she bears the marks of the
conflict in all its furrowed lines. The most grievous of the ills of
life have been hers ; trials untold, and known only to God and her-
self, she has borne incessantly, and now, in her old age, her duty
done, patiently awaiting her appointed time, she stands more beauti-
ful than ever in her youth, more honorable and deserving than he
who has slain his thousands, or stood triumphant upon the proudest
field of victory.
Young man, speak kindly to your mother, and ever courteously,
tenderly of her. But a little time, and ye shall see her no more for-
ever. Her eye is dim, her form bent, and her shadow falls grave-
ward. Others may love you when she has passed away a kind-
hearted sister, perhaps, or she whom of all the world you choose for
a partner she may love you warmly, passionately; children may
love you fondly, but never again, never, while time is yours, shall
the love of woman be to you as that of your old, trembling mother
has been. Anonymous.
78
od send a happy
birthday, dear,
id bless thee through
the coming year.
teak a shade more kindly
Than the year before ;
iy a little oftener;
Love a little more ;
'ng a little closer
To the Fathers love;
c e below shall likergrow
To the life above.
MY MOTHER
Henry Kirke White.
st thou, mother, for a moment think
it we, thy children, when old age shall shed
blanching honors on thy weary head,
Dur beet of duties ever shrink ?
un from his high sphere should sink,
e, ungrateful, leave thee in that day,
j in solitude thy life away,
e, tottering on the grave's cold brink,
hought ! where'er our steps may roam,
tiling plains, or wastes without a tree,
11 fond memory point our hearts to thee,
he pleasures of thy peaceful home ;
duty bids us all thy griefs assuage,
looth the pillow of thy sinking age.
MY MOTHER.
George P. Jforrw.
ther, at that holy name
thin my bosom there's a gush
feeling which no time can tanae,
r hich, for years of fame,
, could not crush.
79
RESPECT FOE MOTHERS.
FEW days ago we heard a stripling of sixt
mother who bore him as the old woman. B;
we have heard wives so called occasional!,
latter case the phrase is more often used endearing,
as commonly spoken, it jars upon the ears and s
An old woman should be an object of reverence a
almost all other phases of humanity. Her very ag
surest passport to courteous consideration.
The aged mother of a grown-up family needs no
of worth. She is a monument of excellence, ap|
ranted. She has fought faithfully "the good fight
conqueror. Upon her venerable face she bears tli
conflict in all its furrowed lines. The most grievoi
life have been hers ; trials untold, and known only t
self, she has borne incessantly, and now, in her ol<;
done, patiently awaiting her appointed time, she stan
ful than ever in her youth, more honorable and des
who has slain his thousands, or stood triumphant upc
field of victory.
Young man, speak kindly to your mother, and e^
tenderly of her. But a little tune, and ye shall see h
ever. Her eye is dim, her form bent, and her shad
ward. Others may love you when she has passed
hearted sister, perhaps, or she whom of all the world
a partner she may love you warmly, passionately:
love you fondly, but never again, never, while tune
the love of woman be to you as that of your old, tre
has been. Anonymous.
78
TO MY MOTHER.
Henry Kirke White.
canst thou, mother, for a moment think
That we, thy children, when old age shall shed
Its blanching honors on thy weary head,
Could from our best of duties ever shrink ?
Sooner the sun from his high sphere should sink,
Than we, ungrateful, leave thee in that day,
To pine in solitude thy life away,
Or shun thee, tottering on the grave's cold brink.
Banish the thought ! where'er our steps may roam,
O'er smiling plains, or wastes without a tree,
Still will fond memory point our hearts to thee,
And paint the pleasures of thy peaceful home ;
While duty bids us all thy griefs assuage,
And smooth the pillow of thy sinking age.
MY MOTHER
George P. Morris.
mother, at that holy name
Within my bosom there's a gush
Of feeling which no time can tamte,
A feeling which, for years of fame,
I would not, could not crush.
79
TRIBUTE TO A MOTHER
Lord Macaulay.
HILDREN, look in those eyes, listen to that dear voice, notice
the feeling of even a single touch that is bestowed upon you
by that gentle hand. Make much of it while yet you have
that most precious of all good gifts, a loving mother. Read the
unfathomable love of those eyes ; the kind anxiety of that tone and
look, however slight your pain. In after-life you may have friends,
fond, dear, kind friends ; but never will you have again the inex-
pressible love and gentleness lavished upon you which none but
a mother bestows. Often do I sigh in my struggles with the hard,
uncaring world, for the sweet, deep security I felt when, of an
evening, nestling in her bosom, I listened to some quiet tale, suitable
to my age, read in her tender and untiring voice. Never can I for-
get her sweet glances cast upon me when I appeared asleep ; never
her kiss of peace at night. Years have passed away since we laid
her beside my father in the old churchyard ; yet still her voice
whispers from the grave, and her eye watches over me, as I visit
spots long since hallowed to the memory of my mother.
THE MOTHER'S MISSION.
>HE mother in her office holds the key
Of the soul ; and she it is who stamps the coin
Of character, and makes the being who would be a savage
But for her gentle care, a Christian man. Anonymous.
80
GRANDPAPA'S PETS.
OLD AGE.
M. W. B.
LL the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change
come." Yes, patiently wait. It is God's will. Jesus said,
" My time is not yet come, but your time is always ready."
Old age is honorable, and a multitude of years teach wisdom. How
pleasant to converse with the aged of the times fifty, three-score, or
even threescore and ten years since. Some young people, children
and grandchildren, are impatient of old age, while others have a
filial delight in their company, and love to care for them, and
tenderly lessen their burdens. Old age, however serene the con-
science and well spent the life, has its sadness. And after all their
care and toil the provision they have made for themselves, and
children on whom they wish to learn in the decline of life, they
have a dread and fear of being a burden. Now is needed the grace
to wait. Job's reverses of fortune were great, and having passed
through the most extreme suffering and sorrow with integrity, he
has handed down to future generations a character renowed for
patience and fidelity. He had all the temptations to end his own
life, but no, he would wait. For, says he, "I know that my
Redeemer liveth, and though after my skin, worms destroy this
body, yet in my flesh I shall see God." Thus Methuselah waited
969 years, and then had an eternity before him. And Enoch walked
with God, waiting 365 years, and was not, for God took him.
Abraham waited and died 175 years of age. Isaac lived till he was
180, having been blind and nearly helpless, 62 years. Jacob waited
till the change came at the age of 147. But he said, " Evil and few
have been the days of my pilgrimage, and have not attained to the
years of my fathers." When dying he blessed both of the sons of
Joseph through faith, and worshiped leaning on the top of his
staff. Thus may we wait and die.
v 81
MY MOTHER'S HAJSTDS.
UCH beautiful, beautiful hands !
They're neither white nor small,
And you, I know, would scarcely think
That they were fair at all.
I've looked on hands whose form and hue
A sculptor's dream might be,
Tet are these aged, wrinkled hands,
More beautiful to me.
Such beautiful, beautiful hands !
Though heart were weary and sad,
These patient hands kept toiling on
That children might be glad.
I almost weep, as looting back
To childhood's distant day,
I think how these hands rested not
When mine were at their play.
Such beautiful, beautiful hands I
They're growing feeble now ;
For time and pain have left their work
On hand, and heart, and brow.
Alas ! alas ! the wearing time,
And the sad, sad day to me,
When 'neath the daisies, out of sight,
These hands will folded be.
But O, beyond this shadowy damp,
Where all is bright and fair,
82
MY MOTHER'S PICTURE.
I know full well these dear old hands
Will palms of victory bear ;
Where crystal streams, thro' endless years,
Flow over golden sands,
And where the old grow young again,
I'll clasp my mother's hands.
Anonymous.
MY MOTHER'S PICTURE.
Wm. Cowper.
THAT those lips had language ! Life has pass'd
With me but roughly since I heard thee last,
Those lips are thine, thy own sweet smile I see,
The same, that oft in childhood solac'd me ;
Voice only fails, else how distinct they say,
" Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away !"
The meek intelligence of those dear eyes,
(Bless'd be the art that can immortalize,
The art that baffles Time's tyrannic claim
To quench it,) here shines on me still the same.
Faithful remembrancer of one so dear,
welcome guest, though unexpected here 1
Who bid'st me honor with an artless song,
Affectionate, a mother lost so long.
1 will obey, not willingly alone,
But gladly, as the precept were her own ;
And, while that face renews my filial grief,
Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief ,
Shall steep me in Elysian reverie,
A momentary dream, that thou art she.
83
THE MOTHER AS TEACHER.
A. w. K.
>HE mother is the luminary that shines and reigns alone in the
early child-life ; as years advance, the scepter is divided and
the teacher shares the sway.
"We often think, as we meet the earnest gaze of the interested
pupil, and watch the mind working and the young thought shaping
to the will, " Why is it that mothers so willingly yield to others this
broad sphere of their domain, and are content to foster the physical
and external life of their children, leaving the intellectual and
spiritual to grow without their aid ?"
One would suppose that capable mothers would jealously keep
to themselves the high privilege of training the mind, and so bind
their children to themselves by ties which are stronger than the
mere physical tie can be.
We who have grown to realize to whom we are debtors, are
thrilled with delight as we think of those who have been the parents
of our intellectual life who seem nearer to us than our familiar
friends, though we never have and never may look upon their living
faces, Bryant, Longfellow, Ruskin, Emerson and Carlyle, and many
another. How they have covered our lives with a rich broidery of
beautiful and inspiring thought, so that to live in the same world,
and at the same time, seems a benison of blessing.
So may the mother weave into the life of her children thoughts
and feelings, rich, beautiful, grand and noble, which will make all
after-life brighter and better.
Many a good mother may think she has no time for this mind
84
HOW MAMMA PLAYS.
and soul culture, but we find no lack of robes and ruffles, and except
in cases where the daily bread of the family must be earned by daily
work, away from home, as is done by many a weary mother, we
must feel that there is not one who cannot command one half hour
each morning, when the mind is fresh and vigorous, to collect
her children around her, and minister for a little to their higher
wants.
If each mother, according to her several ability, seeks to develop
the higher and better faculties of her children, the reward will be as
great as the aim is noble.
HOW MAMMA PLAYS.
Ella Format
fTJST the sweetest thing that the children do
Is to play with mamma, a-playing too ;
And " Baby is lost," they think is the best,
For mamma plays that with a merry zest.
" My baby's lost ! " up and down mamma goes,
A-peering about and following her nose ;
Inside the papers, and under the books,
And all in between the covers she looks,
Baby ! Baby ! " calling.
But though in her way is papa's tall hat,
She never once thinks to look under that.
She listens, she stops, she hears the wee laugh,
And around she flies, the faster by half,
" Why, where can he be ? " and she opens the clock,
She tumbles her basket, she shakes papa's sock,
" Baby I Baby ! " calling.
85
HOW MAMMA PLAYS.
While the children all smile at papa's tall hat,
Though none of them go and look under that.
A sweet coo calls. Mamma darts everywhere,
She feels in her pockets to see if he's there,
In every vase on the mantel shelf,
She searches sharp for the little elf,
" Baby ! Baby ! " calling.
Another coo comes from papa's tall hat,
Yet none of them stir an inch toward that.
Somewhere he certainly must be, she knows,
So up to the China cupboard she goes ;
The covers she lifts from the sugar-bowls,
The sweet, white lumps she rattles and rolls,
"Baby! Baby!" calling.
But though there's a stir near papa's tall hat,
They will not so much as look toward that.
She moves the dishes, but baby is not
In the cream-pitcher nor in the tea-pot ;
And she wrings her hands and stamps on the floor.
She shakes the rugs, and she opens the door,
"Baby! Baby! "calling.
They stand with their backs to papa's tall hat,
Though the sweetest murmurs come from that.
The children join in the funny distress,
Till mamma, all sudden, with swift caress,
Makes a pounce right down on the old, tall black hat>
And brings out the baby from under that,
"Baby! Baby! "calling.
And this is the end of the little play,
The children would like to try every day.
86
MOTHEK'S EMPIKE.
Em. H. H. Birkins.
>HE queen that sits upon the throne of home, crowned and
sceptred as none other ever can be, is mother. Her
enthronement is complete, her reign unrivalled, and the
moral issues of her empire are eternal. " Her children arise up, and
call her blessed."
Rebellious, at times, as the subjects of her government may be,
she rules them with marvelous patience, winning tenderness and
undying love. She so presents and exemplifies divine truth, that it
re-produces itself in the happiest development of childhood charac-
ter and life.
Her memory is sacred while she lives, and becomes a perpetual
inspiration, even when the bright flowers bloom above her sleeping
dust. She is an incarnation of goodness to the child, and hence her
immense power. Scotland, with her well-known reverence for
motherhood, insists that " An ounce of mother is worth more than a
pound of clergy."
Napoleon cherished a high conception of a mother's power, and
believed that the mothers of the land could shape the destinies of
his beloved France. Hence he said in his sententious, laconic style :
" The great need of France is mothers."
The ancient orator bestowed a flattering compliment upon the
homes of Roman mothers when he said, " The empire is at the fire-
side." Who can think of the influence that a mother wields in the
home, and not be impressed with its far-reaching results! What
revolutions would take place in our families and communities if that
87
MOTHER'S EMPIRE.
strange, magnetic power were fully consecrated to the welfare of the
child and the glory of God.
Mohammed expressed a great truth when he said that " Paradise
is at the feet of mothers."
There is one vision that never fades from the soul, and that is
the vision of mother and of home. No man in all his weary wander-
ings ever goes out beyond the overshadowing arch of home.
Let him stand on the surf-beaten coast of the Atlantic, or roam
over western wilds, and every dash of the wave and murmur of the
breeze will whisper home, sweet home.
Set him down amid the glaciers of the North, and even there
thoughts of home, too warm to be chilled by the eternal frosts, will
float in upon him.
Let him rove through the green, waving groves, and over the
sunny slopes of the South, and in the smile of the soft skies, and in
the kiss of the balmy breeze, home will live again.
John Kandolph was once heard to say that only one thing saved
him from atheism, and that was the tender remembrance of the hour
when a devout mother, kneeling by his side, took his little hand in
hers, and taught him to say " Our Father, who art in Heaven."
God hasten the time when our families, everywhere, shall catch
the cry of childhood as it swells up over all the land, like the voice
of God's own sweet evangel, calling the home the home to enter
the children's temple, and crowd its altars with the best offerings of
sympathy and service.
Fathers, mothers, let the home go with your children to Jesus,
let it go with them at every step, to cheer them in every struggle,
until from the very crest of the cold wave that bears them from you
forever, they shout back their joy over a home on earth, that helped
them rise to a home in Heaven.
88
FOR HIS MOTHER'S SAKE.
A YOUNG man, who had left his home, ruddy and vigorous,
was seized with the yellow fever in New Orleans ; and, though
nursed with devoted care by friendly strangers, he died. When
the coffin was being closed, "Stop" said an aged woman who
was present, " Let me kiss him for his mother ! "
me kiss him for his mother !
Ere ye lay him with the dead,
Far away from home, another
Sure may kiss him in her stead.
How that mother's lips would kiss him
Till her heart should nearly break !
How in days to come she'll miss him I
Let me kiss him for her sake.
-" Let me kiss him for his mother I
Let me kiss the wandering boy ;
It may be there is no other
Left behind to give her joy.
When the news of woe, the morrow,
Burns the bosom like a coal,
She may feel this kiss of sorrow
Fall as balm upon her soul.
" Let me kiss him for his mother !
Heroes, ye, who by his side,
Waited on him as a brother
Till the Northern stranger died,
BE KIND UNTO THE OLD.
Heeding not the foul infection,
Breathing in the f ver-breath,
Let me, of my own election,
Give the mother's kiss in death.
" Let me kiss him for his mother 1 "
Loving thought and loving deed I
Seek nor fear nor sigh to smother,
Gentle matrons, while ye read.
Thank the God who made ye human,
Gave ye pitying tears to shed ;
Honor ye the Christian woman
Bending o'er another's dead. Anonymous.
[AIL, woman ! Hail, thou faithful wife and mother,
The latest, choicest part of Heaven's great plan 1
None fills thy peerless place at home ; no other
Helpmeet is found for laboring, suffering man.
Rev. Mark Trafton
4
BE KIND UNTO THE OLD.
^31) E kind unto the old, my friend ;
JM) They're worn with this world's strife,
**^ Though bravely once perchance they fought
The stern, fierce battle of life.
They taught our youthful feet to climb
Upwards life's rugged steep ;
Then let us lead them gently down,
To where the weary sleep. Anonymous. ,
90
THE OLD FOLKS.
vou would make the aged happy, lead them to feel that there
is still a place for them where they can be useful. WTien you
see their powers failing, do not notice it. It is enough for
them to feel it, without a reminder. Do not humiliate them by
doing things after them. Accept their offered services, and do not
let them see you taking off the dust their poor eye-sight has left
undisturbed, or wiping up the liquid their trembling hands have
spilled ; rather let the dust remain, and the liquid stain the carpet,
than rob them of their self-respect by seeing you cover their
deficiencies. You may give them the best room in your house, you
may garnish it with pictures, and flowers, you may yield them the
best seat in your church-pew, the easiest chair in your parlor, the
highest seat of honor at your table ; but if you lead, or leave, them
to feel that they have passed their usefulness, you plant a thorn in
their bosom that will rankle there while life lasts. If they are
capable of doing nothing but preparing your kindlings, or darning
your stockings, indulge them in those things, but never let them
feel that it is because they can do nothing else ; rather that they do
this so well.
Do not ignore their taste and judgment. It may be that in their
early days, and in the circle where they moved, they were as much
sought and honored as you are now ; and until you arrive at that
place, you can ill imagine your feelings should you be considered
entirely void of these qualities, be regarded as essential to no one,
and your opinions be unsought, or discarded if given. They may
91
THE OLD FOLKS.
have been active and successful in the training of children and
youth in the way they should go ; and will they not feel it keenly,
if no attempt is made to draw from this rich experience ?
Indulge them as far as possible in their old habits. The various
forms of society in which they were educated may be as dear to
them as yours are now to you ; and can they see them slighted or
disowned without a pang? If they relish their meals better by
turning their tea into the saucer, having their butter on the same
plate with their food, or eating with both knife and fork, do not in
word or deed imply to them that the customs of their days are
obnoxious in good society ; and that they are stepping down from
respectability as they descend the hill-side of life. Always bear in
mind that the customs of which you are now so tenacious may be
equally repugnant to the next generation.
In this connection I would say, do not notice the pronunciation
of the aged. They speak as they were taught, and. yours may be
just as uncourtly to the generations following. I was once taught a
lesson on this subject, whice I shall never forget while memory
holds its sway. I was dining, when a father brought his son to take
charge of a literary institution. He was intelligent, but had not
received the early advantages which he had labored hard to procure
for his son ; and his language was quite a contrast to that of the
cultivated youth. But the attention and deference he gave to his
father's quaint though wise remarks, placed him on a higher
pinnacle in my mind, than he was ever placed by his world-wide
reputation as a scholar and writer. CongregaUonaUst.
ALONE
She moves, the queen of her own quiet home.
Rev. Mark Trafton*
92
MY MOTHER'S BIBLE.
George P. Morri*.
>HIS book is all that's left me now,
Tears will unbidden start,
With faltering lip and throbbing brow
I press it to my heart.
For many generations past
Here is our family tree ;
My mother's hands this Bible clasped,
She, dying, gave it me.
Ah ! well do I remember those
Whose names these records bear ;
Who round the hearthstone used to close
After the evening prayer,
And speak of what these pages said,
In tones my heart would thrill !
Though they are with the silent dead,
Here are they living still !
My father read this holy book
To brothers, sisters, dear ;
How calm was my poor mother's look
Who loved God's word to hear 1
Her angel face I see it yet !
What thronging memories come !
Again that little group is met
Within the halls of home !
93
MY MOTHER'S BIBLE.
Thou truest friend man ever knew,
Thy constancy I've tried;
When all were false, I found thee true,
My counselor and guide.
The mines of earth no treasures give
That could this volume buy ;
In teaching me the way to live,
It taught ine how to die !
MT MOTHEK'S BIBLE.
Bishop Gilbert Haven.
one of the shelves in my library, surrounded by volumes of
all kinds, on various subjects, and in various languages, stands
an old book, in its plain covering of brown paper, unpre-
possessing to the eye, and apparently out of place among the more
pretentious volumes that stand by its side. To the eye of a stranger
it has certainly neither beauty nor comeliness. Its covers are worn - r
its leaves marred by long use ; its pages, once white, have become
yellow with age ; yet, old and worn as it is, to me it is the most
beautiful and most valuable book on my shelves. No other awakens
such associations, or so appeals to all that is best and noblest within
me. It is, or rather it was, my mother's Bible companion of her
best and holiest hours, source of her unspeakable joy and consola-
tion. From it she derived the principles of a truly Christian life
and character. It was the light to her feet and the lamp to her
path. It was constantly by her side ; and, as her steps tottered in
the advancing pilgrimage of life, and her eyes grew dim with age,
and more precious to her became the well-worn pages.
One morning, just as the stars were fading into the dawn of the-
94
MY MOTHER'S BIBLE.
coming Sabbath, the aged pilgrim passed on beyond the stars and
beyond the morning, and entered into the rest of the eternal Sab-
bath to look upon the face of Him of whom the law and the
prophets had spoken, and whom, not having seen, she had loved.
And now, no legacy is to me more precious than that old Bible.
Years have passed ; but it stands there on its shelf, eloquent as ever,
witness of a beautiful life that is finished, and a silent monitor to
the living. In hours of trial and sorrow it says, " Be not cast down,
my son ; for thou shalt yet praise Him who is the health of thy
countenance and thy God." In moments of weakness and fear it
says, " Be strong now, my son, and quit yourself manfully." When
sometimes, from the cares and conflicts of external lif e, I come back
to the study, weary of the world and tired of men of men that are
so hard and selfish, and a world that is so unfeeling and the strings
of the soul have become untuned and discordant, I seem to hear that
Book saying, as with the well-remembered tones of a voice long
silent, " Lot not your heart be troubled. For what is your life ? It
is even as a vapor." Then my troubled spirit becomes calm ; and
the little ^orld, that had grown so great and so formidable, sinks
into its trie place again. I am peaceful, I am strong.
There is no need to take down the volume from the shelf, or
open it. A glance of the eye is sufficient. Memory and the law
of association supply the rest. Yet there are occasions when it is
otherwise ; hours in life when some deeper grief has troubled the
heart, some darker, heavier cloud is over the spirit and over the
dwelling, and when it is a comfort to take down that old Bible and
search its pages. Then, for a time, the latest editions, the original
languages, the notes and commentaries, and all the critical apparatus
which the scholar gathers around him for the study of the Scrip-
tures are laid aside ; and the plain old English Bible that was my
mother's is taken from the shelf.
95
MY MOTHEE'S GRAVE.
Eeo. M. 0. Henderson.
>TTE grave of my mother is on an elevation that overlooks a
beautiful village where many an hour was spent in study
and recreation, in days of boyhood. A marble slab
marks the place where we laid her to rest, nearly a score of years
ago. Occasionally, during these years have we stood by her grave,
while precious remembrances have crowded upon our mind, and the
sweet hope of meeting again cheered our sad heart. Our hands may
be full of labor, our hearts bmxjlened with care and the responsibili-
ties of life, and our home far away, but a mother's grave, with aH
the hallowed associations clustering around, can never be forgotten.
The grave of a mother is indeed a sacred spot. It may be
retired from the noise of business, and unnoticed by the stranger,
but to our hearts how dear. The love we bear to a mother, is not
measured by years, is not annihilated by distance, nor forgotten when
she sleeps in dust. Marks of age may appear in our homes, and on
our persons, but the memory of a mother is more enduring than
tune itself. Who has stood by the grave of a mother and not
remembered her pleasant smiles, kind words, earnest prayer, and
assurance expressed in a dying hour. Many years may have passed,
memory may be treacherous in other things, but will reproduce with
freshness the impressions once made by a mother's influence. Why
may we not linger where rests all that was earthly of a sainted
mother? It may have a restraining influence upon the wayward,
prove a valuable incentive to increased faithfulness, encourage hope
in the hour of depression, and give fresh inspiration in Christian life.
96
MOTHEKS, SPAEE YOURSELVES.
a mother grows old, faded, and feeble long before her
time, because her boys and girls are not thoughtfully con-
siderate and helpful. "When they become old enough to
be of service in a household, mother has become so used to doing
all herself, to taking upon her shoulders all the care, that she forgets
to lay off the burden little by little, on those who are so well able
to bear it. It is partly her own fault, to be sure, but a fault com-
mitted out of love and mistaken kindness for her children.
Anonymous.
MY MOTHEB'S GKAVE.
George D. Prentice.
HE trembling dewdrops fell
Upon the shutting flowers ; like star-set rest
The stars shine gloriously, and all,
Save me, are blest.
Mother, I love thy grav^e ;
The violet with its blossoms, blue and mild
"Waves o'er thy head ; when shall it wave
Above thy child ?
'Tis a sweet flower, yet must
Its bright leaves to the coming tempest bow !
Dear mother, 'tis thine emblem ; dust
Is on thy brow.
G 97
MY MOTHER'S GBAVB.
And I could love to die ;
To leave untasted life's dark, bitter streams
By thee, as erst in childhood, lie
And sear thy dreams.
But I must linger here
To stain the plumage of my sinless years,
And mourn the hopes to childhood dear,
With bitter tears.
Aye, I must linger here,
A lonely branch upon a withered tree,
Whose last frail leaf, untimely sere,
Went down with thee.
Oft from life's withered bower,
In still communion with the past, I turn
And muse on thee, the only flower
In memory's urn.
And when the evening pale
Bows, like a mourner on the dim blue wave,
I stay to hear the night winds wail
Around thy grave.
S3
Home of our childhood ! how affection dingt
And hovers round thee with her seraph wingj /
Dearer thy hills, though clad in autumn frown,
Than fairest summits which the cedars crown.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES,.
Whenever we step out of domestic life in search of felicity
we come ~back again, disappointed, tired, and chagrined.
One day passed under our own roof, with our friends and
our family, is worth a thousf"d in another place.
EABL OF
THE OLD HOMESTEAD.
HOME.
[WBITTKK KXPBE88LY FOB THIS WORK.]
By Fanny J Grotty.
IS whispered in the ear of God,
'Tis murmured through our tears ;
'Tis linked with happy childhood days,
And blessed in riper years.
That hallowed word is ne'er forgot,
No matter where we roam,
The purest feelings of the heart,
Still cluster round our home.
Dear resting-place, where weary thought
May dream away its care,
Love's gentle star unvails her light,
And shines in beauty there.
106
HOME.
Jame* Montgomery.
is a land of every land the pride,
Beloved by heaven o'er all the world beaide ;
Where brighter suns dispense serener light,
And milder moons emparadise the night ;
A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth,
Time-tortured age, and love-exalted youth.
The wandering mariner, whose eye explores
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores,
Views not a realm so bountiful and fair,
Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air ;
In every clime the magnet of his soul,
Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole ;
For in this land of heaven's peculiar grace,
The heritage of nature's noblest race,
There is a spot of earth supremely blest.
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest,
Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside
His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride,
While in his softened looks benignly blend
The sire, the son, the husband, brother, friend.
Here woman reigns ; the mother, daughter, wife,
Strew with fresh flowers the narrow way of life !
In the clear heaven of her delightful eye
An angel-guard of loves and graces lie ;
104
HOME DEFINED.
Around her knees domestic duties meet,
Ajid fireside pleasures gambol at her feet.
Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found f
Art thou a man ?- a patriot ? look around ;
Oh, thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam,
That land thy country, and that spot thy home.
HOME DEFINED.
Charles 8wav\
[OME'S not merely four square walls,
Though with pictures hung and gilded :
Home is where affection calls,
Filled with shrines the heart hath builded I
Home ! go watch the faithful dove,
Sailing 'neath the heaven above us ;
Home is where there's one to love !
Home is where there's one to love us !
Home's not merely roof and room,
It needs something to endear it ;
Home is where the heart can bloom,
Where there's some kind lip to cheer it 1
What is home with none to meet,
None to welcome, none to greet us ?
Home is sweet, and only sweet
When there's one we love to meet us !
105
THE HOME OF CHILDHOOD.
Samuel D. Burchard, D.D.
>HE most impressive series of pictures I have ever seen are by
Thomas Cole, an American artist, and termed " The Yoyage
of Life."
The first represents a child seated in a boat amid varied and
beautiful flowers, and his guardian angel standing by to guard and
protect the little voyager.
The second represents the youth, still on his voyage, guiding his
own bark down the stream, his finger pointing upward to a beautiful
castle painted in the clouds.
The third represents the man, still in the boat, going down the
rapids; the water rough, the sky threatening, and the guardian
angel looking on from a distance, anxiously.
The fourth represents an old man, still in his boat, the sun going
down amid floating clouds tinged with gold, purple, and vermilion,
the castle or House Beautiful in full view, and the guardian angel
with an escort of shining celestials waiting to attend him to his home
in glory.
The pictures have suggested to me a series of articles on Life's
Great Mission and work for the grander life beyond. And on this
sublime voyage to the land of immortals, to the Palace Beautiful in
the skies, let us start from the dear old home of childhood, that
home which, though it may be desolate, is still imperishable in
memory.
Home of my childhood, thou shalt ever be dear
To the heart that so fondly revisits thee now ;
106
I
THE HOME OP CHILDHOOD.
Though thy beauty be gone, thy leaf in the sere,
The wreaths of the past still cling to thy brow.
Spirit of mine, why linger ye here ;
Why cling to those hopes so futile and vain t
Go, seek ye a horn a in that radiant sphere,
Which through change and time thou shalt ever retain.
Let our destined port be the home of the blessed the city which
hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God !
" And thou shalt bring thy father, and thy mother, and thy
brethren, and thy father's household home unto thee." Joshua
ii. 18.
The Christian home, implying marriage, mutual affection, piety,
gentleness, refinement, meekness, forbearance, is our ideal of earthly
happiness a beautiful and impressive type of heaven.
It is more than a residence, a place of abode, however attractive
in its surroundings, however richly adorned with art and beauty.
It is where the heart is, where the loved ones are husband,
wife, father, mother, brothers, sisters, all united in sympathy, fellow-
ship and worship. It may be humble, unpretentious, exhibiting no
signs of material wealth ; but there is the wealth of mutual affection,
which fire cannot consume, and no commercial disaster alienate or
destroy, and this is home the home of the heart, the home of child-
hood, the elysium of riper years, the refuge of age.
That we may the better appreciate the Christian homes that God
has given us the homes of comfort and refinement, that rocked the
cradle of our infancy let us consider, first, the vast multitudes of
our fallen race that really have no home ; none in the Christian
sense, none that antidate heaven in peace, refinement and mutual
love. How many children are born to the heritage of vice, poverty
and crime, left to drift upon the tide of circumstances, to be
buffeted in the wild and angry storm, to be chilled on the desolate
107
THE HOME OF CHILDHOOD.
moor of life to wander amid the voids of human sympathy the
solitude and estrangement of human society the children -of dire
misfortune victims of vice and crime, polluted and polluting from
the first
How many fall, like blossoms prematurely blown, nipped by the
lingering frosts of winter and sinking into the shadowed stream, or
the sobbing soil of earth to be seen no more.
Think of the dwellings of hard-handed, wearied, ill-requited
labor, where ignorance and discontent reign supreme, where there
is no recognition of God, who, in his all-wise Sovereignty, raiseth up
one and casteth down another. Such homes, or rather places of
abode, there are all over the land, all over the dark and wide realm
of heathendom, the children of which must be devoted to sacrifice
to the horrors of the Ganges or the Nile.
Look now to the other extreme of society, to the habitations of
the millionaires, adorned with all the luxuries of wealth, the appli-
ances of art, taste, beauty, whose children are trained up to worship
at the shrine of Mammon, to exclude from their minds all thoughts
of God and the hereafter, to live only for this world, to feel that
there is no society worth cultivating except that of the rich, the
elite, the would-be fashionable ; that all enjoyments are material,
sensuous, worldly ; that the chief end of man is to eat, drink, and "be
merry. Such households do not furnish the best schools in which
to educate children to wrestle with misfortune and to do the great
work of life. They are liable to grow up effeminate, lacking execu-
tive strength, cold, proud, misanthropic, alienated in sympathy from
the toiling masses.
There can be no well-regulated home without piety, without the
fear and love of God. And such homes are usually found in the
middle walks of life, not among the extreme poor, nor the proudly
affluent, but among the mutually loving the reverently worshipful.
108
HOME SONGS.
It is to such homes that the world owes its highest interests. The
old patriarchs understood the secret, even under the former dispen-
sation, long before the dawn of the Christian era. God testified o*
Abraham, of Moses, of Samuel and Job how truly they comprt
hended the nature of that family institution, around which cluste'
all the associations of the first period of human life.
And it has only been in the line and in the light of the Christiaa
revelation, that the highest type of the household has been produced
and preserved. And it is upon the application of Christian princi-
ples alone, that the structure of the Christian family and the Chris-
tian home can stand.
The family in its origin is divine, and God has instituted laws
for its regulation and perpetuity, and these laws must be scrupu-
lously observed and obeyed or it ceases to be an ornament and a
blessing the great training-school for the Church and the State
the safeguard of society and a type of heaven.
HOME SONGS.
H, sing once more those joy-provoking strains,
Which, half forgotten, in my memory dwell !
They send the life blood bounding through my veins,
And circle round me like an airy spell.
The songs of home are to the human heart
Far dearer than the notes that song birds pour,
And of our inner nature seem a part ;
Then sing those dear, familiar lays once more
Those cheerful lays of other days
Oh, sing those cheerful lays once more ! Anonymous.
109
THE OLD HOME.
Alfred Tennyto*
love the well-beloved place
Where first we gazed upon the sky ;
The roofs that heard our earliest cry,
Will shelter one of stranger race.
We go, but ere we go from home,
As down the garden-walks I move,
Two spirits of a diverse love
Contend for loving inasterdom.
One whispers, " Here thy boyhood sung
Long since, its matin song, and heard
The low love-language of the bird,
In native hazels tassel-hung."
'The other answers, " Yea, but here
Thy feet have strayed in after hours,
With thy best friend among the bowers,
And this hath made them trebly dear."
These two have striven half a day ;
And each prefers his separate claim,
Poor rivals in a losing game,
That will not yield each other way.
I turn to go : my feet have set
To leave the pleasant fields and forms ;
They mix in one another's arms
To one pure image of regret.
110
HOME SHADOWS.
Robert Colly er, D.D.
, 1 wonder whether we have any deep consciousness
of the shadows we are weaving about our children in the
home ; whether we ever ask ourselves, if, in the far future,
when we are dead and gone, the shadow our home casts now will
stretch over them for bane or blessing. It is possible we are full
of anxiety to do our best, and to make our homes sacred to the
children. We want them to come up right, to turn out good men
and women, to be an honor and praise to the home out of which
they sprang. But this is the pity and the danger, that, while we
we may not come short in any real duty of father and mother, we
may yet cast no healing and sacramental shadow over the child.
Believe me, friends, it was not in the words he said, in the pressure
of the hand, in the kiss, that the blessing lay Jesus gave to the little
ones, when he took them in his arms. So it is not in these, but in
the shadow of my innermost, holiest self ; in that which is to us
what the perfume is to the flower, a soul within the soul, it is that
which, to the child, and in the home, is more than the tongue of
men or angels, or prophecy or knowledge, or faith that will move
mountains, or devotion that will give the body to be burned. I look
back with wonder on that old time, and ask myself how it is that
most of the things, I suppose my father and mother built on especi-
ally to mould me to a right manhood are forgotten and lost out of
my life. But the thing they hardly ever thought of, the shadow
of blessing cast by the home ; the tender unspoken, love ; the sacri
fices made, and never thought of, it was so natural to make them ;
ten thousand little things, so simple as to attract no notice, and yet
111
HOME ADORNMENTS.
go sublime as I look back at them, they fill my heart still and
always with tenderness, when I remember them, and my eyes with
tears. All these things, and all that belong to them, still come over
me, and cast the shadow that forty yeara, many of them lived in a
new world, cannot destroy.
I fear, few parents know what a supreme and holy thing is this
shadow cast by the home, over, especially, the first seven years of
this life of the child. I think the influence that comes in this way
is the very breath and bread of life. I may do other things for duty
or principle or religious training ; they are all, by comparison, as
when I cut and trim and train a vine ; and, when I let the sun shine
and the rain fall on it, the one may aid the life ; the other is the
life. Steel and string are each good in their place ; but what are
they to sunshine ? It is said that a child, hearing once of heaven,
and that his father would be there, replied, "Oh! then, I dinna
want to gang." He did but express the holy instinct of a child, to
whom the father may be all that is good, except just goodness, be
all any child can want, except what is indispensable that gracious
atmosphere of blessing in the healing shadow it casts, without which
even heaven would come to be intolerable.
HOME ADORNMENTS.
Rev. Dr. Downing.
ROOM without pictures is like a room without windows.
Pictures are loop-holes of escape to the soul, leading to other
scenes and other spheres. Pictures are consolers of loneli-
ness ; they are books, they are histories and sermons, which we can
read without the trouble of turning over the leaves.
112
HAPPY CHILDHOOD.
THE SCENES OF MY CHILDHOOD.
(THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET.)
Samuel Woodworth.
[ O"W dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection presents them to view !
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild wood,
And every loved spot which my infancy knew !
The wide-spreading pond and the mill that stood by it,
The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell,
The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it,
And e'en the rude bucket that hung in the well,
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well.
That moss-covered vessel I hailed as a treasure,
For often at noon, when returned from the field,
I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,
The purest and sweetest that nature can yield.
How ardent I seized it with hands that were glowing,
And quick to the white pebbled bottom it fell ;
Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing
And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well ;
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket, arose from the well.
How sweet from the green, mossy brim to receive it,
As poised on the curb it inclined to my lips !
H 113
LONGINGS FOR HOME.
Not a full, blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it,
The brightest that beauty or revelry sips.
And now, far removed from the loved habitation,
The tear of regret will intrusively swell,
As fancy reverts to my father's plantation,
And sighs for the bucket that hangs in the well ;
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket, that hangs in the well !
LONGINGS FOR HOME.
Oliver Goldsmith.
%f N all my wanderings round this world of care,
JH[ In all my griefs and God has given my share
*^ I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down ;
To husband out life's taper at the close,
And keep the flame from wasting, by repose ;
I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,
Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill ;
Around my fire an evening group to draw,
And tell of all I felt, and all I saw ;
And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue,
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew,
I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
Here to return and die at home at last.
114
HOME GOVERNMENT WHAT IS IT?
<f|f[T is not to watch children with a suspicious eye, to frown at the
3|[ merry outbursts of innocent hilarity, to suppress their joyous
*^ laughter, and to mould them into melancholy little models of
octogenarian gravity. And when they have been in fault, it is not
simply to punish them on account of the personal injury that you
have chanced to suffer in consequence of their fault, while disobe-
dience, unattended by inconvenience to yourself, passes without
rebuke.
Nor is it to overwhelm the little culprit with angry words ; to
stun him with a deafening noise ; to call him by hard names, which
do not express his misdeeds ; to load him with epithets which would
be extravagant if applied to a fault of tenfold enormity ; or to
declare, with passionate vehemence, that he is the worst child in the
world, and destined for the gallows.
But it is to watch anxiously for the first risings of sin, and to
repress them ; to counteract the earliest workings of selfishness ; to
repress the first beginnings of rebellion against rightful authority ;
to teach an implicit and unquestioning and cheerful obedience to the
will of the parent, as the best preparation for a future allegiance to
the requirements of the civil magistrate, and the laws of the great
Ruler and Father in heaven.
It is to punish a fault because it is a fault, because it it sinful,
and contrary to the command of God, without reference to whether
it may or may not have been productive of immediate injury to the
parent or others.
115
HOME GOVERNMENT ITS IMPORTANCE.
It is to reprove with calmness and composure, and not with
angry irritation, in a few words, fitly chosen, and not with a
torrent of abuse ; to punish as often as you threaten, and threaten
only when you intend and can remember to perform ; to say what
you mean, and infallibly do as you say.
It is to govern your family as in the sight of Him who gave you
authority, and who will reward your strict fidelity with such bless-
ings as he bestowed on Abraham, or punish your criminal neglect
with such curses as He visited on Eli. Mother's Treasury.
HOME GOVERNMENT ITS IMPORTANCE.
Rev. B. F. Booth.
>HE importance of' sacredly guarding the family relation can
not well be overestimated. It is the foundation-stone of all
that is good and pure both in civilization and religion.
Take this away, and the whole fabric must topple and fall. The
first government on earth was patriarchal, and in it was contained
the inception of all civil authority ; and, indeed, all rightful civil
government to the present day is only an enlarged form of family
government in a representative form, taking into consideration the
wants and necessities of each individual family within its jurisdic
tion. The unity and perpetuity of the family tie in purity and
peace is the only safeguard to national perpetuity, peace, and
honor. Demoralize the family and you thereby destroy both
domestic and national happiness, and undermine completely the
temple of virtue and hope, and prepare the way of moral and civil
desolation. The first impulse of patriotism and morality is germin-
ated, nurtured, and largely if not entirely developed in the family
116
HOME GOVERNMENT ITS IMPORTANCE.
circle. It is here that the first fruits of everything which is good
and pure are brought forth. Hence the nations that disregard the
sacredness of this relation have no permanent forms of government,
and anything like common morality is nowhere to be found among
them. And it is also worthy of careful note that just so far as any
people depart from the true form of the family tie, just in that same
ratio do they give evidence of it in their civility and morality. It is
therefore within the family ircle that the star of hope, of religion
and civil rights is to be seen, and let it go down and all would be
turned into the dismal darkness of midnight without moon or star to
guide the weary pilgrim on his way. This spot is to be guarded as
the tree of life, with the flaming sword turning either way, perpetu-
ally guarantying thus the most sacred bond of union and strength
and the only remaining institution of man's primeval state. There
may be, and doubtless are, numerous abuses of the marriage state ;
but that does not argue against its importance, neither does it detract
from its absolute value and necessity.
The family circle may be ought to be the most charming and
delightful place on earth, the center of the purest affections and
most desirable associations as well a the most attractive and exalted
beauties to be found this side of paradise. Nothing can exceed in
beauty and sublimity the quietude, peace, harmony, affection, and
happiness of a well-ordered family, where virtue is nurtured and
every good principle fostered and sustained. From the well-ordered
homes in this great, broad land of religious and civil liberty not only
are great and good statesmen to come, and eminently pious and
intelligent divines ; but what is equally important, from these homes
must come the more common populace of the land, upon whose
intelligence, patriotism, and purity depends the continuance of the
rich blessings which are now common to all. If freedom is kept
and sanctified by the people ; if the true spirit of Christianity is to
117
HOME GOVERNMENT ITS IMPORTA.NG.fc.
be continued, in aft its sacred purity, on to our children's children r
even to the latest generations of men, they must be kept inviolate in
our families and impressed in our homes. They are both dependent
upon the family circle and the training and order administered
therein. Then they who would dissolve the marriage rite, with all
its hallowed and binding influences, would overthrow everything
that is worth living for, and turn society into a bedlam of confusion
and moral degradation ; for it is the chain that binds the entire net-
work of human society together, in all of its highest prospects, both
for time and eternity. There is no civilization equal to it ; in fact,
there is none without it to the Christian, and there is no Christian
civilization without the marriage ceremony, in all of its binding and
uniting force. In fact, domestic happiness is wholly dependent upon
the sanctity of the marriage relation ; is an exclusive trait of
Christianity ; and Christianity is the only system in the world calcu-
lated to advance the interests of common humanity, and insure to all
equal rights, earthly bliss, and a sweet home forever beyond the
narrow limits of the quiet tomb.
What was said concerning Abraham may be said of every true
Christian father: "For I know him, that he will command his
children and his household after him ; and they shall keep the way
of the Lord, to do justice and judgment, that the Lord may bring
upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." Happy is that
nation whose children are brought up in families like this. There
purity, virtue, and true manhood in every principle of justice and
mercy will be permanently secured. What an important place,
therefore, does the family occupy in the social, moral, and political
worlds ! Take this away, and the bond of sacred union is forever
dissolved, and the most distressing and deplorable results must
follow. Break asunder these centers of holy affections of truth,
honor, and purity, and you will fill the land with every enormity,
118
HOME TRAINING OF CHILDREN.
and desolation, the most far-reaching and dreadful, will fill its entire
breadth. It is highly important and necessary not only to continue
the validity of the marriage rite, upon which the true idea of the
family is based, but great care should be exercised to make these
homes all that they can and should be made, the most delightful
and enticing places on earth, where everything that is good is
encouraged, and everything evil pointed out and discountenanced ;
for as children leave the parental home they are, to a large extent,
molded for life. Orders and correct morals should here receive the
proper stamp upon the opening mind. Yes, everything we wish our
children to be, in time and eternity, should here be taught and
enforced. Then " all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and
great shall be the peace of thy children."
HOME TRAINING OF CHILDREN.
D. L. Moody.
fgf HAVE no doubt some parents have got discouraged and dis-
lH[ heartened that they have not seen their children brought to
^ the Saviour as early as they expected. I do not know any
thing that has encouraged me more in laboring for children than my
experience in the inquiry room. In working there I have found
that those who had religious training, whose parents strove early to
lead them to Christ, have been the easiest to lead toward Him. I
always feel as if I had a lever to work with when I know that a man
has been taught by a godly father and mother ; even if his parents
died when he was young, the impression that they died praying for
liim has always a great effect through life. I find that such men are
always so much easier reached, and though we may not live to see
all our prayers answered, and all our children brought into the fold,
119
HOME TRAINING FOB CHILDREN.
yet we should teach them diligently, and do it in love. There i$
whore a good many make a mistake, by not teaching their children
in I OTO by doing it coldly or harshly. Many send them off to read
the Bible by themselves for punishment. Why, I would put my
hand in the fire before I would try to teach them in that way. If
we teach our children as we ought to do, instead of Sunday being
the dreariest, dullest, tiresomest day of the week to them, it will be
the brightest, happiest day of the whole seven. What we want to
do is to put religious truths before our children in such an attractive
form that the Bible will be the most attractive of books to them.
Children want the same kind of food and truth that we do, only we
must cut it up a little finer, so that they can eat it. I have great
respect for a father and mother who have brought up a large family
and trained them so that they have come out on the Lord's side.
Sometimes mothers are discouraged and do not think they have so-
large a sphere to do good in as we have, but a mother who has
brought up a large family to Christ need not consider her life a
failure. I know one who has brought up ten sons, all Christians ;
do you think her life has been a failure ? Let us teach our children
diligently, in season and out of season. We might train them that
they shall be converted so early they can't tell when they were con-
verted. I do not believe, as some people seem to think, that they
have got to wander off into sin first, so that they may be brought
back to Christ. Those who have been brought up in that way from
their earliest childhood, do not have to spend their whole life in
forgetting some old habit. Let us be encouraged in bringing our
children to Christ.
120
HOME AFFECTION.
H. C. Darns.
FFECTION does not beget weakness, nor is it effeminate for a
brother to be tenderly attached to his sisters. That boy will
make the noblest, the bravest man. On the battle-field, in
many terrible battles during our late horrible war, I always noticed
that those boys who had been reared under the tenderest home
culture always made the best soldiers. They were always brave,
always endured the severe hardships of camp, the march, or on the
bloody field most silently, and were most dutiful at every call.
More, much more, they resisted the frightful temptations that so
often surrounded them, and seldom returned to their loved ones
stained with the sins incident to war. Another point, they were
always kind and polite to those whom they met in the enemy's
country. Under their protection, woman was always safe. How
often I have heard one regiment compared with another, when the
cause of the difference was not comprehended by those who drew the
comparison ! I knew the cause, it was the home education.
We see the same every day in the busy life of the city. Call
together one hundred young men in our city, and spend an evening
with them, and we will tell you their home education. Watch them
as they approach young ladies, and converse with them, and we will
show you who have been trained under the influence of home affec-
tion and politeness, and those who have not.
That young man who was accustomed to kiss his sweet, innocent,
loving sister night and morning as they met, shows its influence
upon him, and he will never forget it, and when he shall take some
121
HOME TEACHING.
one to his heart as his wife, she shall reap the golden fruit thereof
The young man who was in the habit of giving his arm to hits
sister as they walked to and from church, will never leave his wife
to find her way as best she can. The young man who has been
taught to see that his sister had a seat before he sought his, will
never mortify a neglected wife in the presence of strangers. And
that young man who always handed his sister to her chair at the
table, will never have cause to blush as he sees some gentleman
extend to his wife the courtesy she knows is due from him.
Mothers and daughters, wives and sisters, remember that, and
remember that you have the making of the future of this great
country, and rise at once to your high and holy duty. Remember
that you must make that future, whether you will or not. We are
all what you make us. Ah ! throw away your weakening follies of
fashion, and soul-famine, and rise to the level where God intended
you should be, and make every one of your homes, from this day,
schools of true politeness and tender affection. Take those little
curly-headed boys, and teach them all you would have men to be,
and my word for it, they will be just such men, and will go forth to
bless the world, and crown you with a glory such as queens and
empresses never dreamed of. Wield your power now, and you shall
reap the fruit in your ripe age.
HOME TEACHING.
James Thomson.
8ELIGHTFUL task ! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe the enliv'ning spirit, and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.
122
HOME INSTRUCTION.
Hon. Schuyler Golfax.
BOYE all things, teach children what their life is. It is not
breathing, moving, playing, sleeping, simply. Life is a battle.
All thoughtful people see it so. A battle between good and
evil, from childhood. Good influences, drawing us up, toward the
divine ; bad influences, drawing us down to the brute. Midway we
stand, between the divine and the brute. How to cultivate the good
side of the nature is the greatest lesson of life to teach. Teach chil-
dren that they lead these two lives : the life without, and the life
within ; and that the inside must be pure in the sight of God, as
well as the outside in the sight of men.
There are five means of learning. These are :
Observation, reading, conversation, memory, reflection.
Educators sometimes, in their anxiety to secure a wide range of
studies, don't sufficiently impress upon their scholars the value of
memory. Now, our memory is one of the most wonderful gifts
God has bestowed upon us ; and one of the most mysterious. Take
a tumbler and pour water into it ; by-and-by you can pour no more ;
it is full. It is not so with the mind. You cannot fill it full of
knowledge in a whole life-time. Pour in all you please, and it still
thirsts for more.
Remember this :
Knowledge is not what you learn, but what you remember.
It is not what you eat, but what you digest, that makes you
grow.
It is not the money you handle, but that you keep, that makes
you rich.
123
HOME INFLUENCES.
It is not what you study, but what you remember and refioct
upon, that makes you learned.
One more suggestion :
Above all things else, strive to fit the children in your charge, to
be useful men and women ; men and women you may be proud of
in after-life. While they are young, teach them that far above
physical courage which will lead them to face the cannon's mouth
above wealth which would give them farms and houses, and
bank stocks and gold is moral courage. That courage by which
they will stand fearlessly, frankly, firmly, for the right. Every man
or woman who dares to stand for the right when evil has its legions,
is the true moral victor in this life, and in the land beyond the stars.
HOME INFLUENCES.
HERE is music in the word home. To the old it brings a
bewitching strain from the harp of memory ; to the young
it is a reminder of all that is near and dear to them.
Among the many songs we are wont to listen to, there is not one
more cherished than the touching melody of " Home, Sweet
Home."
Will you go back with me a few years, dear reader, in the history
of the past, and traverse in imagination the gay streets and gilded
saloons of Paris, that once bright center of the world's follies and
pleasures? Passing through its splendid thoroughfares is one (an
Englishman) who has left his home and native land to view the
splendors and enjoy the pleasures of a foreign country. He has
beheld with delight its paintings, its sculpture, and the grand yet
124
HOME INFLUENCES.
graceful proportions of its buildings, and has yielded to the spell of
the sweetest muse. Yet, in the midst of his keenest happiness, when
he was rejoicing most over the privileges he possessed, temptations
assailed him. Sin was presented to him in one of its most bewitch-
ing garbs. He drank wildly and deeply of the intoxicating cup, and
his draught brought madness. Reason was overwhelmed, and he
rushed out, all his scruples overcome, careless of what he did or how
deeply he became immersed in the hitherto unknown sea of guilt.
The cool night air lifted the damp locks from his heated brow,
and swept with soothing touch over his flushed cheeks. "Walking
on, calmer, but no less determined, strains of music from a distance
met his ear. Following in the direction the sound indicated, he at
length distinguished the words and air. The song was well remem-
bered. It was " Home, Sweet Home." Clear and sweet the voice
of some English singer rose and fell on the air, in the soft cadences
of that beloved melody.
Motionless, the wanderer listened till the last note floated away
and he could hear nothing but the ceaseless murmur of a great city.
Then he turned slowly, with no feeling that his manhood was
shamed by the tear which fell as a bright evidence of the power of
song.
The demon that dwells in the wine had fled ; and reason once
more asserted her right to control. As the soft strains of " Sweet
Home " had floated to his ear, memory brought up before him his
own " sweet home." He saw his gentle mother, and heard her speak,
while honest pride beamed from her eye, of her son, in whose noble-
ness and honor she could always trust ; and his heart smote him as
he thought how little he deserved such confidence. He remembered
her last words of love and counsel, and the tearful farewell of all those
dear ones who gladdened that far-away home with their presence.
Well he knew their pride in his integrity, and the tide of remorse
125
THE SMILES OF HOME.
swept over his spirit as he felt what their sorrow would be could
they have Been him an hour before. Subdued and repentant, he
retraced his steps, and with this vow never to taste of the terrible
draught that could so excite him to madness was mingled a deep
sense of thankfulness for his escape from further degradation. The
influence of home had protected him, though the sea rolled between.
None can tell how often the commission of crime is prevented
by such memories. If, then, the spell of home is so powerful, how
important it is to make it pleasant and lovable ! Many a time a
cheerful home and smiling face does more to make good men and
women, than all the learning and eloquence that can be used. It
has been said that the sweetest words in our language are " Mother,
Home and Heaven ;" and one might almost say the word home
included them all ; for who can think of home without remembering
the gentle mother who sanctified it by her presence ? And is not
home the dearest name for heaven ? "We think of that better land
as a home where brightness will never end in night. Oh, then, may
our homes on earth be the centers of all our joys ; may they be as
green spots in the desert, to which we can retire when weary of the
cares and perplexities of life, and drink the clear waters of a love
which we know to be sincere and always unfailing. Saturday
Evening Post.
THE SMILES OF HOME.
John Keiif
WEET is the smile of home ; the mutual look
Where hearts are of each other sure ;
Sweet all the joys that crowd the household "nook.
The haunt of all affections pure.
126
HOME COURTESY.
pleasaiiter sight is there, than a family of young folks who
are quick to perform little acts of attention toward their
elders. The placing of the big arm-chair for mamma, run-
ning for a footstool for aunty, hunting up papa's spectacles, and'
scores of little deeds, show the tender sympathy of gentle loving
hearts ; but if mamma never returns a smiling " Thank you, dear ; ""
if papa's " Just what I was wanting, Susie," does not indicate that
the little attention is appreciated, the children soon drop the habit.
Little people are imitative creatures, and quickly catch the spirit
surrounding them. So if, when the mother's spool of cotton roll-
from her lap, the father stoops to pick it up, bright eyes will see the
act, and quick minds make a note of it. By example, a thousand
times more quickly than by precept, can children be taught to speak
kindly to each other, to acknowledge favors, to be gentle and
unselfish, to be thoughtful and considerate of the comfort of the
family. The boys, with inward pride of their father's courteous
demeanor, will be chivalrous and helpful to their own young sisters ;.
the girls, imitating their mother, will be patient and gentle, even
when big brothers are noisy and heedless. In the homes where true
courtesy prevails, it seems to meet you on the threshold. You feel
the kindly welcome on entering. No angry voices are heard up-
stairs. No sullen children are sent from the room. No peremptory
orders are given to cover the delinquencies of house-keeping or
servants. A delightful atmosphere pervades the house unmistak-
able, yet indescribable.
Such a house, filled by the spirit of love, is a home indeed to all:
127
THE HAPPY HOME HOME OF OUR CHILDHOOD.
who enter within its consecrated walls. And it is of such a home
that the Master said, "And into whatsoever house ye enter, first say,
Peace be to this house. And if the Son of Peace be there, your
peace shall rest upon it." Luke x. 5, 6.
" Blest are the sons of peace,
Whose hearts and hopes are one ;
Whose kind designs to serve and please,
Through all their actions run.
" Thus on the heavenly hills,
The saints are blessed above ;
Where joy like morming dew distills,
And all the air is love." Anonymous,
THE HAPPY HOME.
Martin F.
HAPPY home ! O, bright and cheerful hearth !
Look round with me, my lover, friend, and wife,
On these fair faces we have lit with life,
And in the perfect blessing of their birth,
Help me to live our thanks for so much heaven on earth.
HOME OF OUH CHILDHOOD.
Oliver WendeU Holme*
[OME of our childhood ! How affection clings
And hovers round thee with her seraph wings !
Dearer thy hills, though clad in autumn brown,
Than fairest summits which the cedars crown ;
Sweeter the fragrance of thy summer breeze,
Than all Arabia breathes along the seas !
The stranger's gale wafts home the exile's sigh,
For the heart's temple is its own blue sky.
128
AST IDEAL HOME.
Samuel Roger*.
IN"E be a cot beside the hill ;
A bee-hive's hum shall soothe my ear ;
A willowy brook, that turns a mill,
With many a fall, shall linger near.
The swallow oft, beneath my thatch,
Shall twitter near her clay-built nest ;
Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch,
And share my meal, a welcome guest.
Around my ivied porch shall spring
Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew ;
And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing,
In russet gown and apron blue.
The village church beneath the trees,
Where first our marriage vows were given.
With merry peals shall swell the breeze,
And point with taper spire to heaven.
HOME.
James Thomson.
rOME is the resort
Of love, of joy, of peace, and plenty, where
Supporting and supported, polish'd friends,
And dear relations mingle into bliss,
i 129
HOME RELIGION.
HOUSE may be full of persons who are very dear to each
other, very kind to each other; full of precious things,
affections, hopes, living interests ; but if God is not there ae
the Ruler and Father of the house, the original and true idea of
home will not be realized ; vacancy and need will still be at the
heart of all. Good things will grow feebly and uncertainly, like
flowers in winter, trying to peep out into sunshine, yet shrinking
from the blast. Evil things will grow with strange persistency, not-
withstanding protests of the affections and efforts of the will.
Mysterious gulfs will open at times where it was thought strong
foundations had been laid. Little things will produce great distress.
Great things, when attained, will shrink to littleness. Flickerings of
uncertainty and fear will run along the days. Joys will not satisfy.
Sorrow will surprise.
In the very heart of the godless home there will be sickness,
arising from need unsatisfied and " hope deferred." It vrill be as
when a man of ingenuity tries in vain to put together the separated
parts of a complicated piece of mechanism. He tries in this way
and that, puts the pieces into every conceivable mode of arrange-
ment, then at last stops, and says : " There must be a piece want-
ing"
Home without Divine presence is at best a moral structure with
the central element wanting. The other elements may be arranged
and re-arranged ; they will never exactly fit, nor be " compact
together," until it is obtained. "We have heard of haunted houses.
That house will be haunted with the ghost of an unrealized idea. 1 1
130
HOME RELIGION.
i
will seem to its most thoughtful inmates at best but " the shadow of
some good thing to come ;" and the longing for the substance will
be the more intense, because the shadow, as a providential prophecy,
is always there.
In many a house there is going on, by means of those quick
spiritual sighs by which One above can read, what we may call a
dialogue of souls, composed chiefly of unspoken questions, which, if
articulate, might be something like the following: " How is it that
we cannot be to each other as we wish, that we cannot do for each
other what we try, even when it seems to be quite within the range
of possibility ? Why is there such a sorrow in our affection ? such
a trembling in our joys ? so great a fear of change, and so profound
a sense of incompleteness in connection with the very best we can
do and be ? "
And what is the answer to such mute yet eager questionings ?
And who can speak that answer ? That One above who hears the
dialogue must take part in it ; and all must listen while He speaks,
and tells of another fatherhood, under which the parents must
become little children, of another brotherhood which, when attained,
will make the circle complete. When the members of such. a house-
hold, who have been looking so much to each other, shall agree to
give one earnest look above, and say, "Our Father, which art in
heaven ! " " our elder Brother, and Advocate with the Father ! "
then will come back, sweet as music, into the heart of that house,
these fulfilling words from the everlasting Father, " Ye shall be my
sons and daughters ; " from the eternal Son, " Behold my mother
and sister and brother ! " Then the one thing that was lacking will
be present. The missing element will be in its place, and all the
other elements will be assembled around it. It is a haunted house
no more. The ghost has been chased away. The house is whole-
Rome. Mornings are welcome. Nights are restful. The aching
181
KIND WORDS AT HOME A HAPPY HOME DEFINED.
sorrow has passed away now from the heart of that home. Thu
long-sought secret is revealed. Soul whispers to soul, " Emmanuel,
God with us." Home is home at last. Mothers Treasury.
KIND WORDS AT HOME.
PEAK kindly in the morning ; it lightens the cares of thd day,
and makes the household and all other affairs move .Jong
more smoothly.
Speak kindly at night, for it may be that before the dawn some
loved one may finish his or her space of life, and it will be too late
to ask forgiveness.
Speak kindly at all times ; it encourages the downcast, cheers
the sorrowing, and very likely awakens the erring to earnest
resolves to do better, with strength to keep them.
Kind words are balm to the soul. They oil up the ent'rc
machinery of life, and keep it in good running order.
A HAPPY HOME DEFINED.
Rev. Dr. Hamilton.
IX things are requisite to create a happy home. Integrity must
be the architect, and tidiness the upholsterer. It must bo
warmed by affection, and lightened up with cheerfulness, and
industry must be the ventilator, renewing the atmosphere and
bringing in fresh salubrity day by day ; while over all, as a protect-
ing canopy and glory, nothing will suffice except the blessings of
God.
132
FAMILY PKAYERS.
are ^ ar fr m thinking that the good old custom of having
family prayers is being dropped from Christian house-
holds. It is a custom held in honor wherever there is
real Christian life, and it is the one thing which, more than any
other, knits together the loose threads of a home and unites its vari-
ous members before God. The short religious service in which
parents, children and friends daily join in praise and prayer, is at
once an acknowledgment of dependence on the heavenly Father and
a renewal of consecration to his work in the world. The Bible is
read, the hymn is sung, the petition is offered, and unless all has
been done as a mere formality and without hearty assent, those who
have gathered at the family altar leave it helped, soothed, strength-
ened, and armored, as they were not before they met there. The
sick and the absent are remembered. The tempted and the tried
are commended to God, and, as the Israelites in the desert were
attended by the pillar and the cloud, so in life's wilderness the
family who inquire of the Lord are constantly overshadowed by his
presence and love.
There are many reasons which are allowed to interfere with and
thrust aside the privilege of family prayer in homes where father
and mother mean to have it daily.
Whatever comes in the way of a plain duty ought, however, to
be set aside. If there be any among our readers who recognize the
need there is in their house to have a daily open worship of God, let
them begin it at once. They must find the time, choose the place,
and appoint the way. The actual time spent in worship may be a
133
FREQUENT PEAYEfi. .
few minutes only. A brief service which cannot tire the youngest
fhild, if held unvaryingly as the sun, in the morning when the day
begins, and in the evening when its active labors close, is far more
useful and edifying than a long one which fatigues attention.
It is possible to have a daily worship which shall be earnest, vivi-
fying, tender and reverential, and yet a weariness to nobody. Only
let the one who conducts it mean toward the Father the sweet obe-
dience of the grateful child, and maintain the attitude of one who
goes about earthly affairs with a soul looking beyond and above
them to the rest that remaineth in heaven. It is not every one who
is able to pray in the hearing of others with ease. The timid tongue
falters, and the thoughts struggle in vain for utterance. But who is
there who cannot read a Psalm, or a chapter, or a cluster of verses,
and, kneeling, repeat in accents of tender trust the Lord's prayer ?
When we think of it, that includes everything. Christian at
Work.
FREQUENT PRAYER.
Bishop Taylor.
|RAYER is the key to open the day, and the bolt to shut
in the night. But as the clouds drop the early dew, and
the evening dew upon the grass, yet it would not spring and
grow green by that constant and double falling of the dew, unless
some great shower at certain seasons did supply the rest ; so the
customary devotion of prayer twice a day, is the falling of the early
and latter dew. But if you will increase and flourish in works of
grace, empty the great clouds sometimes, and let them fall in a
full shower of prayer. Choose out seasons when prayer shall over
flow like Jordan in time of harvest.
134
NO TIME TO PEAT.
time to pray !
Oh, who so fraught with earthly car*
As not to give to humble prayer
Some part of day ?
No time to pray !
What heart so clean, so pure within,
That needeth not some check from sin,
Needs not to pray ?
No time to pray !
'Mid each day's danger, what retreat
More needful than the mercy-seat ?
Who need not pray ?
No time to pray !
Then sure your record f alleth short ;
Excuse will fail you as resort,
On that last day.
What thought more drear,
Than that our God his face should hide,
And say through all life's swelling tide,
No time to hear ! Anonymous.
A LWAYS leave the home with loving words, for they may be
the last.
135
THE CHILDREN.
Dickenson*
the lessons and tasks are all ended,
And the school for the day is dismissed,
And the little ones gather around me,
To bid me good-night and be kissed ;
Oh, the little white arms that encircle
My neck in a tender embrace !
Oh, the smiles that are halos of heaven,
Shedding sunshine of love on my face !
And when they are gone I sit dreaming
Of my childhood too lovely to last ;
Of love that my heart will remember,
When it wakes to the pulse of the past,
Ere the world and its wickedness made me
A partner of sorrow and sin ;
When the glory of God was about me,
And the glory of gladness within.
Oh ! my heart grows weak as a woman's,
And the fountain of feeling will flow,
When I think of the paths steep and stony,
Where the feet of the dear ones must go ;
O "
Of the mountains of sin hanging o'er them,
Of the tempest of fate blowing wild !
Oh 1 there is nothing on earth half so holy
As the innocent heart of a child.
136
THE CHILDREN.
They are idols of hearts and of households ;
They are angels of God in disguise ;
His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses,
His glory still gleams in their eyes ;
Oh ! these truants from home and from heaven
They have made me more manly and mild,
And I know how Jesus could liken
The kingdom of God to a child.
I ask not a life for the dear ones,
All radiant, as others have done,
But that life may have enough shadow
To temper the glare of the sun ;
I would pray God to guard them from evil,
But my prayer would come back to myself ;
Ah, a seraph may pray for a sinner,
But a sinner must pray for himself.
The twig is so easily bended,
I have banished the rule and the rod ;
I have taught them the goodness of knowledge,
They have taught me the goodness of God ;
My heart is a dungeon of darkness,
Where I shut them from breaking a rule ;
My frown is sufficient correction ;
My love is the law of the school.
I shall leave the old house in the autumn,
To traverse its threshold no more ;
Ah, how I shall sigh for the dear ones,
That meet me each morn at the door,
137
THE CHILDREN.
I shall miss the " good-nights " and the kisses,
And the gush of their innocent glee,
The group on the green, and the flowers
That are brought every morning to me.
I shall miss them at morn and evening,
Their song in the school and the street ;
I shall miss the low hum of their voices,
And the tramp of their delicate feet.
"When the lessons and tasks are all ended,
And death says : " The school is dismissed,"
May the little ones gather around me,
To bid me good-night and be kissed.
THE CHILDKEN.
H. W. Longfellow.
what would the world be to us
If the children were no more ?
We should dread the desert behind us
Worse than the dark before.
What the leaves are to the forest,
With light and air for food,
Ere their sweet and tender juices
Have been hardened into wood
That, to the world, are children ;
Through them it feels the glow
Of a brighter and sunnier climate
Than reaches the trunks below.
138
THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN.
>HE child has a right to ask questions and to be fairly
answered ; not to be snubbed as if he were guilty of an
impertinence, nor ignored as though his desire for informa-
tion were of no consequence, nor misled as if it did not signify
whether true or false impressions were made upon his mind.
The child lias a right to his individuality, to be himself and no
other ; to maintain against the world the divine fact for which he
stands. And before this fact father, mother, instructor should stand
reverently ; seeking rather to understand and interpret its signifi-
cance than to wrest it from its original purpose. It is not neces-
sarily to be inscribed with the family name, nor written over with
family. traditions. Nature delights in surprise and will not guarantee
that the children of her poets shall sing, nor that every Quaker baby
shall take kindly to drab color, or have an inherent longing for a
scoop-bonnet or a broad-brimmed hat.
In the very naming of a child his individuality should be recog-
nized. He should not be invested with the cast-off cognomen of
some dead ancestor or historical celebrity, a name musty as the
grave-clothes of tne original wearer dolefully redolent of old asso-
ciations a ghostly index-linger forever pointing to the past. Let it
be something fresh ; a new name standing for a new fact, the sug-
gestion of a history yet to be written, a prophecy to be fulfilled.
The ass was well enough clothed in his own russet ; but when he
would put on the skin of the lion, every attribute became contempt!
ble. Commonplace people slip easily through the world ; but when
we would find them heralded by great names, we resent the incon
139
SUFFERINGS OF CHILDHOOD.
gruity, and insist upon making them less than they are. George
Washington selling peanuts, Julius Csesar as a bootblack, and Yirgil
a vender of old clothes, make but a sorry figure.
We are indebted to our children for constant incentives to noble
living ; for the perpetual reminder that we do not live to ourselves
alone ; for their sakes we are admonished to put from us the debas-
ing appetite, the unworthy impulse ; to gather into our lives every
noble and heroic quality, every tender and attractive grace.
"We owe them gratitude for the dark hours which their presence
has brightened, for the helplessness and dependence which have won
us from ourselves ; for the faith and trust which it is evermore their
mission to renew ; for their kisses on cheeks wet with tears, and on
brows that but for that caressing had furrowed into frowns. LitteWs
Lmvng Age.
SUFFERINGS OF CHILDHOOD.
>HE sufferings of a bashful boy! Can torture chamber be
more dreadful than the juvenile party, the necessary parade
of the Christmas-dinner, to a shy boy ? I have sometimes
taken the hand of such a one, and have found it cold and clammy ;
desperate was the struggle of that young soul, afraid of he knew not
what, caught by the machinery of society, which mangled him ar
every point, crushed every nerve, and filled him with faintness and
fear. How happy he might have been with that brood of young
puppies in the barn, or the soft rabbits in their nest of hay ! How
grand he was, paddling his poor leaky boat down the rapids, jump-
ing into the river, and dragging it with his splendid strength over
the rocks ! Nature and he were friends ; he was not afraid of her ;
140
SUFFERINGS OF CHILDHOOD.
*he recognized her child and greeted him with smiles. The young
animals loved him, and his dog looked up into his fair blue eyes, and
recognized his king. But this creature must be tamed ; he must be
brought into prim parlors, and dine with propriety ; he must dress
himself in garments which scratch, and pull, and hurt him ; boots
must be put on his feet which pinch ; he must be clean, terrible
injustice to a faun who loves to roll down-hill, to grub for roots, to
follow young squirrels to their lair, and to polish old guns rather
than his manner.
And then the sensitive boy, who has a finer grain than the
majrrity of his fellows, suddenly thrown into the pandemonium of a
public school ! Nails driven into the flesh could not inflict such
pain as such a one suffers ; and the scars remain. One gentleman
told me, in mature life, that the loss of a toy stolen from him in
childhood still rankled. How much of the infirmity of human char-
acter may be traced to the anger, the sense of wounded feeling,
engendered by a wrong done in childhood when one is helpless to
avenge !
All this may be called the necessary hardening process, but I do
not believe in it. "We have learned how to temper iron and steel,
but we have not learned how to treat children. Could it be made a
money-making process, like the Bessemer, I believe one could learn
how to temper the human character. Our instincts of intense love
for our children are not enough ; we should study it as a science.
The human race is very busy ; it has to take care of itself, and to
feed its young ; it must conquer the earth perhaps it has not time
to study Jim and Jack and Charley, and Mary and Emily and Jane,
as problems. But, if it had, would it not perhaps pay? There
would be fewer criminals.
Many observers recommend a wise neglect not too much in-
quiry, but a judicious surrounding of the best influences, and then
HI
GOVERNMENT OF CHILDREN.
let your young plant grow up. Yes ; but it should be a very wise
neglect it should be a neglect which is always on the watch lest-
some inisdious parasite, some unnoticed but strong bias of character,
take possession of the child and mould or ruin him. Of the ten
boys running up yonder hill, five will be failures, two will be
moderate successes, two will do better, one will be great, good and
distinguished. If such are the terrible statistics and .1 am told that
they are so who is to blame ? Certainly the parent or guardian, or
circumstance and what is circumstance ? Appleton's Journal.
GOVERNMENT OF CHILDREN.
> ITEEE were many ideas entertained by the Puritan settlers of
New England that happily were not bequeathed to those
who came after them, but in fixing proper relations between
parents and children, and in parental government generally it would
have been better to have preserved some of the inflexibility of dis-
cipline that distinguished them. The youth of the present have
their own way too much. No obedience or respect is exacted from
them by father or mother in many instances, and they grow up
selfish, overbearing, and sometimes dangerous. The case of the boj
in Maine who a year or so ago killed his father because he was angry
with him, is probably familiar to all. The other day a father in
New York was obliged to complain of his son on account of the
boy's repeated thefts. When the youth had been sentenced, he
turned to his father, and told him that as soon as he got out of jail
he would " blow the top of his head off." A few days since a young
man in high station in Brooklyn tried to murder his wife. lie was
142
KIND WORDS.
neither intoxicated nor insane. The only trouble was that he had
always been permitted to have his own way, and the groove of self-
ishness and petty tyranny to which he had been allowed to shape
himself led but in one direction, and he considered any means even
shot-guns and bowie-knives justifiable in revenging himself upon
those who opposed in the slightest his wishes or course of life.
Children need checks, direction and good influences. A well-gov-
erned child is in the grand majority of cases sure to grow into a
respectable man or woman, but the noblest natures may be blighted
unless the weeds of untrained propensity are kept down. Boston
Post.
KIND WORDS.
S the breath of the dew on the tender plant, they gently fall
upon the drooping heart, refreshing its withered tendrils and
soothing its burning woes. Bright oases they are in life's
great desert. Who can estimate the pangs they have alleviated, or
the good works they have accomplished? Long after they are
uttered do they reverberate in the soul's inner chamber, and sing
low, sweet, liquid strains, that quell all the raging storms that may
have before existed. And oh! when the heart is sad, and like a
broken harp, the sweetest chords of pleasure cease to vibrate, who
can tell the power of one kind word ? One little word of tenderness
gushing in upon the soul, will sweep the long-neglected chords, and
awaken the most pleasant strains. Kind words are like jewels in
the heart, never to be forgotten, but perhaps to cheer by their
memory a long, sad life. While words of cruelty are like darts
in the bosom, wounding and leaving scars that will be borne to the
grave by their victim. Saturday Evening Post.
143
NOT ONE CHILD TO SPAKE.*
Mrs. Ethd L. Bean
[ICH shall it be ? Which shall it be ? "
I looked at John John looked at me,
(Dear, patient John, who loves me yet,
As well as though my locks were jet),
And when I found that I must speak,
My voice seemed strangely low and weal? :
" Tell me again what Eobert said ! "
And then I listening bent my head.
" This is his letter : * I will give
A house and land while you shall live,
If, in return, from out your seven,
One child to me for aye is given.' "
I looked at John's old garments worn,
I thought of all that John had borne
Of poverty, and work, and care,
Which I, though willing, could not share ;
I thought of seven mouths to feed,
Of seven little children's need,
And then of this. " Come, John," said I,
" We'll choose among them as they lie
Asleep ; " so, walking hand in hand,
Dear John and I surveyed our band
* A father and mother in straitened circumstances, with icven children,
were offered by a wealthy, but childless neighbor, a comfortable provision, on
condition that they would give him one of their children. This beautiful
poem tells the result.
144
First to the cradle lightly stepped.
Where Lilian the baby slept.
A glory 'gainst the pillow white ;
Softly the father stooped to lay
His rough hand down in loving way,
When dream or wliisper made her stir,
And huskily he said : " Not her, not her."
We stooped beside the trundle-bed,
And one long ray of lamplight shed
' Athwart the boyish faces there,
In sleep so pitiful and fair ;
I saw on Jamie's rough, red cheek,
A tear undried. Ere John could speak,
" He's but a baby, too," said I,
And kissed him as we hurried by.
Pale patient Robbie's angel face
Still in his sleep bore suffering's trace.
" No, for a thousand crowns, not him,"
He whispered, while our eyes were dim.
Poor Dick ! bad Dick ! our wayward son,
Turbulent, reckless, idle one
Could he be spared ? " Nay, He who gave
Bid us befriend him to his grave ;
Only a mother's heart can be
Patient enough for such as he ;
And so," said John, " I would not dare
To send him from her bedside prayer."
Then stole we softly up above
And knelt by Mary, child of love.
" Perhaps for her 'twould better be,"
I said to John. Quite silently,
i 145
BABIES AND THEIK EIGHTS.
He lifted up a curl that lay
Across her cheek in willful way,
And shook his head, " Nay, love, not thee, M
The while my heart beat audibly.
Only one more, our eldest lad,
Trusty and truthful, good and glad
So like his father. " No, John no
I can not, will not, let him go."
And so we wrote, in courteous way,
"We could not drive one child away ;
And afterward toil lighter seemed,
Thinking of that of which we dreamed,
Happy in truth that not one face
Was missed from its accustomed place ;
Thankful to work for all the seven,
Trusting the rest to One in heaven !
BABIES AND THEIR RIGHTS.
M. E. Sangster.
BABY has a right, too frequently denied it, to le let alone.
It ought to be a rule in the nursery never to disturb the
infant when it is happy and quiet. Older children, too, two,
three, and four years of age, who are amusing themselves in a peace-
ful, contented way, ought not to be wantonly interfered with. I
have often seen a little creature lying in its crib cooing, laughing,
crooning to itself in the sweetest baby fashion, without a care in the
world to vex its composure, when in would come mamma or nurse,
seize it, cover it with o.ndearments, and effectually break up its tran-
146
BABIES AND THEIK EIGHTS.
quillity. Then, the next time, when these thoughtless people wanted
it to be quiet, they were surprised that it refused to be so. It is
habit and training which make little children restless and fretful,
rather than natural disposition, in a multitude of cases. A healthy
babe, coolly and loosely dressed, judiciously fed, and frequently
bathed, will be good and comfortable if it have not too much atten-
tion. But when it is liable a dozen times a day to be caught wildly
up, bounced and jumped about, smothered with kisses, poked by
facetious fingers, and petted till it is thoroughly out of sorts, what
can be expected of it ? How would fathers and mothers endure the
martyrdom to which they allow the babies to be subjected ?
Another right which every baby has is to its own mother's care
and supervision. The mother may not be strong enough to hold her
child and carry it about, to go with it on its outings, and to person-
ally attend to all its wants. Yery often it is really better for both
mother and child that the strong arms of an able-bodied woman
should bear it through its months of helplessness. Still, no matter
how apparently worthy of trust a nurse or servant may be, unless
she have been tried and proved by long and faithful service and
friendship, a babe is too precious to be given unreservedly to her
care. The mother herself, or an elder sister or auntie, should hover
protectingly near the tiny creature, whose life-long happiness may
depend on the way its babyhood is passed. Who has not seen in
the city parks the beautifully-dressed infants, darlings evidently of
homes of wealth and refinement, left to bear the beams of the sun
and stings of gnats and flies, while the nurses gossiped together,
oblivious of the flight of time ? Mothers are often quick to resent
stories of the neglect or cruelty of their employees, and cannot be
made to believe that their own children are sufferers. And the
children are too young to speak.
The lover of little ones can almost always see the subtle dif-
147
B4BIES AND THEIR RIGHTS.
ference which exists between the babies whom mothers care for,
and the babies who are left to hirelings. The former have a
sweeter, shyer, gladder look than the latter. Perhaps the babies
who are born, so to speak, with silver spoons in their mouths, are
better off than those who came to the heritage of a gold spoon.
The gold spooners have lovely cradles and vassinets. They wear
Valenciennes lace and embroidery, and fashion dicates the cut of
their bibs, and the length of their flowing robes. They are waited
upon by bonnes in picturesque aprons and caps, and the doctor is
sent for whenever they have the colic. The little silver-spooners, on
the other hand, are arrayed in simple slips, which the mother made
herself in dear, delicious hours, the sweetest in their mystic joy
which happy womanhood knows. They lie on the sofa, or on two
chairs with a pillow placed carefully to hold them, while she sings at
her work, spreads the snowy linen on the grass, moulds the bread,
and shells the peas. The mother's hands wash and dress them, the
father rocks them to sleep, the proud brothers and sisters carry them
to walk, or wheel their little wagons along the pavement. Fortu-
nate babies of the silver spoon ! 9
Alas and alack ! for the babies who have never a spoon at all, not
even a horn or a leaden one. Their poor parents love them, amid
the squalid circumstances which hem them in, but they can do little
for their well-being, and they die by hundreds in garrets and cellars
and close tenenent rooms. When the rich and charitable shall
devise some way to care for the babies of the poor, when New York
shall imitate Paris in founding an institution akin to La Creche, we
shall have taken a long step forward in the direction of social and
moral elevation.
148
THE CHILDREN'S BED-TIME.
Jane Ellis Hopkins.
>HE clock strikes seven in the hall,
The curfew of the children's day,
That calls each little pattering foot
From dance and song and lively play ;
Their day that in a wider light
Floats like a silver day-moon white,
Nor in our darkness sinks to rest,
But sets within a golden west.
Ah, tender hour that sends a drift
Of children's kisses though the house,
And cuckoo notes of sweet " Good night,"
That thoughts of heaven and home arouse,
And a soft stir to sense and heart,
As when the bee and blossom part ;
And little feet that patter slower,
Like the last droppings of a shower.
And in the children's room aloft,
What blossom shapes do gaily slip
Their daily sheaths, and rosy run
From clasping hand and kissing lip,
A naked sweetness to the eye
Blossom and babe and butterfly
In witching one, so dear a sight 1
An ecstasy of life and light.
149
THE CHILDREN'S BED-TIME.
Then lily-drest, in angel white,
To mother's knee they trooping como.
The soft palms fold like kissing shells,
And they and we go singing home
Their bright heads bowed and worshiping,
As though some glory of the spring,
Some daffodil that mocks the day,
Should fold his golden palms and pray.
The gates of paradise swing wide
A moment's space in soft accord,
And those dread angels, Life and Death,
A moment vail the naming sword,
As o'er this weary world forlorn
From Eden's secret heart is borne
That breath of Paradise most fair,
Which mothers call " the children's prayer."
Then kissed, on beds we lay them down,
As fragrant white as clover'd sod,
And all the upper floors grow hushed
With children's sleep, and dews of God.
And as our stars their beams do hide,
The stars of twilight, opening wide,
Take up the heavenly tale at even,
And light us on to God and heaven.
NEVEB wish for anything for which you dare not praj.
150
THE EVENING PKAYER
LL day the children's busy feet
Had pattered to and fro ;
And all the day their little hands
Had been in mischief so,
That oft my patience had been tried ;
But tender, loving care
Had kept them through the day from harm,
And safe from ev'ry snare.
But when the even-tide had come,
The children went up-stairs,
And knelt beside their little beds,
To say their wonted prayers.
"With folded hands and rev'rent mien,
" Our Father," first they say,
Then, " Now I lay me down to sleep,"
"With childlike faith they pray.
With cheeks upon the pillow pressed,
They give a kiss, and say,
" Good-night ; we love you, dear mamma,
You've been so kind to-day."
" Dood-night ; I love oo, too, mamma,"
And baby's eyelids close ;
And tired feet and restless hands
Enjoy the sweet repose.
151
HOME AND ITS QUEEN.
The trouble and the weariness
To me indeed seemed light,
Since love had thus my efforts crowned
To guide their steps aright.
And as I picked the playthings up,
And put the books away,
My heart gave grateful thanks to God,
For His kind care all day. Anonymous
HOME ASTD ITS QUEEN".
tUi RE is probably not an unperverted man or woman
who does not feel that the sweetest consolations and best
rewards of life are found in the loves and delights of home.
There are very few who do not feel themselves indebted to the
influences that clustered around their cradles for whatever good
there may be in their characters and condition. Home, based upon
Christian marriage, is so evident an institution of God, that a man
must become profane before he can deny it. Wherever it is pure
and true to the Christian idea, there lives an institution conservative
of all the nobler instincts of society.
Of this realm woman is the queen. It takes the cue and hue
from her. If she is in the best sense womanly if she is true and
tender, loving and heroic, patient and self -devoted she consciously
and unconsciously organizes and puts in operation a set of influences
that do more to mould the destiny of the nation than any man,
uncrowned by power of eloquence, can possibly effect. The men of
the nation are what mothers make them, as a rule ; and the voice
152
GIRLS' INFLUENCE.
that those men speak in the expression of power, is the voice of the
woman who bore and bred them. There can be no substitute for
this. There is no other possible way in which the women of the
nation can organize their influence and power that will tell so bene-
ficially upon society and the state. Scribner's Monthly.
GIKLS' INFLUENCE.
JKLS, and especially those who are members of large families,
have much influence at home, where brothers delight in their
sisters, and where parents look fondly down on their dear
daughters, and pray that their example may influence the boys for
good. Girls have much in their power with regard to those boys ;
they have it in their power to make them gentler, purer, truer, to
give them higher opinions of women ; to soften their manners and
ways ; to tone down rough places, and shape sharp, angular corners.
All this, to be done well, must be done by imperceptibly influ-
encing them, and giving them an example of the gentleness, the
purity, the politeness and tenderness we wish them to emluate.
"When we see boys careless to their elders, rude in manner and coarse
in speech, and we know that they have sisters, we often, and I think
with reason, conclude that there must be something wrong, and that
the sisters are not trying to make them better boys, but leaving
things alone, letting them go their own course. Perhaps their
excuse would be that they were too much occupied themselves and
that their own studies and pursuits prevent them from being able to
pay much attention to their brothers ; and " boys will be boys," you
know. By all means let boys be boys. I, fo r one, regard boys far
153
GIELS' INFLUENCE.
too highly to wish them to be otherwise; but the roughness, and
coarseness, and rudeness, of which I speak, are not necessary ingre-
dients of boyhood ; and it is you, their sisters, who must prove that
they are not. Interest yourselves in their pursuits, show them, by
every moans in your power, that you do not consider them and their
doings beneath your notice; spare an hour from your practicing,
from your drawing, from your languages, for their boating or sports,
and don't turn contemptuously away from the books and amuse-
ments in which they delight, as if, though good enough for them,
they are immeasurably below you. Try this behavior, girls, for a
short time; it will not harm you, and will benefit them greatly.
You will soon find how a gentle word will turn off a sharp answer ;
how a grieved look will effectually reprove an unfitting expression ;
% how gratefully a small kindness will be received; and how un-
bounded will be the power for good you will obtain by a continu-
ance of this conduct.
Equally great will a girl's influence be on her younger sisters,
in whose eyes she is the perfection of grace and goodness, in whose
thoughts she is ever present. Beautiful, exceedingly beautiful, is
the close friendship between an elder and a younger sister ; but let
the elder beware of the influence she exerts. If she herself be care-
less, frivolous, undutiful, and irreligious, the child will inevitably
be so too, unless the fatal influence be counteracted by some other
holier one. If she gives sharp answers, or shows but little regard
for truth, let her not be astonished if the little one be ill-tempered
and untruthful ; and sorrowful will be the conviction that she has
had not a little to do with making her so.
In school, too, a girl of determined, resolute character will soon
take the lead and acquire a certain influence. School-girls are
gregarious, and follow naturally anyone who is stronger-minded
and more decided. When the influence is exercised to elevate the .
154
TO OUR GIRLS.
young minds, and give them higher and noble aspirations, it is a
salutary and beneficial effect of school life; but when it is other-
wise, it is a very sad one. Two or three older girls in a school,
having a noble object in view, steadily endeavoring to do right,
acting quietly and without ostentation, but seeking humbly to follow
in the footsteps Christ has marked out for us, may do an immense
amount of good. " A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."
We know not half the power for good or ill,
Our daily lives possess o'er one another ;
A careless word may help a soul to kill,
Or by one look we may redeem our brother.
"Tis not the great things that we do or say,
But idle words forget as soon as spoken ;
And little, thoughtless deeds of every day
Are stumbling blocks on which the weak are broken.
Anonymous.
TO OUR GIKLS.
Mary F. Lathrop.
pastor of a church in one of our large cities said to me
not long ago: "I have officiated at forty weddings since
I came here, and in every case, save one, I felt that the
bride was running an awful risk." Young men of bad habits and
fast tendencies never marry girls of their own sort, but demand a
wife above suspicion. So pure, sweet women, kept from the touch
of evil through the years of their girlhood, give themselves, with all
their costly dower of womanhood, into the keeping of men who, in
base associations, have learned to undervalue all that belongs to
them, and then find no time for repentance in the sad after years.
There is but one way out of this that I can see, and that is for yor
155
A PLEA FOE THE BOY.
the young women of the country to require in association and
marriage, purity for purity, sobriety for sobriety, and honor for
honor. There is no reason why the young men of this Christian
land should not be just as virtuous as its young women, and if the
loss of your society and love be the price they are forced to pay for
vice, they will not pay it. I admit with sadness that not all of our
young women are capable of this high standard for themselves or
others ; too often from the hand of reckless beauty has the tempta-
tion to drink come to men; but I believe there are enough of
earnest, thoughtful girls in the society of our country to work won-
ders in the temperance reform, if fully aroused. Dear girls, will
you help us in the name of Christ ? "Will you, first of all, be so true
to yourselves and God, so pure in your inner and outer life, that you
shall have a right to ask that the young men with whom you asso-
ciate, and especially those you marry, shall be the same ? The awful
gulf of dishonor is close beside your feet, and in it fathers, brothers,
lovers, and sons are going down. "Will you not help us in our great
work?
A PLEA FOE THE BOY.
>HE boy is an offense in himself. He must have something to
do, and as his hands are idle the proverbial provider of occu-
pation for idle hands is always ready with instructions for
him. A boy makes noise in utter defiance of the laws of acoustics.
Shoe him in velvet, and carpet your house as you will, your boy
shall make such a hubbub with his heels as no watchman's rattle
ever gave forth. Doors in his hands always shut with a violence
which jars the whole house, and he is certain to acquire each day the
art of screaming or whistling in some wholly new and excruciating
156
JL PLEA FOB THE BOY.
way. Loving his mother so violently that his caresses derange her
attire and seriously endanger her bones, ready to die in her defense
if need be, he nevertheless torments ht,y from morning to night, and
allows her no possible peace until slumber closes his throat and eye-
lids, and deprives his hands and feet of their demoniac canning.
In public your boy is equally a nuisance. Collectively or indi-
vidually he offends the public in the streets. "Whatever he does is
sure to be wrong. He monopolizes space and takes to himself all
the air there is for acoustical purposes. Your personal peculiarities
interest him, and with all the frankness of his soul he comments
upon your appearance, addressing his remarks to his fellow on the
next block.
Nevertheless the boy has his uses. He is the material out of
which men are to be made for the next generation. He is not a
bad fellow, that is to say, he is not intentionally or consciously bad.
There are springs in his limbs which keep him in perpetual motion,
and the devil of uproar of which he is possessed utters the ear-
piercing sounds which annoy his elders, but the utterances of which
he can no more restrain than he can keep his boots or trousers from
wearing out. In a ten-acre lot, well away from the house, the boy
is a picturesque and agreeable person; it is only when one must
come into closer contact with him that his presence causes suffering
and suggests a statue to King Herod. It is in cities that the boy
makes himself felt most disagreeably, and we fancy that the fault is
not altogether his. As the steam which bursts boilers would be a
perfectly harmless vapor but for the sharp restraint that is put upon
it, so the effervescent boy becomes dangerous to social order only
when he is confined, when an effort is made to compress him into
smaller space than the law of his expansive being absolutely requires.
We send him upon the war-path by encroaching upon his hunting-
grounds ; we drive him into hostility by treating him as a public
A PLEA FOR THE BOY.
enemy. In most of our dealings with him in cities, our effort is to
suppress him, and it is an unwise system. If his ball-playing in the
streets becomes an annoyance, we simply forbid ball-playing in the
streets, and it is an inevitable consequence that, deprived of his ball,
he will throw stones at street lamps or at policemen. What else is
he to do ?
In Brooklyn, for example, whose streets are long and wide, there
was thought to be room enough for boys, and the inspiring rumble
of the velocipede w*s heard there until somebody objected, when
straightway the policemen were directed to arrest all machines of
that character, whether with two, three, or four wheels, found upon
sidewalks. Now this order we held was not only cruel, but it was
unwise as well. Without a doubt the velocipedes were a source
of serious annoyance in crowded thoroughfares, but they are not
so in streets in which pedestrians are few, as they are in fully
one-half of Brooklyn's thoroughfares. Velocipede riding might
have been forbidden in the main thoroughfares, and permitted in
less frequented ones, and the boy would have been content ; to for-
bid it where it offends nobody merely for the sake of preventing it
where it does offend is illogical and unjust, and, worse still, it is
unwise. The boy cannot be banished or confined, and, lacking his
velocipede he will resort to something more annoying still. What
it will be we do not pretend to guess, but for its capacity to annoy
we may safely trust to the boy's ingenuity.
Speaking in all seriousness, it is not well to suppress the sports
of boys from which they derive strength and health and manly vigor
of body. We may and must regulate these things ; but mere sup-
pression is a crude and tyrannical method of dealing with them. In
Boston, a city of notions, whose notions are sometimes surprisingly
wise and good, care is taken to give the boys room. A sport which
becomes annoying is not suppressed, but is given ample room in
158
BOYHOOD.
places where it will annoy least ; and when, for example, certain
streets are publicly set apart for coasting, as they are in Boston
every winter, the police have no difficulty in preventing coasting
elsewhere. The boy who may ride his sled or his velocipede to his
heart's content in one street will not care to intrude upon another.
We need to adopt a like system in our larger cities. The boys must
have room in which to exercise and grow. If we do not give it to
them in one place they will take it in another, to our sore inconve-
nience. New York Evening Post.
BOYHOOD.
R&s. W. H. H. Murray.
fAKENTS should remember that the children of to-day, and
j-jf, especially those born in cities, are peculiarly exposed to temp-
^ tation. The opportunities which came to many of us from
the old home life in the country, with its crisp atmosphere of
Puritan government, its habits of honesty and honorable industry,
its conservative customs, and its simple reverent faith in God, all
centered around one spot, all hallowing one locality, will not come to
our children, because the causes and incentives which operated to
establish them in us, do not operate to establish them in the rising
generation. A boyhood passed in the city is a far different thing
from one passed in the country. The sights and sounds and sur-
roundings of metropolitan life force the growth of the young, and at
a time, too, when the physical and the sensuous preponderate in the
nature. These beget a looseness of thought and freedom of conduct
before the judgment is sufficiently matured by experience to check
them. These educate one into necessities faster than individual
effort can earn the means of supplying them ; and foster that worst
159
MY BOY.
of all habits of the young man eating, and wearing, and spending,
what he has not earned. We do not say, parents, that these evil
tendencies cannot be lessened or wholly counterbalanced, but we do
say that they call for the utmost effort on your part, and make
anxiety reasonable. They may achieve what the world calls success,
although even this will be hazarded. But they will never lead tha\
life of piety and holiness which can alone commend them in theii
character and conduct to the favor of God. They will live and
labor as those whose lives end at the grave. The line of pure
selfishness will circumscribe their lives, and shame and confusion of
face will cover them when they appear to render their account
before God.
MY BOY.
Frank T. Mwziak
LITTLE face, little, loved, tender face,
Set, like a saint's, in curls for aureole
Little, loved face, in which the clear child soul
Is mirror'd with a changeful, perfect grace ;
Where sudden ripples of light laughter chase
The dimples round the dainty mouth ; where roll
Cloud shadows of great questionings, and dole
For human ills half realized, where race,
In restless sequence, gloom, gleam, shade, and shine
A thousand feelings, sorrow, love, and joy,
A thousand thoughts, of folly half divine,
And bold imaginings, and fancies coy,
And reasonings dream-like !
O my boy, my boy,
How I do love that little face of thine !
160
CHILDREN OF THE RICH AND POOR CONTRASTED.
James Russell Lowell.
>HE rich man's son inherits lands,
And piles of brick, and stone and gold,
And he inherits soft white hands,
And tender flesh that fears the cold,
Nor dares to wear a garment old :
A heritage, it seems to ine,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.
The rich man's son inherits cares,
The bank may break, the factory burn,
A breath may burst his bubble shares ;
And soft white hands could hardly earn
A living that would serve his turn :
A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.
What doth the poor man's son inherit ?
Stout muscles and a sinewy heart,
A hardy frame, a hardier spirit ;
Bang of two hands he does his part
In every useful toil and art :
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.
"What doth the poor man's son inherit I
A patience learned of being poor,
161
BE KIND, BOYS.
Courage, if Borrow comes, to bear it,
A fellow feeling that is sure
To make the outcast bless his door :
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.
Both, heirs to some six feet of sod,
Are equal in the earth at last,
Both, children of the same dear God.
Prove title to your heirship vast
By records of a well-fill'd past :
A heritage it seems to me,
"Well worth a life to hold in fee.
BE KIND, BOYS.
Horace Mann.
'OU are made to be kind, boys, generous, magnanimous. If
there is a boy in school who has a club foot, don't let him
know you ever saw it. If there is a poor boy with ragged
clothes, don't talk about rags in his hearing. If there is a lame boy,
assign him some part of the game which does not require running.
If there is a hungry one, give him part of your dinner. If there is
a dull one, help him to get his lesson. If there is a bright one, be
not envious of him ; for if one boy is proud of his talents, and
another is envious of them, there are two great wrongs, and no
more talent than before. If a larger or stronger boy has injured
you, and is sorry for it, forgive him. All the school will show by
their countenances how much better it is than to have a great fist.
162
GOOD MANNEKS.
has been said, that a "nw'd manners form his fortune."
Whether this be really so or not, it is certain that his manners
form his reputation stamp upon him, as it were, his current
worth in the circles where he moves. If his manners are the pro-
ducts of a kind heart, they will please, though they be destitute of
graceful polish. There is scarcely anything of more importance to
a child of either sex, than good breeding. If parents and teachers
perform their duties to the young faithfully, there will be compara-
tively few destitute of good manners.
Visit a family where the parents are civil and courteous toward
all within their household, whether as dwellers or as guests, and
your children will learn good manners, just as they learn to talk,
from imitation. But reverse the order of things concerning parents,
and the children learn ill manners, just as in the former case they
learn good manners, by imitation.
Train children to behave at home as you would have them act
abroad. It is almost certain, that they, while children, conduct
themselves abroad as they would have been in the habit of doing
under like circumstances when at home. "Be courteous," is an
apostolical injunction, which all should ever remember and obey.
Finally, " be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of
another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous." 1 Peter, iii. 8.
Anonymous.
163
KIND MANNERS AT HOME.
>HERE are many families, tne members of which are, without
doubt, dear to each other. If sickness or sudden trouble
falls on one, all are afflicted, and make haste to sympathize,
help and comfort. But in their daily life and ordinary intercourse
there is not only no expression of affection, none of the pleasant and
fond behavior that has, perhaps, little dignity, but which more than
makes up for that hi its sweetness ; but there is an absolute hardness
of language and actions which is shocking to every sensitive and
tender feeling. Between father and mother, and brother and sister,
pass rough and hasty words ; yes, and angry words, far more fre-
quently than words of endearment. To see and hear them, one
would think that they hated, instead of loved each other. It does
not seem to have entered into their heads that it is their duty, as it
should be their best pleasure, to do and say all that they possibly can
for each other's good and happiness. " Each one for himself, and
bad luck take the hindermost." The father orders and growls, the
mother frets, complains, and scolds, the children snap, snarl, and
whine, and so goes the day. Alas ! for it, if this is a type of
heaven ! as " the family " is said to be at least, it is said to be the
nearest thing to heaven of anything on earth. But the spirit of
selfishness, of violence, render it more like the other place yes, and
this too often, even when all the members of the household are
members of the Church. Where you see when you know it one
family where love and gentleness reign, you see ten where they only
make visits, and this among Christian families as well as others.
164
HOME.
to " sit solitary " in life,
, give me a lodge in any
face of human being ever
ts, friends, or kindred, in
ch causes pain, or where I
ve. No wealth, no advan-
with people whose inter-
they were to me, the less
not do all they could to
ngers one might endure,
for a time ; for what they
's feelings ; but how mem-
same parents, can remain
r they hear quarreling, if
fly on all sides of them,
their house are rendered
>ry.
will last
f ace is o'er ;
are past,
ter shore. "
Anonymous.
ome that is well ordered,
heavenly by the agency
id. No school can teach
, 1 -
y>* r -y
EDO)
> HEKE are man,
doubt, dear to
falls on one,
help and comfort. But"
there is not only no e
fond behavior that h
makes up for that in i
of language and acti
tender feeling. Bet
pass rough and hasty
quently than words
would think that the
not seem to have enter
should be their best
for each other's good
bad luck take the hin
mother frets, compl
whine, and so goes
heaven ! as " the f ami
nearest thing to hea
selfishness, of violence
this too often, even
members of the Ch
family where love and
make visits, and this
KIND MANNERS AT HOME.
Now, it is a sad and melancholy thing to " sit solitary " in life,
but give me a cave in the bowels of earth, give me a lodge in any
waste, howling wilderness, where foot nor face of human being ever
came, rather than an abode with parents, friends, or kindred, in
which I must hear or utter language which causes pain, or where I
must see conduct which is not born of love. No wealth, no advan-
tage of any kind, would induce me to live with people whose inter-
course was of such a nature. The dearer they were to me, the less
would I remain among them, if they did not do all they could to
make each other happy. With mere strangers one might endure,
even under such circumstances, to remain for a time ; for what they
say or do has but limited effect upon one's feelings ; but how mem-
bers of the same family, children of the same parents, can remain
together, year after year, when every day they hear quarreling, if
they do not join in it, and when hard words fly on all sides of them,
thick as hail, and the very visitors in their house are rendered
uncomfortable by them, is indeed a mystery.
" Count life by virtues; these will last
When life's lame, foiled, race is o'er ;
And these, when earthly joys are past,
Shall cheer us on a brighter shore."
Anonymous.
\ OME is next to heaven. And the home that is well ordered,
comely, pure, and bright is thus heavenly by the agency
of woman's heart and woman's hand. No school can teach
the science of housekeeping. Anonymous.
165
HOME AMUSEMENTS.
W. H. H. Murray.
CLOSE observer of American life said to us the other day that
a great change had come in the last ten years to the home life
of the country. And in answer to our interrogation, he pro-
ceeded to point out the character of this change. One point which
he made was that a great many games of skill and chance were
being played in New England homes, to-day, which were not known,
or if known, were forbidden by parents ten years ago. Our OATH
observation coincides with his on this point. We know that chese
within the last ten years has captured for itself a high place in
popular regard. It speaks well for a people when such an intellec-
tual game can become popular. For it takes brains to play chess
even moderately well, and none but clever and thoughtful people
would ever like it. "We noticed also that cards are no longer abjured
as they once were in households. Whist and euchre are domiciled,
to-day, in homes where, a decade ago, their names could not have
been spoken safely save in a whisper. Checkers are not perhaps
more universal, but they are more fashionable. They have fought
their way into high life ; and whereas they once found their friends
in the village tavern and in the farmer's kitchen, they are now
admitted into the parlors of the wealthy and refined. The games
played with historical cards are also numerous and many of them
pleasantly exciting. And you find them in almost every household.
Now all this is very pleasant and hopeful. It reveals to the thinker
the fact that home life is more vivacious and happy than it used to
be ; that the long dull evenings are being enlivened with sprightly
166
HOME AMUSEMENTS.
and stimulating amusements, and that the home circle is charged
with attractions which it once sadly lacked. These games are help-
ing to make the homes of the country happier, helping to make the
children more contented with their homes, and in doing this they
are helping to make the country more intelligent and more virtuous.
By wise parents these games are looked upon as God-sends. They
help solve the problem of home amusements and recreation ; and
this, as all parents know, is one of the gravest problems they have to
solve. Parents, make your homes as happy as you possibly can for
your children and their mates. Fill them with fun and frolic and
the cheerfulness of spirited social life. Play these games with your
children yourselves, and thus share their joys with them ; and feed
your happiness on the spectacle of theirs. A great many homes are
like the frame of a harp that stands without strings. In form and
outline they suggest music ; but no melody rises from the empty
spaces ; and thus it happens that home is unattractive, dreary and
dull. Let us hope that this introduction of pleasant games which
will try both the wit and patience of the children, and of the older
ones for that matter, may become the fashion of the times, until
every home in the land shall be perfectly furnished with these acces-
sories of profit and pleasure. For the children's sake, let the refor-
mation go on until every child shall have, in his father's house, be it
humble or costly, such appliances and helps for his entertainment
that he shall find his joy under his father's roof and in his father's
presence.
" Home, home, sweet, sweet home,
Be it ever so humble, there is no place like home."
167
A CHEERFUL HOME.
SINGLE bitter word may disquiet an entire family for a
whole day. One surly glance casts a gloom over the house-
hold, while a smile, like a gleam of sunshine, may light up
the darkest and weariest hours. Like unexpected flowers, which
spring up along our path, full of freshness, fragrance and beauty, do
kind words and gentle acts and sweet dispositions, make glad the
home where peace and blessing dwell No matter how humble the
abode, if it be thus garnished with grace and sweetened with kind-
ness and smiles, the heart will turn lovingly toward it from all the
tumult of the world, will be the dearest spot beneath the circuit of
the sun.
And the influences of home perpetuate themselves. The gentle
grace of the mother lives in the daughter long after her head is
pillowed in the dust of death; and the fatherly kindness finds its
echo in the nobility and courtesy of sons, who come to wear his
mantle and to fill his place ; while on the other hand, from an un-
happy, misgoverned and disordered home, go forth persons who shall
make other homes miserable, and perpetuate the sourness and sad-
ness, the contentions and strifes and railings which have made their
own early lives so wretched and distorted.
Toward the cheerful home, the children gather " as clouds and
as doves to their windows," while from the home which is the abode
of discontent and strife and trouble, they fly forth as vultures to
rend their prey.
The class of men who disturb and distress the world, are not
168
THE FARMER'S HOME.
those born and nurtured amid the hallowed influences of Christian
homes ; but rather those whose early life has been a scene of trouble
and vexation, who have started wrong in the pilgrimage, and
whose course is one of disaster to themselves, and trouble to those
around them. Friend? 8 Intelligencer.
THE FARMER'S HOME.
William H. Yeoman*.
2BSTER defines home as a " dwelling-place," but it admits
of a broader meaning. There are brilliant and elegant
homes. Some are wise, thrifty and careful, and others are
warm and genial, by whose glowing hearths any one, at any time,
may find enough and to spare. There are bright homes and gloomy
homes. There are homes that hurry and bustle through years of
incessant labor, until one and another of the inmates fall, like the
falling leaves, and the homes turn to dust. We do not say the
dairymaid's home compares with this last view. Science has done
much to remove the drudgery in our homes, introducing ease and
comfort. An ideal home must first have a government, but love
must be the dictator. All the members should unite to make home
happy. "We should have light in our homes, heaven's own pure,
transparent light. It matters not whether home is clothed in blue
and purple, if it is only brimful of love, smiles, and gladness.
Our boards should be spread with everything good and enjoya-
ble. "We should have birds, flowers, pets, everything suggestive of
sociability. Flowers are as indispensable to the perfections of a
home as to the perfections of a plant. Do not give them all the
sunniest windows and pleasantest corners, crowding out the children.
169
HOME MEMORIES.
If you cannot have a large conservatory, have a small one. Give
yonr children pets, so that by the care and attention bestowed upon
them they may learn the habits of animals.
Of the ornamentation about a house, although a broad lake lends
a charm to the scenery, it cannot compare with the babbling brook.
As the little streamlet goes tumbling over the rocks and along the
shallow, pebbly bed, it may be a marvelous teacher to the children,
giving them lessons of enterprise and perseverance.
In our homes we must have industry and sympathy. In choos-
ing amusements for the children, the latter element must be brought
in. To fully understand the little ones, you must sympathize with
them. When a child asks questions don't meet it with, " Oh, don't
bother me." Tell it all it wants to know. Never let your angry
passions rise, no matter how much you may be tried. For full and
intelligent happiness in the home circle, a library of the best works
is necessary. Do not introduce the milk and water fiction of the
present day, but books of character. Our homes should have their
Sabbaths and their family altars. Around these observances cling
many of the softest and most sacred memories of our lives.
HOME MEMORIES.
Thomas Hood
%I REMEMBER, I remember,
!gil The house where I was born,
* The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn.
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day ;
170
HOME MEMOBIE9.
But now I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away !
I remember, I remember,
The roses, red and white,
The violets and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light !
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday
The tree is living yet !
I remember, I remember,
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rash as fresh
To swallows on the wing ;
My spirit flew in feathers then,
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cocl
The fever on my brow 1
I remember, I remember,
The fir-trees dark and high ;
I used to think their slender tops
"Were close against the sky.
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.
171
SINGING IN THE FAMILY.
fULTFVATE singing in your family. Begin when the child is
not yet three years old. The songs and hymns your child-
hood sang, bring them all back to your memory, and teach
them to your little ones ; mix them all together to meet the varying
moods as in after life they come over us so mysteriously at times.
Many a time, in the very whirl of business, in the sunshine and
gayety of the avenue, amid the splendor of the drive in the park,
some little thing wakes up the memories of early youth the old
mill, the cool spring, the shady tree by the little school-house and
the next instant we almost see again the ruddy cheeks, the smiling
faces, and the merry eyes of schoolmates, some of whom are gray-
headed now, while most have passed from amid earth's weary noises.
And, anon, " the song my mother sang " springs unbidden to the
lips, and soothes and sweetens all these memories. At other times,
amid the crushing mishaps of business, a merry ditty of the olden
time breaks in upon the ugly train of thought, and throws the mind
hi another channel ; light breaks from behind the cloud in the sky,
and new courage is given TIS. The honest man goes gladly to his
work ; and when, the day's labor done, his tools are laid aside and
he is on his way home, where wife and child and the tidy table and
cheery fireside await him, how can he but have music in his heart to
break forth so often into the merry whistle or the jocund song ?
Moody silence, not the merry song, weighs down the dishonest
tradesman, the perfidious clerk, the unfaithful servant, the perjured
partner.
178
ART IN THE FAMILY.
' We accord," says a gentleman who has written much, "our
unqualified indorsement of the above ; and even now, although we
have passed our three-score years, the songs of our youth are often
resurrected, and we love to hum them over again, and often do so,
in the lone hours of the night, when there are none to hear save our-
self and the drowsy ' gray spiders on the wall ; ' and while doing so,
we feel less inclined toward 'treason, stratagem and spoils,' than at
any other hour within the twenty-four. "We fondly look back to the
days when we were as musical as a hand organ and perhaps as
' cracked ' as many of them, too those days when we so lightly
touched the keys to the measure of the songs we sang. "We often
regret time, circumstance and advancing years have so effectually
quieted our vocal muse ; still we revert to the ballads of yore, and
mentally exclaim,
" ' Sing me the songs that to me were so dear,
Long, long ago ; long, long ago. ' "
Anonymous.
ART IN THE FAMILY.
fsffT hiw: boen said that there is sure to be contentment in a home,
J|[ In the windows of which can be seen birds or flowers, and it
*^ may also be added that there will be the same conditions
wherever there are pictures on the walls. It is, of course, not every
one who is a judge of art, but even a contemplation of art will edu-
cate, and it is safe to say that a man cannot have a painting in his
room and see it day after day without sooner or later beginning to
t>3 able to tell its merits or defects, and thus being better fitted to
judge of others in the future. The engravings and chromos seen in
173
AET IN THE FAMILY.
the homes of the poor may, if measured by the critical rules of art,
be wretched daubs, but they at least show a longing and an aspira-
tion after beauty, while their presence helps to produce a repose of
mind, and brings nothing with it but good. The loving manner in
which children linger over pictures tells how deeply this feeling is
implanted in the heart, and long before they can read, their dawning
powers are gradually being strengthened by these silent educators.
Nor is the influence which flowers have, any less than that of
paintings. At all seasons of the year they are gladly welcomed.
They are emblematic of both, the joys and sorrows of life, and
religion has associated them with the highest spiritual verities.
Faded although they sometimes may be, they have the power to
wake the chords of memory and make us children again. At the
sick bed and the marriage feast, on the altar and the cathedral walls,
they have a meaning, and the humblest home looks brighter where
they bloom. A few years ago, at horticultural societies in England,
prizes were offered to villagers for the best efforts in cottage gar-
dening, and the result was that a great change came over the
home-life of the people. Instead of gardens filled with rank grass
and weeds, there could be seen flaming hollyhocks, blood-red roses
and purple geraniums, and a spirit of friendly rivalry and emulation
was created, leading to improvements in households, and aiding habits
of cleanliness and industry. Let any one walk through our markets
on these bright spring mornings and watch how tenderly some poor
seamstress will linger over a tiny flower and bear it away proudly to
cheer the loneliness of her scantily furnished room, and he will admit
that if such a little thing can bring pleasure or satisfaction, every
effort made to improve the taste of the masses and lead them to
make home pleasant is to be commended as weakening the influ-
ence of evil and diffusing a power which will prove a potent factor
for good. Baltimore American.
174
CONYEKSATION.
MONG home amusements the best is the good old habit of con-
versation, the talking over the events of the day, in bright
and quick play of wit and fancy, the story which brings the
laugh, and the speaking the good and kind and true things, which
all have in their hearts. It is not so much by dwelling upon what
members of the family have in common, as bringing each to the
other something interesting and amusing, that home life is to be
made cheerful and joyous. Each one must do his part to make con-
versation genial and happy. "We are too ready to converse with
newspapers and books, to seek some companion at the store, hotel,
or club-room, and to forget that home is anything more than a place
to sleep and eat in. The revival of conversation, the entertainment
of one another, as a roomful of people will entertain themselves, is
one secret of a happy home. Wherever it is wanting, disease has
struck into the root of the tree ; there is a want which is felt with
increasing force as time goes on. Conversation, in many cases, is
just what prevents many people from relapsing into utter selfishness
at their firesides. This conversation should not simply occupy hus-
band and wife, and other older members of the family, but extend it-
self to the children. Parents should be careful to talk with them, to
enter into their life, to share their trifles, to assist in their studies, to
meet them in the thoughts and feelings of their childhood. It is a
great step in education, when around the evening lamp are gathered
the different members of a family, sharing their occupation with one
another the older assisting the younger, each one contributing to
the entertainment of the other, and all feeling that the evening has
175
SPEAK CHEERFUL WORDS.
passed only too rapidly away. This is the truest and best amuse-
ment. It is the healthy education of great and noble characters.
There is the freedom, the breadth, the joyousness of natural life.
The time spent thus by parents, in the higher entertainment of their
children, bears a harvest of eternal blessings, and these long evenings
furnish just the time. GTvwrcJmum.
SPEAK CHEERFUL WORDS.
r HY is it that so many people keep all their pleasant
thoughts and kind words about a man bottled and sealed
until he is dead, when they come and break the bottle
over his coffin, and bathe his shroud in fragrance ? Many a man goes
through life with scarcely one bright, cheerful, encouraging, hopeful
word. He toils hard and in lowly obscurity. He gives out his life
freely and unstintedly for others. I remember such a man. He
was not brilliant ; he was not great ; but he was faithful. He had
many things to discourage him. Troubles thickened about his life.
He was misrepresented and misunderstood. Everybody believed that
he was a good man, but no one ever said a kindly word or pleasant
thing to him. He never heard a compliment, scarcely ever a good
wish. No one ever took any pains to encourage him, to strengthen
his feeble knees, to lighten his burdens, or to lift up his heart by a
gentle deed of love, or by a cheerful word. He was neglected.
Unkind things were often said of him.
I stood at his coffin, and then there were many tongues to speak
his praise. There was not a breath of aspersion in the air. Men
spoke of self denial of his work among the poor, of his quietness,
modesty, his humility, his pureness of heart, his faith and prayer.
176
NONE LIVETH TO HIMSELF.
There were many who spoke indignantly of the charges that
falsehood had forged against him in past years, and of the treatment
he had received. There were enough kind things said during the
two or three days that he lay in his coffin, and while the company
stood around his open grave, to have blessed him and made him
happy all his fifty years, and to have thrown sweetness and joy about
his soul during all his painful and weary journey. There was
enough sunshine wasted about the black coffin and dark grave to
have made his whole life-path bright as the clearest day.
But his ears were closed then, and could not hear a word that
was spoken. His heart was still then, and could not be thrilled by
the grateful sounds. He cared nothing then for the sweet flowers
that were piled upon his coffin. The love blossomed out too late.
The kindness came when the life could not receive its blessings.
Anonymous.
NONE LIVETH TO HIMSELF.
>OD has written upon the flower that sweetens the air, upon the
breeze that rocks the flower upon its stem, upon the rain-drops
that swell the mighty river, upon the dew-drops that refresh
the smallest sprig of moss that rears its head in the desert, upon the
ocean that rocks every swimmer in its channel, upon every penciled
shell that sleeps in the caverns of the deep, as well as upon the
mighty sun which warms and cheers the millions of creatures that
live in his light upon all he has written, " None of us liveth to
himself." Anonymous.
L 177
SPEAK A GOOD WORD.
yon say anything about a neighbor or friend, or even a
stranger, say no ill. It is a Christian and brotherly charity to
suppress our knowledge of evil of one another, unless our
higher public duty compels us to bear accusing witness. And if it
be true charity to keep our knowledge of such evils to ourselves,
much more should we refuse to spread evil report of one another.
Discreditable as the fact is, it is by far the commonest tendency to
suppress the good we know of our neighbors and friends. We act
in this matter as though we felt that by pushing our fellows down or
back a peg we were putting ourselves up and forward. We are
jealous of commendation unless we get the larger share. Social con-
versation, as known to every observer, is largely made up of what is
best understood by the term scandal. It would be difficult to find a
talkative group, of either sex, who could spend an evening or an
hour together without evil speech of somebody. " Blessed are the
peace-makers," is not the maxim by which we are chiefly governed
in our treatment of personalities. Better a thousand times, stand or
sit dumb than to open our lips never so eloquently in the disparage-
ment of others. What we should do in this, as in all our human
relations, is to practice the Golden Rule. If we do unto others as
we would that others should do unto us, we shall be exceedingly
careful not to volunteer ill words about them. When other than a
good word is to be spoken, let it be spoken to the person concerned,
that he may know your motive is not idle, cowardly and sinister,
and that he may have a chance to defend himself. Anonymous.
178
SMILES.
Mrs. Burr.
|ffF people will only notice, they will be amazed to find how
jjl|[ much a really enjoyable evening owes to smiles. But few
*^ consider what an important symbol of fine intellect and fine
feeling they are. Yet all smiles, after childhood, are things of
education. Savages do not smile ; coarse, brutal, cruel men may
laugh, but they seldom smile. The affluence, the benediction, the
radiance, which
Fills the silence like a speech,
is the smile of a full appreciative heart.
The face that -grows finer as it listens, and then breaks into sun-
shine instead of words, has a subtle, charming influence, universally
felt, though very seldom understood or acknowledged. Personal
and sarcastic remarks show not only a bad heart and a bad head,
but bad taste also.
Now, society may tolerate a bad heart and a bad head, but it will
not endure bad taste ; and it is in just such points as this that the
conventional laws which they have made, represent and enforce real
obligations. There are many who would not cease from evil speak-
ing because it is wrong, who yet restrain themselves because it is
vulgar. Lord Bacon tells of a nobleman whom he knew a man
who gave lordly entertainments, but always suffered some sarcastic
personality to " mar a good dinner," adding, " Discretion of speech
is more than eloquence ; and to speak agreeably to him with whom
we deal is more than to speak in good words ; for he that hath a
satirical vein, making others afraid of his wit, hath need to be afraid
of another's memory."
179
JOY BRINGERS.
OME men move through life as a band of music moves down
the street, flinging out pleasure on every side through the air
to every one, far and near, that can listen. Some men fill
the air with their presence and sweetness, as orchards in October
days fill the air with the perfume of ripe fruit. Some women cling
to their own houses, like the honeysuckle over the door, yet, like it,
sweeten all the region with the subtle fragrance of their goodness.
There are trees of righteousness, which are ever dropping precious
fruit around them. There are lives that shine like star-beams, or
charm the heart like songs sung upon a holy day.
How great a bounty and blessing it is to hold the royal gifts of
the soul, so that they shall be music to some and fragrance to others,
and life to all ! It would be no unworthy thing to live for, to make
the power which we have within us the breath of other men's joy ;
to scatter sunshine where only clouds and shadows reign ; to fill the
atmosphere where earth's weary toilers must stand, with a brightness
which they can not create for themselves, and which they long for,
enjoy and appreciate. Anonymous.
GRUMBLERS.
>HERE are persons who are not satisfied in circumstances that
to all but themselves seem to be the most favorable to their
interests. Leigh Hunt in one of his letters, we think
speaks of a day that could not make any creature happy but a
180
LOVE TO OUR FELLOW MEN.
vendor of umbrellas. Yet a friend of ours, remembering this utter-
ance, availed himself of a day " of never-tiring rain " to congratulate
his umbrella merchant, and he secured this reply : " It's all very
well, sir, so far as my umbrellas are concerned, but you see I'm not
selling a single parasol !" He would have had it wet on one side of
the street, and stormy upon the other, and since it was not, he was
dissatisfied a natural grumbler. Anonymous.
LOVE TO OUR FELLOW MEN.
(ABOU BEN ADHEM.)
Leigh Hunt.
BOU BEN ADHEM, may his tribe increase,
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel, writing in a book of gold.
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in his room he said :
" What writest thou ?" The vision raised its head,
And with a look, made all of sweet accord,
Answered, " The names of those that love the Lord."
" And is mine one ?" said Abou. " Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still, and said, " I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men."
The angel wrote and vanished. The next night
He came again with a great waking light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blest,
And, lo ! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.
181
WOKDS TO BOYS.
Jamea T. Fields.
GSR "WOULD keep " better hours," if I were a boy again ; that is,
I would go to bed earlier than most boys do. Nothing gives
*^ more mental and bodily vigor than sound rest when properly
applied. Sleep is our great replenisher, and if we neglect to take it
regularly in childhood, all the worse for us when we grow up. If
we go to bed early, we ripen ; if we sit up late, we decay ; and
sooner or later we contract a disease called insomnia, allowing it to
be permanently fixed upon us, and then we begin to decay, even in
youth. Late hours are shadows from the grave.
If I were a boy again, I would practise perseverance oftener, and
never give up a thing because it was hard or inconvenient to do it.
If we want light, we must conquer darkness. When I think of
mathematics I blush at the recollection of how often I " gave in "
years ago. There is no trait more valuable than a determination to
persevere when the right thing is to be accomplished. We are
inclined to give up too easily in difficult or unpleasant situations, and
the point I would establish with myself, if the choice was again
within my grasp, would be never to relinquish my hold on a possible
success if mortal strength or brains in my case were adequate to the
occasion. That was a capital lesson which a learned Professor
taught one of his students in the lecture-room after some chemical
experiment. The lights had been put out in the hall, and by acci-
dent some small article dropped on the floor from the Professor's
hand. The Professor lingered behind, endeavoring to pick it up.
"Nevermind," said the student, "it is of no consequence to-night,
sir, whether we find it or no." "That is true," replied the Pro-
182
THE LIGHT OF A CHEERFUL FACE.
f essor ; " but it is of grave consequence to me, as a principle, that I
am not foiled in my determination to find it." Perseverance can
sometimes equal genius in its results. "There are only two crea-
tures," says the Eastern proverb, " who can surmount the pyramids
the eagle and the snail."
THE LIGHT OF A CHEEKFUL FACE.
'HERE is no greater every-day virtue than cheerfulness. This
quality in man, among men, is like sunshine to the day, of
gentle renewing moisture to parched hearts. The light of a
cheerful face diffuses itself, and communicates the happy spirit that
inspires it. The sourest temper must sweeten in the atmosphere of
continuous good humor. As well might fog and cloud, and vapor,
hope to cling to the sun-illuminated landscape, as the blues and
moroseness to combat jovial speech and exhilarating laughter. Be
cheerful always. There is no path but will be easier traveled, no
load but will be lighter, no shadow on heart or brain, but will lift
sooner in presence of a determined cheerfulness. It may sometimes
seem difficult for the happiest temper to keep the countenance of
peace and content ; but the difficulty will vanish when we truly con-
sider that sullen gloom and passionate despair do nothing but multi-
ply thorns and thicken sorrows. Ill comes to us as providentially as
good, and is a good, if we rightfully apply its lessons. Who will
not then cheerfully accept the ill, and thus blunt its apparent sting ?
Cheerfulness ought to be the fruit of philosophy and of Christianity.
What is gained by peevishness and fretf ulness, by perverse sadness
and sullenness ? If we are ill, let us be cheered by the trust that we
183
DOMESTIC BLISS.
shall soon be in health ; if misfortune befall us, let us be cheered by
hopeful visions of better fortune ; if death robs us of dear ones, let
us be cheered by the thought that they are only gone before to the
blissful bowers where we shall all meet to part no more forever.
Cultivate cheerfulness if only for personal profit. You will do and
bear every duty and burden better by being cheerful. It will be
your consoler in solitude, your passport and commendator in society.
You will be more sought after, more trusted and esteemed for your
steady cheerfulness. The bad, the vicious, may be boisterously gay
and vulgarly humorous, but seldom or never truly cheerful. Gen-
uine cheerfulness is an almost certain index of a happy and a pure
Anonymous.
DOMESTIC BLISS.
Jamet Thornton.
|APPY they, the happiest of their kind,
Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate
Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend.
'Tis not the coarser tie of human laws,
Unnatural oft and foreign to the mind,
That binds their peace, but harmony itself,
Attuning all their passions into love ;
Where friendship full exerts her softest power,
Perfect esteem, enliven'd by desire
Ineffable, and sympathy of soul ;
Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will,
With boundless confidence.
184
THE BRIGHT SIDE.
on the bright side. It is the right side. The times may
be hard, but it will make them no easier to wear a gloomy
and sad countenance. It is the sunshine and not the cloud
that gives beauty to the flower. There is always before or around
us that which should cheer and fill the heart with warmth and glad-
ness. The sky is blue ten times where it is black once. You have
troubles, it may be. So have others. None are free from them ;
and perhaps it is as well that none should be. They give sinew and
tone to life, fortitude and courage to man. That would be a dull
sea, and the sailor would never acquire skill, where there is nothing
to disturb ite surface. It is the duty of every one to extract all the
happiness and enjoyment he can within and without him ; and above
all, he should look on the bright side. What though things do look
a little dark ? The lane will turn, and the night will end in broad
day. In the long run the great balance rights itself. What appears
ill becomes well that which appears wrong, right. Men are not
always to hang down their heads or lips, and those who do, only
show that they are departing from the paths of true common sense
and right. There is more virtue in one sunbeam than in a whole
hemisphere of clouds and gloom. Therefore we repeat, look on the
bright side. Cultivate all that is warm and genial not the cold and
repulsive, the dark and morose. The Interior.
TT is worth a thousand pounds a year to have the habit of looking
on the bright side of things. Dr. Johnson.
186
THE EVENING HEARTHSTONE.
LADLY now we gather round it,
For the toiling day is done,
And the gay and solemn twilight
Follows down the golden sun,
Shadows lengthen on the pavement,
Stalk like giants through the gloom,
Wander past the dusky casement,
Creep around the fire-lit room.
Draw the curtain, close the shutters,
Place the slippers by the fire ;
Though the rude wind loudly mutters,
What care we for wind sprite's ire ?
What care we for outward seeming ?
Fickle fortune's frown or smile ?
If around us love is beaming,
Love can human ills beguile.
'Neath the cottage roof and palace,
From the peasant to the king,
All are quaffing from life's chalice
Bubbles that enchantment bring.
Grates are glowing, music flowing
From the lips we love the best ;
Oh, the joy, the bliss of knowing
There are hearts whereon to rest !
186
CHEERFULNESS.
Hearts that throb with eager gladness
Hearts that echo to our own
While grim care and haunting sadness
Mingle ne'er in look or tone.
Care may tread the halls of daylight,
Sadness haunt the midnight hour,
But the weird and witching twilight
Brings the glowing hearthstone's dower.
Altar of our holiest feelings !
Childhood's well-remembered shrine !
Spirit yearnings soul revealings
Wreaths immortal round thee twine !
Anonymous.
CHEERFULNESS.
your cheerfulness be felt for good wherever you are, and let
your smiles be scattered like sunbeams " on the just as well
as on the unjust." Such a disposition will yield a rich
reward, for its happy effects will come home to you and brighten
your moments of thought. Cheerfulness- makes the mind clear,
gives tone to thought, adds grace and beauty to the countenance.
Joubert says, " When you give, give with joy, smiling." Smiles are
little things, cheap articles to be fraught with so many blessings,
both to the giver and the receiver pleasant little ripples to watch
as we stand on the shore of every-day life. These are the higher
and better responses of nature to the emotion of the soul. Let the
children have the benefit of them those little ones who need the
sunshine of the heart to educate them, and would find a level for
187
COURTESY AT HOME.
their buoyant nature in the cheerful, loving faces of those who need
them. Let them not be kept from the middle aged, who need the
encouragement they bring. Give your smiles also to the aged.
They come to them like the quiet rain of summer, making fresh and
verdant the long, weary path of life. They look for them from you,
who are rejoicing in the fullness of life.
If your seat is hard to sit upon, stand up. If a rock rises up
before you, roll it away, or climb over it. If you want money, earn
it. It takes longer to skin an elephant than a mouse, but the skin is
worth something. If you want confidence, prove yourself worthy
of it. Do not be content with doing what another has done sur-
pass it. Deserve success, and it will come. The boy was not born a
man. The sun does not rise like a rocket, or go down like a bullet
fired from a gun ; slowly and surely it makes its round, and never
tires. It is as easy to be a lead horse as a wheel horse. If the job
be long, the pay will be greater ; if the task be hard, the more com-
petent you must be to do it. Anvrvymoua.
COUKTESY AT HOME.
OUKTES Y is the perfume of Christian grace. Its luster should
be an expression of the best emotions of the soul. The word
is derived from the French, and is closely allied therefore, in
origin, with " courtier," which has an equivocal meaning. A cour-
tier is supposed to possess elegant manners, cultivated however and
used mainly for selfish ends. Politeness, which is the synonym of
courtesy, is of nobler birth. It comes from a Greek term, signify-
ing citizenship. As the divine kingdom is distinct in its laws,
188
COUETESY AT HOlilS.
spirit, and purpose, from the kingdoms of this earth, so too are its
members held together by a supernatural life. They compose one
body, ruled by one Supreme Head. Christian politeness is therefore
the product of regeneration. Its roots are in the heart. They are
watered from above. All, then, who are subjects of Divine grace,
should be gracious, kind, considerate, courteous, and polite in their
deportment, and show forth the savor of the precious anointing they
have received.
How much a sincere and hearty politeness may do for others is
readily tested and measured by all who have learned to appreciate it
for themselves. While it is comparatively easy to be courteous
toward strangers, or toward people of distinction, whom one meets
in society or on public occasions, still it should be remembered that
it is at home, in the family, and among kindred, that an every-day
politeness of manners is really most to be prized. There it confers
substantial benefits and brings the sweetest returns. The little
attentions which members of the same household may show towards
one another day by day belong, in fact, to what is styled " good
breeding." There cannot be any ingrained gentility which does not
exhibit itself first at home. There, of all places in the world, it will
be able to demonstrate how much genuine politeness there is in the
heart. A well-ordered family cannot afford to dispense with the
observance of the good rules of mutual intercourse which are
enforced in good society. A churlish, sour, morose deportment at
home is simply cruel, for it cuts into the tenderost sensibilities and
hurts love just where love is strongest and most loyal. Parents and
children, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, never lose any-
thing by mutual politeness ; on the contrary, by maintaining not
only its forms, but by the inward cultivation of its spirit, they
become contributors to that domestic felicity which is, in itself, a
foretaste of heaven. Christian Weekly.
189
CHRISTIAN COURTESY.
f|I SAW somewhere the other day a sentence like this : " The
truest courtesy is the truest Christianity." This is not simply
*^ saying, I take it, that a Christian will be a gentleman ; it
teaches that the spirit of self-denial, of foregoing personal advan-
tages for the sake of favoring another, is the root and substance of
the regenerated life. Now, here is a practical test, brought near to
us in all the scenes of our intercourse with our fellows, showing
what manner of spirit we are of. If we are truly that is sincerely
courteous and polite, we are serving Christ, showing his example,
and exhibiting his spirit. If in the collisions of personal interests
through the day we are more careful to favor ourselves, to secure
the best, to be served first, to gratify our own wishes and tastes,
than to gratify and serve others, I care not what names we bear,
or what professions we make, or what religious exercises we engage
in, the spirit of the Master is not in us. Anonymous.
'O man can possibly improve in any company, for which he has
not respect enough to be under some degree of restraint.
Lord Chesterfield.
T>EOPLE seldom improve when they have no other model but
themselves to copy after. Olwoer Goldsmith.
190
^ .nj
2, &
f
cr
P
f
0)
MOKAIITY OF MANNERS.
Horace Mann,.
easily and rapidly mature into morals. As child-
ces to manhood, the transition from bad manners
orals is almost imperceptible. Vulgar and obscene
mind, engender impure images in the imagination
desires prurient. From the prevalent state of
proceed as water rises from a fountain. Hence
y only a word or phrase becomes a thought, is
bellished by the imagination, is inflamed into a
ns strength and boldness by always being welcome,
r some urgent temptation, it dares, for once, to put
of action ; it is then ventured upon again and
ntly and less warily, until repetition forges the
and then language, imagination, desire and habit
to the prison house of sin. In this way profane
way the reverence for things sacred and holy ; and
been allowed to follow, and mock and hoot at an
in the streets is far more likely to become intem-
an if he has been accustomed to regard him with
brother, and with sacred abhorrence, as one self-
onized. So, on the other hand, purity and chaste-
tend to preserve 'purity and chaeteness of thought
ey repel licentious imaginings ; they delight in the
untainted, and all their tendencies are on the side
flue
191
CHKISTIAN COURTESY.
fgf SAW somewhere the other day a sentence
J|[ truest courtesy is the truest Christianity."
* saying, I take it, that a Christian will be
teaches that the spirit of self-denial, of foregoing
tages for the sake of favoring another, is the root
the regenerated lif e. Now, here is a practical test, j
us in all the scenes of our intercourse with our
what manner of spirit we are of. If we are truly-
courteous and polite, we are serving Christ,
and exhibiting his spirit. If in the collisions of
through the day we are more careful to favor 01
the best, to be served first, to gratify our own
than to gratify and serve others, I care not what
or what professions we make, or what religious exeii
in, the spirit of the Master is not in us. Anonyt
man can possibly improve in any company,
not respect enough to be under some d<
Lord Chesterfield.
TDEOPLE seldom improve when they have no
themselves to copy after. OWver Goldsmith.l
190
THE MORALITY OF HANKERS.
Horace J/u/i/t.
BANNERS easily and rapidly mature into morals. As child-
hood advances to manhood, the transition from bad manners
to bad morals is almost imperceptible. Vulgar and obscene
objects before the mind, engender impure images in the imagination
and make unlawful desires prurient. From the prevalent state of
the mind, actions proceed as water rises from a fountain. Hence
what was originally only a word or phrase becomes a thought, is
meretriciously embellished by the imagination, is inflamed into a
vicious desire, gains strength and boldness by always being welcome,
until at last, under some urgent temptation, it dares, for once, to put
on the visible form of action ; it is then ventured upon again and
again, more frequently and less warily, until repetition forges the
chains of habit ; and then language, imagination, desire and habit
bmd their victim to the prison house of sin. In this way profane
language wears away the reverence for things sacred and holy ; and
a child who has been allowed to follow, and mock and hoot at an
intemperate man in the streets is far more likely to become intem-
perate himself than if he has been accustomed to regard him with
pity, as a fallen brother, and with sacred abhorrence, as one self-
brutified or demonized. So, on the other hand, purity and chaste-
ness of language tend to preserve purity and chasteness of thought
and of taste ; they repel licentious imaginings ; they delight in the
unsullied and the untainted, and all their tendencies are on the side
of virtue.
191
THE WITCHERY OF MANNER
LMOST every man can recall scores of cases within his knowl-
edge where pleasing manners have made the fortunes of
lawyers, doctors, divines, merchants, and, in short, men in
every walk of life. Raleigh flung down his laced coat into the mud
for Elizabeth to walk on, and got for his reward a proud queen's
favor. The politician who has this advantage easily distances all
rival candidates, for every voter he speaks with becomes instantly
his friend. The very tones in which he asks for a pinch of snuff are
often more potent than the logic of a Webster or a Clay. Polished
manners have often made a scoundrel successful, while the best of
men, by their hardness and coldness, have done themselves incalcula-
ble injury ; the shell being so rough that the world could not believe
there was a precious kernel within. Civility is to a man what
beauty is to a woman. It creates an instantaneous impression in his
behalf, while the opposite quality excites as quick a prejudice against
him. It is a real ornament, the most beautiful dress that man or
woman can wear, and worth more as a means of winning favor than
the finest clothes and jewels ever worn. The gruffest man loves to
be appreciated ; and it is oftener the sweet smile of a woman, which
we think intended for us alone, than a pair of Juno-like eyes, or
" lips that seem on roses fed," that bewitches our heart, and lays us
low at the feet of her whom we afterward marry. Anonymous.
men are moulded out of faults. Shakespeare.
192
A SISTER'S SYMPATHY Taking out the Thorn.
CULTIVATE PATIENCE.
patient with your friends. They are neither omniscient nor
omnipotent. They can not see your heart, and may misunder-
stand you. They do not know what is best for you, and may
select what is worst. Their arms are short, and they may not be
able to reach what you ask. What if also they lack purity of pur-
pose of tenacity of affection ; do not you also lack these graces ?
Patience is your refuge. Endure, and in enduring conquer them,
and if not them, then at least yourself. Above all, be patient with
your beloved. Love is the best thing on the earth, but it is to be
handled tenderly, and impatience is a nurse that kills it.
Be patient with your pains and cares. We know it is easy to
say and hard to do. But, dear child, you must be patient. These
things are killed by enduring them, and made strong to bite and
sting by feeding them with your frets and fears. There is no pain
or care that can last long. None of them shall enter the city of
God. A little while and you shall leave behind you the whole troop
of howling troubles, and forget in your first sweet hour of rest that
such things were on earth. Anonymous.
HE greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting
i it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and
tempests. Anonymous.
BEWAEK the fury of a patient man. Dryden,.
M 193
A WOMAN'S CAEES.
T. De Witt Talmage.
reason I have preached ten sermons to men and none to
women, is that the women are better than men. I do not
say tliis out of compliment or in gallantry ; although when
women are bad they are dreadful. Statistics prove this. They have
fewer temptations, are naturally reverential and loving, and it is
easier for them to become Christians. " They are the majority in
Church on earth, and I suppose they will be three-fourths of the
population in Heaven." In a beautiful homestead in Bethany, a
widow was left to take charge of the premises. The pet of the
house was Mary, a younger sister, who, with a book under her arm,
has no appearance of anxiety or perturbation. Christ and several of
his friends arrived at the house. They did not keep him waiting till
they adjusted their dress, and after two or three knockings, hasten to
the door and say, " Why ! is that you ? " No. They were ladies, and
always presentable, though they might not have on their best. If
we always had on our best, onr best would not be worth putting on.
They threw open the door and greeted Christ with " Good morning.
Be seated." Martha went off to the kitchen ; while Mary, believing
in division of labor, said, "Martha, you go and cook, and I'll be
good." Something went wrong in the kitchen. Perhaps the fire
wouldn't burn, or the bread wouldn't bake, or Martha scalded her
hand. At any rate she lost her patience ; and with besweated brow,
and possibly with pitcher in one hand and the tongs in the other,
rushed into the presence of Christ, saying, " Lord, doat thou not care
that my sister has left me to serve alone ? "
194
WOMAN.
But Christ scolded not a word. He seemed to say, " My dear
woman, don't worry. Let the dinner go. Sit down on the ottoman
beside Mary, your humble sister." When a man comes home from
business and sees his wife worn out, he thinks she ought to have
been in Wall street, and then she would have something to worry
her. He does not know that she conducts a university, a clothing
establishment, a restaurant, a laundry and a library; while she is
health officer, police and president of her residence.
They have to contend with severe economy. Ninety-nine out of
a hundred are subjected to it. x If a man smokes very expensive
cigars and eats costly dinners in New York, he is exceedingly desir-
ous of making five dollars do the work of seven at home. The wife
is banker in the household ; she is president, cashier, teller and dis-
count clerk ; and there is a panic every few weeks. This severe
discipline will make heaven very attractive to you.
>VE was made of a rib out of the side of Adam, not made out
of his head to top him, nor out of his feet to be trampled
npon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under
his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.
Matthew Hen/ry.
t WOMAN ! in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light of quivering aspen made ;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A. ministering angel thou 1
Sir Walter Scott.
195
TELL YOUR WIFE.
fsljF you are in any trouble or quandary, tell your wife that is if
3|[ you have one all about it at once. Ten to one her invention
** will solve your difficulty sooner than all your logic. The wit
of woman has been praised, but her instincts are quicker and keener
than her reason. Counsel with your wife, or mother or sister, and
be assured, light will flash upon your darkness. Women are too
commonly adjudged as verdant in all but purely womanish affairs.
No philosophical students of the sex thus judge them. Their intui-
tions, or insights, are the most subtle. In counseling a man to tell
his wife, we would go farther, and advise him to keep none of hit
affairs a secret from her. Many a home has been happily saved, ami
many a fortune retrieved, by a man's full confidence in his " better-
half." Woman is far more a seer and prophet than man, if she be
given a fair chance. As a general rule, wives confide the minutest
of their plans and thoughts to their husbands, having no involve-
ments to screen from them. Why not reciprocate, if but for the
pleasure of meeting confidence with confidence? We are certain
that no man succeeds so well in the world as he who, taking a part-
ner for life, makes her the partner of his purposes and hopes.
What is wrong of his impulse or judgment, she will check and set
right with her almost universally right instincts. " Help-meet " was
no insignificant title as applied to man's companion. She is a help-
meet to him in every darkness, difficulty and sorrow of life. And
what she most craves and most deserves is confidence without
which love is never free from a shadow. Pacific Rural Press.
196
HOSPITALITY.
Oliver Goldsmith.
)LEST be that spot where cheerful guests retire
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire ;
Blest that abode, where want and pain repair,
And every stranger finds a ready chair :
Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd,
Where all the ruddy family around
Laugh at the jest or pranks, that never fail,
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale,
Or press the bashful stranger to his food,
And learn the luxury of doing good.
TRUE HOSPITALITY.
Sir Arthur Helps.
PERFECT host is as rare a being as a great poet, and for
much the same reason, namely, that to be a perfect host re-
quires as rare a combination of qualities as those which are
needed to produce a great poet. He should be like that lord in
waiting of whom Charles II. said, that he was " never in the way,
and never out of the way." He should never degenerate into a
showman, for there is nothing of which most people are so soon
weary as of being shown things, especially if they are called upon to
admire them. He, the perfect host, should always recollect that he
197
TRUE HOSPITALITY.
la in his own house, and that his guests are not in theirs, conse-
quently those local arrangements which are familiar to him should
be rendered familiar to them. His aim should be to make his house
a home for his guests, with all the advantage of novelty. If he
entertains many guests, he should know enough about them to be
sure that he has invited those who will live amicably together, and
will enjoy each other's society. He should show no favoritism, if
possible, and if he is a man who must indulge in favoritism, it
should be to those of his guests who are more obscure than the
others. He should be judiciously despotic as regards all proposals
for pleasure, for there will be many that are diverse, and much time
will be wasted if he does not take upon himself the labor and
responsibility of decision. He should have nmch regard to the com-
ings and goings of his guests, so as to provide for their adit and exit
every convenience. Now I am going to insist on what I think to be
a very great point. He should aim at causing that his guests should
hereafter become friends, if they are not so at present, so that they
might, in future days, trace back the beginning of their friendship
to their having met together at his house. He, the perfect host,
must have the art to lead conversation without absorbing it himself,
so that he may develope the best qualities of his guests. His expense
in entertainment should not be devoted to what is luxurious, but to
what is ennobling and comfortable. The first of all things is that
he should be an affectionate, indeed, a loving host, so that every one
of his guests should feel that he is really welcome. He should press
them to stay, but should be careful that this pressing does not inter
fere with their convenience, so that they stay merely to oblige him,
and not to please themselves. In considering who should be his
guests, he should always have a thought as to those to whom he
would render most service by having them as his guests, his poorer
brethren, his more sickly brethren. Those who he feels would gain
198
THE KDLE OF HOSPITALITY.
most advantage by being his guests, should have the first place in
his invitations, and for his considerateness he will be amply rewarded
by the benefits he will have conferred.
THE KULE OF HOSPITALITY.
Wm. M. F. Hound.
hospitality is a thing that touches the heart and never
goes beyond the circle of generous impulses. Entertain-
ment with the truly hospitable man means more than the
mere feeding of the body ; it means an interchange of soul gifts.
Still it should have its laws as all things good must have laws to
govern them.
The obligation to be hospitable is a sacred one, emphasized by
every moral code known to the world, and a practical outcome of
the second great commandment.
There should never be a guest in the house whose presence
requires any considerable change in the domestic economy.
However much the circumstances of business or mutual interests
may demand in entertaining a stranger, he should never be taken
into the family circle unless he is known to be wholly worthy of a
place in that scmctum scmctorum of social life ; but when once a
man is admitted to the home fireside he should be treated as if the
place had been his always.
The fact of an invitation gives neither host nor guest the right to
be master of the other's time, and does not require even a tern
porary sacrifice of one's entire individuality or pursuits.
A man should never be so much himself as when he entertain* 8
friend.
199
THE RULE OF HOSPITALITY.
To stay at a friend's house beyond the time for which one is
invited is to perpetrate a social robbery.
To abide uninvited in a friend's home is as much a misdemeanor
as borrowing his coat without his permission. It is debasing the
coin of friendship to mere dross when a man attempts to make it
pay his hotel bills.
The fact of two men having the same occupation and interests in
life gives to neither a social right to the other's bed and board. A
traveling minister has no more right to go uninvited to a fellow-
preacher's house than a traveling shopkeeper or shoemaker has to go
uninvited to the house of his fellow-craftsman. Men are ordained
to the ministry as preachers, teachers and pastors, and not as private
hotel-keepers.
They who go into the country in summer as uninvited guests of
their farmer friends should be rated as social brigands and treated
accordingly.
These few social maxims are by no means to be taken as a com-
plete code of laws. Others quite as important wi/1 spring up out of
the personal experience of every reader of this article, and the jus-
tice and equity of all may be tested by that infallible standard of
society the Golden Rule. There can be no true hospitality that iw
practice is a violation of this rule; and you may safely rest assured
that you have given the fullest and most perfect measure of enter-
tainment to your neighbor if you have done exactly as you would be
done by.
MAN should never be ashamed to own that he has been in
the wrong, which is but saying in other words, that he is
wiser to-day than he was yesterday. Alexander Pope.
200
DON'T BE TOO SENSITIVE.
>HERE are people yes, many people always looking out
for slights. They cannot carry on the daily intercourse of
the family without finding that some offense is designed.
They are as touchy as hair-triggers. If they meet an acquaintance
who happens to be preoccupied with business, they attribute his dis-
traction in some mode personal to themselves, and take umbrage
accordingly. They lay on others the fruit of their irritability.
Indigestion makes them see impertinence in every one they come in
contact with. Innocent persons, who never dreamed of giving
offense, are astonished to find some unfortunate word or momentary
taciturnity mistaken for an insult. To say the least, the habit is
unfortunate. It is far wiser to take the more charitable view of our
fellow-beings, and not suppose that a slight is intended unless the
neglect is open and direct. After all, too, life takes its hues in a
great degree from the color of our own mind. If we are frank and
generous, the world will treat us kindly ; if, on the contrary, we are
suspicious, men learn to be cold and cautious to us. Let a person
get the reputation of being "touchy," and everybody is under
restraint, and in this way the chances of an imaginary offense are
vastly increased. Anonymous.
THINK the first virtue is to restrain the "tongue ; he ap-
proaches nearest to the gods who knows how to be silent, even
though he is in the right. Cato.
201
ADVICE TO A YOUNG MAN.
John Todd, D.D
MAN who wills it can go anywhere and do what he deter-
mines to do. We must make ourselves, or come to nothing.
We must swim off, and not wait for any one to put cork
under us. I congratulate you on being poor, and thus compelled to
work ; it was all that ever made me what little I am. Made vir-
tute. Don't flinch, flounder, fall, nor fiddle, but grapple like a man,
and you will be a man.
ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN.
Nook Porter, D.D.
'OTJNG men, you are the architects of your own fortunes.
Rely upon your own strength of body and soul. Take for
your star self-reliance, faith, honesty, and industry. Inscribe
on your banner, " Luck is a fool, pluck is a hero." Don't take too
much advice keep at your helm and steer your own ship, and
remember that the great art of commanding is to take a fair share of
the work. Don't practice too much humanity. Think well of
yourself. Strike out. Assume your own position. Put potatoes in
your cart, over a rough road, and small ones go to the bottom. Rise
above the envious and jealous. Fire above the mark you intend to
hit. Energy, invincible determination, with a right motive, are the
levers that move the world. Don't drink. Don't chew. Don't
smoke. Don't swear. Don't deceive. Don't read novels. Don't
marry until you can support a wife. Be in earnest. Be self-reliant.
202
EDUCATION.
iJc generous. Be civil. Head the papers. Advertise your busi-
ness. Make money and do good with it. Love your God and
fellow men. Love truth and virtue, Love your country, and obey
its laws.
If this advice be implicitly followed by the young men of the
country the millennium is near at hand.
EDUCATION.
H W- Beecher.
>DUCATION is the knowledge of how to use the whole of one-
self. Men are often like knives with many blades; they
know how to open one, and only one ; all the rest are buried
ii the handle, and they are no better than they would have been if
they had been made with but one blade. Many men use but one or
two faculties out of the score with which they are endowed. A man
is educated who knows how to make a tool of every faculty how to
open it, how to keep it sharp, and how to apply it to all practical
purposes.
[[DEAS go booming through the world louder than cannon.
Thoughts are mightier than armies. Principles have achieved
* more victories than horsemen or chariots.
W. M. Paxton, D.D.
THE intelligence of the people is the security of the nation.
Dcvnid Webster.
208
COUNSELS TO THE YOUNG.
HVER be cast down by trifles. If a spider breaks his web
twenty times, twenty times will he mend it again. Make up
your minds to do a thing, and you will do it. Fear not if
trouble comes upon you ; keep up your spirits, though the day may
be a dark one.
" Troubles never last forever ;
The darkest day will pass away."
If the sun is going down, look up to the stars ; if the earth is
dark, keep your eyes on heaven. With God's presence and God's
promise, a man or child may be cheerful.
" Never despair when fog's in the air,
A sunshiny morning will come without warning 1 "
Mind what you run after ! Never be content with a bubble that
will burst, or a fire-wood that will end in smoke and darkness. But
that which you can keep, and which is worth keeping.
"Something sterling, that will stay
When gold and silver fly away 1
Fight hard against a hasty temper. Anger will come, but resist
it strongly. A spark may set a house on fire. A. fit of passion may
s^ive you cause to mourn all the days .of your life. Never revenge
an injury.
"He that revengeth knoweth no rest ;
The meek possess a peaceful breast I "
If you have an enemy, act kindly to him, and make him your
friend. You may not win him over at once, but try again. Let one
204
COUNSELS TO THE
kindness be followed by another, till you have compassed your end.
Uy little and by little great things are completed.
" Water falling day by day,
Wears the hardest rock away."
And so repeated kindnesses will soften a heart of stone.
Whatever you do, do it willingly. A boy that is whipped at
school never learns his lessons well. A man that is compelled to
work, cares not how badly it is performed.
Evil thoughts are worse enemies than lions and tigers, for we can
get out of the way of wild beasts. Keep your heads and hearts full
of good thoughts, that bad thoughts may not find room. Anony-
mous.
the ends of life more than its means ; watch ever for
the soul of good in things evil, and the soul of truth in
things false, and beside the richer influence that will flow
O 7
out from your life on all to whom you minister, you will do some
thing to help the solution of that unsolved problem of the human
mind and heart, the reconciliation of hearty tolerance with strong
positive belief. Phillips Brooks.
No man is so insignificant as to be sure his example can do no
Lord Clarendon.
THERE never was a great man, unless through divine inspiration.
Cicero.
205
TO YOUNG MEN.
" Sowing Wild Oats," or What shall the Harvest be ?
D. L. Moody.
a man sows in the' natural world he expects to reap.
There is not a farmer who goes out to sow, but expects
a harvest. Another thing they all expect to reap more
than they sow. And they expect to reap the same as they sow. If
they sow wheat, they expect to reap wheat. If they sow oats, they
won't expect to gather watermelons. If they plant an apple-tree,
they don't look for peaches on it. If they plant a grapevine, they
expect to find grapes, not pumpkins. They will look for just the
very seed they sow. Let me say rigjit here, that ignorance of what
they sowed will make no difference in the reaping. It would not do
for a man to say, " I didn't know but what it was wheat I was sow-
ing, when I sowed tares." That makes no difference. If I go out
and sow tares, thinking that it is wheat, I've got to gather tares all
the same. That is a universal law. If a man learns the carpenter's
trade, he don't expect to be a watchmaker, he expects to be a car-
penter. The man who goes to college and studies hard, expects to
reap for those long years of toil and labor. It is the same in the
spiritual world. Whatsoever a man or nation sows, he and they must
reap. The reaping time will come. Men may think God is winking
at sin now-a-days, and isn't going to punish sin, because he does not
execute his judgments speedily, but be not deceived, God is not
mocked, and whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap. I
tremble for these young men who laugh in a scoffing way and say,
" I am sowing my wild oats." You have got to reap them. There
206
TO YOUNG MEN.
are some before me now reaping them, who only a few years ago
were scoffing in the same way. The rich man who fared luxuriously,
while the poor man sat at his gate, and the dogs came and licked
his sores, the reaping time has come for him now. He would
gladly change places with that beggar now.
Yes, there will be a change by and by. Men may go on scoff-
ing and making light of the Bible but they will find it to be true by
and by. I think there is one passage that you will admit is true.
You very often see it in the daily papers, that " Murder will out "
when some terrible crime that has been covered up for years has
come to light. And there is one passage I would like to get every
one to remember. " Be sure your sin will find you out." There
are a great many things in this .world we are not sure of, but this we
can always bs sure of, that our sins will find us out. I don't care
how deep you dig the grave in which you try to bury them. Look
at those sons of Jacob. They thought they had covered up their
sin, and their father never would find out what they had done with
Joseph. And the old man mourned him for twenty long years.
But at last, after all these years had gone, away down in Egypt, there
Joseph stood before them. How they began to tremble. Oh, it
had found them out. Their sin had overtaken them. Young men,
you may have committed some sin many years ago, and you think
nothing is known about it. Don't you flatter yourself. God knows
all about it, and be sure your sin will find you out. Your own con-
science may turn witness against you by and by. If you sow tares,
you will reap disappointment, you will reap despair, you will reap
death and hell. If you sow to the Spirit you shall reap peace and
joy and happiness and eternal life. The reaping time is coming.
What is the harvest going to be ? If you confess your sin, God will
have mercy ; He delights in mercy.
ABILITY AND OPPORTUNITY.
'HESE are the conditions of success. Give a man power and
a field in which to use it, and he must accomplish some-
thing. He may not do and become all that he desires and
dreams of, but his life can not be a failure. I never hear men com-
plaining of the want of ability. The most unsuccessful think that
they could do great things if they only had the chance. Somehow
or other something or somebody has always been in the way. Prov-
idence has hedged them in so that they could not carry out their
plans. They knew just how to get rich, but they lacked opportu-
nity.
Sit down by one who thus complains and ask him to tell you the
story of his life. Before he gets half through he will give you
occasion to ask him, " Why didn't you do so at that time ? Why
didn't you stick to that piece of land and improve it, or to that busi-
ness and develope it ? Is not the present owner of that property
rich? Is not the man who took up the business you abandoned
successful ?" He will probably reply : " Yes, that was an opportu-
nity ; but I did not think so then. I saw it when it was too late."
In telling his story he will probably say, of his own accord, half a
dozen timefc. "If I had known how things were going to turn I
might have done as well as Mr. A. That farm of his was offered to
me. I knew that it was a good one, and cheap, but I knew that it
would require a great deal of hard work to get it cleared and fenced,
to plant trees, vines, etc., and to secure water for irrigation. I did
not like to undertake it. I am sorry now that I didn't. It was one
of my opportunities."
208
ABILITY AND OPPORTUNITY.
The truth is, God gives to all of us ability and opportunities
enough to enable ns to be moderately successful. If we fail, in
ninety-five cases out of a hundred it is our own fault. "We neglect
to improve the talents with which our Creator endowed us, or we
failed to enter the door that he opened for us. A man can not ex-
pect that his whole life shall be made up of opportunities, that they
will meet him at regular intervals as he goes on, like milestones by
the roadside. Usually he has one or two, and if he neglects them
he is like a man who takes the wrong road where several meet. The
further he goes the worse he fares.
A man's opportunity usually has some relation to his ability. It
is an opening for a man of his talents and means. It is an opening
for him to use what he has, faithfully and to the utmost. It requires
toil, self-denial and faith. If he says, " I want a better opportunity
than that. I am worthy of a higher position than it offers f or if
he says, "I won't work as hard and economize as closely as that
opportunity demands," he may, in after years, see the folly of his
pride and indolence.
There are young men all over the land who want to get rich, and
yet they scorn such opportunities as A. T. Stewart and Commodore
Vanderbilt improved. They want to begin, not as those men did,
at the bottom of the ladder, but half way up. They want somebody
to give them a lift, or carry them up in a balloon, so that they can
avoid the early and arduous struggles of the majority of those who
have been successful. No wonder that such men fail, and then
complain of Providence. Grumbling is usually a miserable expedi-
ent that people resort to to drown the reproaches of conscience.
They know that they have been foolish, but they try to persuade
themselves that they have been unfortunate. Herald and Pres
byter.
HAPPINESS.
Aleaander Pop*.
fRDEK is heaven's first law ; and this confessed,
Some are, and must be, greater than the rest ;
More rich, more wise, but who infers from hence,
That such are happier, shocks all common sense.
Heaven to mankind, impartial, we confess,
If all are equal in their happiness :
But mutual wants this happiness increase,
All nature's difference keeps all nature's peace.
Condition, circumstance, is not the thing ;
Bliss is the same in subject or in king,
In who obtains defense, or who defend,
In him who is, or him who finds a friend ;
Heaven breathes through every member of the whole,
One common blessing, as one common soul.
DOMESTIC HAPPINESS.
Wm. Oourpsr.
8OMESTIC happiness ! thou only bliss
Of paradise, that has survived the fall !
Though few now taste thee, unimpair'd and free,
Or, tasting, long enjoy thee ; too infirm,
Or too incautious to preserve thy sweets
Unmixed with drops of bitter.
810
FAMILY LIFE A TEST OF PIETY.
is in the family life that a man's piety gets tested. Let the
husband be cross and surly, giving a snap here and a cuff
there, and see how out of sorts everything gets I The wife
grows cold and unamiable, too. Both are tuned on one key. They
vibrate in unison, giving tone for tone, rising in harmony or discord
together. The children grow up saucy, and savage as young bears.
The father becomes callous, peevish, hard, a kind of two-legged
brute with clothes on. The wife bristles in self-defense. They de-
velop an unnatural growth and sharpness of teeth ; and the house is
haunted by ugliness and domestic brawls.
Is that what God meant the family to be He who made it a
place for love to build her nest in, and where kindness and sweet
courtesy might come to their finest manifestations ? The divine idea
can be realized. There is sunshine enough in the world to warm
all. Why will not men come out of their caves to enjoy it ? Some
men make it a point to treat every other man's wife well but their
own, have smiles for all but their kindred. Strange, pitiable pic-
ture of human weakness, when those we love best are treated worst ;
when courtesy is shown to all save our friends ! If one must be rude
to any, let it be to some one he does not love not to wife, sister,
brother or parent.
Let one of our loved ones be taken away, and memory recalls a
thousand sayings to regret. Death quickens recollection painfully.
The grave can not hide the white faces of those who sleep. The
coffin and the green mound are cruel magnets. They draw us
211
AIM AND OBJECT IN LIFB.
farther than we would go. They force us to remember. A man
never sees so far into human life as when he looks over a wife's or
mother's grave. His eyes get wondrous clear then, and he sees as
never before what it is to love and be loved ; what it is to injure the
feelings of the loved. Golden Rule.
AIM AND OBJECT IN LIFE.
Rev. G. H. Spurgeon.
tTHAT we could wake men up to exercise the faculty of
thinking, and then to direct, to regulate, and to control their
thoughts ! But thinking is an occupation that a great many
persons altogether dislike. They are frivolous. We cannot get
them to think about anything. Many minds never get on the
wing at all. Not a few men work so hard with their hands, and
suffer such fatigue from bodily labor, that they are scarcely able to
think much ; while there are others who dissipate their time and
consume their lives in idleness, till they are utterly disqualified for
any vigorous thought. They are lazy and sluggish. They have
the dry rot in their very souls. Their brains do not work. They
seem to live in one everlasting lethargy and day-dream. O that
men were wise, that they were thoughtful! Ask many a man
whom you meet with, "Sir, what are you living for?" he would,
perhaps, tell you what his trade or what his profession might be ;
but if you pressed him with the question, " What is the main
object of life ?" he would not like to say that he was living only
to enjoy himself seeking his own pleasure. He would hardly like
to say that he was living to grasp and grab and get a fortune. He
would hardly know how to answer you. Many young men are in
this condition ; they have not a definite object. Now, you will not
212
SELFISHNESS.
make a good captain if you do not know the port you are sailing
for. You will make a poor life of it, young man, if you go out
as an apprentice, and then afterwards out as a master, with no
definite aim and end. Say to yourself, " I can only live for two
things. I can live for God, or I can live for the devil; which,
now, am I going to do ?" Get your mind well fixed and firmly
resolved as to which it shall be. I will put it to you as boldly and
badly as even Elijah did when he said, " If Baal be God, serve
Him ; and if Jehovah be God, serve Him." If the world, if the
flesh, if the devil, be worth serving, go follow out the career of a
sensualist, and say so. Let yourself know what you are at ; but if
God be worth serving, and your soul worth the saving, go in for
that ; but do not sneak through this world really seeking yourself,
and yet not having the courage to say to yourself, " Self, you are
living for yourself." Do have a definite and distinct object, or else
your vital energies will be wasted, and your most industrious days
will be recklessly squandered.
SELFISHNESS.
Wm. Cowper.
H, if the selfish knew how much they lost,
What would they not endeavor, not endure,
To imitate, as far as in them lay,
Him who his wisdom and his power employs
In making others happy ?
iilp'HOEVER thinks of life as something that could be with-
out religion is yet in deadly ignorance of both. Life
and religion are one, or neither is anything.
Geo. MacDonald.
213
David Barker.
the quarries should you toil,
Make your mark ;
Do you delve upon the soil,
Make your mark ;
In whatever path you go,
In whatever place you stand,
Moving swift or moving slow,
With a firm and honest hand,
Make your mark.
Should opponents hedge your way,
Make your mark ;
Work by night or work by day,
Make your mark ;
Struggle manfully and well,
Let no obstacle oppose ;
None, right-shielded, ever fell,
By the weapons of his foes ;
Make your mark.
What though born a peasant's son,
Make your mark ;
Good by poor men can be done,
Make your mark ;
Peasants' garbs may warm the cold,
Peasants' words may calm a fear ;
214
THE USES OF ADVERSITY.
Better far than hoarding gold,
Is the drying of a tear ;
Make your mark.
Life is fleeting as a shade,
Make your mark ;
Marks of some kind must be made,
Make your mark ;
Make it while the arm is strong,
In the golden hours of youth ;
Never, never make it wrong,
Make it with the stamp of truth ;
Make your mark.
THE USES OF ADVEESITY.
Joseph Addis&n.
gods in bounty work up storms about us,
That give mankind occasion to exert
Their hidden strength, and throw out into practice
Virtues that shun the day, and lie concealed
In the smooth seasons and the calms of life.
HPHE good are better made by ill :
As odors crushed, are sweeter still I
So/mud Rogers.
nPEOUBLES are hard to take, though they strengthen the soul.
Tonics are always bitter. T. De Witt Tdlmage.
215
FOLLY OF FRETTING.
A. A. Lawn.
persona! sin of fretting is almost as extensive as any
other evil. It is not universal, but very general It is
as vain and useless a habit as one can harbor. Nothing so
warps man's nature, sours his disposition, breaks up the friendly
relationship in the domestic circle. It is a direct violation of the
law of God. It is sinful in the beginning, in its progress, and
sinful continually. The divine direction is, "Fret not thyself in
anywise to do evil." David's knowledge of human nature was as
large as it was exact. Scolding is confined to no age or clime.
Some bad streak in one's constitution, a little mishap, or a score of
causes, may stir and stimulate this irritable disposition. Such a
spirit in the family, in the school, or church, may become con-
tagious, and result in great injury. It may be quelled and con-
quered. When we see its manifestation in time to take a second
thought, a determined silence is sure to ward off the most fiery out-
burst. It is difficult for a quarrel to continue long without oppos-
ing agents. Nothing so surprises an angry person as kind words.
Let them be few and spoken in a loving manner.
The milk of human kindness, like oil on an axle, lightens the
load and eases life's heavy burdens. In the severe school of hard-
ship and adversity through which all humanity must pass the law
of kindness is the real antidote. Overwork and anxiety produce
irritability. Domestic felicity is the oil of consolation. Fault-find-
ing tends to division, rejection, and misery. True perennial happi-
ness is the lot of few mortals in this inconstant world. The effect*
216
FOLLY OF FKETTLNG.
of scolding are twofold. They give color to one's own character, as
truly as they do harm to society. Fretting becomes habitual with
gome all is unpleasant.
A fretful habit finds frequent opportunities for indulgence,
occasions literally multiplying as the habit increases in strength.
Almost everybody displeases the fault-finder. Nothing seems to go
right with the constant fretter. Circumstances control and conquer
him. There is no self-poise in his soul no controlling power.
Fretting weakens one's self-respect. It breaks asunder the bond of
affections. It is impossible to love an habitual fault-finder. If a
scolder should be lo^ed through deception for a time, the affections
must, sooner or later, be sundered. We might tolerate a person
through ignorance, or for some weakness in his constitution, for a
time. But a toleration differs materially from genuine friendship.
A fretful disposition sours all the relations of life, is a most perni-
cious acquisition, a dreadful inheritance. Such a habit, too fre-
quently indulged, has driven the best of husbands into dissipation,
rendered the most affectionate wives miserable, schools ungoverna-
ble, and made congregations noisy and disrespectful. It would fill
the state with rebellion, and hell with inmates.
One fretful parent would instill poison into every heart in the
domestic circle. In after years the spirit of the early life will reas-
sert its claim, and will insensibly fill other families with discontent.
Yice, like virtue, through all the channels of influence, is handed
down from sire to son, from mother to daughter. There is no sense,
no necessity for fretting. "We are to let our moderation be made
known. There is no kind of use, no real benefit to come from such
a course. It is an injury to man, a curse on society, and a libel on
God, who has endowed us with speech. It defeats domestic and
school discipline. The great object of genuine government is a will-
ing, ready, hearty obedience from personal choice.
217
NEVER MIND.
All rightf ol riders seek to win the self-respect, the good will of
those whom they are to control. Fretting fails to secure these ends.
This in-timed grace is founded in selfishness. Love can not be won
by it; respect can not be retained. There remains the love of nobil-
ity in every man. To this natural sense of goodness we can not, in
kindness, appeal in vain. Fretting resorts to fear, appeals to brute
force, and in return awakens only dread and dislike. It is an evil
force, that fosters the faults it seeks in vain to correct.
" Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
That to be hated needs but to be seen."
NEVER MIND
Casting all your care upon him ; for he careth for you." L Peter,
HAT'S the use of always fretting
At the trials we shall find
Ever strewn along our pathway ?
Travel on, and never mind.
Travel onward, working, hoping,
Cast no lingering look behind
At the trials once encountered ;
Look ahead, and never mind.
"What is past, is past forever ;
Let all the fretting be resigned ;
It will never help the matter
Do your best, and never mind.
218
LITTLE TEOUBLB8.
And if those who might befriend you,
Whom the ties of nature bind,
Should refuse to do their duty,
Look to heaven, and never mind.
Friendly words are often spoken
When the feelings are unkind ;
Take them for their real value,
Pass them on, and never mind.
Fate may threaten, clouds may lower,
Enemies may be combined ;
If your trust in God is steadfast,
He will help you, never mind. Anom/mouo
LITTLE TROUBLES.
Mrt. Amelia S, Barr.
LTHOUGH general sympathy overlooks small miseries, indi-
viduals find it worth their while to take them into account ;
for the whole history of some people is but a long record of
trifling vexations and sufferings: trifling when taken singly, but
overwhelming when taken in the mass.
It may not seem a great thing to have a constantly nagging com-
panion, or boots that always hurt your corns, or linen that is never
properly starched ; or to have to read crossed letters, or go to stupid
parties, or consult books without indexes, but to the sufferer they
are very tangible oppressions, and, in our short space of working
life, not to be made light of.
Of course, if we were all cast in heroic moulc 1 * we should despise
219
LITTLB TROUBLES.
such petty aggravations; but the world does not turn on heroic
principles ; it is useless to tell a fretful, worried man that his trials
are "dbsv/rd /" and do not think you have effected a cure when you
have let that drop of boiling oil fall upon his wounds. " Absurd ?"
His own common sense has already told him so, and that is the very
thing that aggravates his annoyance.
It is equally useless to remind such sufferers " that if they lived
with a proper estimate of the present and future before them, they
could bear these little trials with a calm and decent philosophy."
Perhaps so ! but I have seen these same philosophers strongly moved
by little disappointments in meals, or weather, that affected them-
selves ; nay, even by such trifling causes as cold shaving-water, or a
want of buttons. Most platitudes of this kind are affectations ; and
the men who pretend to despise little troubles are the very men who
exaggerate them.
There are indeed, some characters who have the cheerfulness of
tine summer mornings; everything about them laughs and sings,
even their tears have the lustre of a fresh shower. But there are
other natures equally fine in a contrary direction, whose excessive
sensibility makes them the instrument upon which every circum-
stance plays.
I am going now to make a confession of one of these little
troubles one which will doubtless seem puerile to many, but which
I know tens of thousands suffer keenly from I mean the tyranny of
the atmosphere. When a foggy day or a spiteful east wind attacks
us, or when there is no blue sky to speak to us of heaven, we are
depressed, and full of inexpressible languors. Our work falls from
our hands, our inability irritates us, our whole human nature suffers
with the physical world.
" What nonsense ! Man as an immortal soul ought to float above
this terrestrial atmosphere." Ah, yes! but though we envy the
220
LITTLE TROUBLES.
etrength of such natures as are always equable, we cannot imitate
them. And we do not want them to tell us that such depressions
are " imaginary," and " ought to be resisted ; " we do resist them, and
this very struggle assures us of their reality, for in it we feel the
difficulty of measuring ourselves against its influence.
Any system of philosophy is too big for the average man yes,
for the Christian man which overlooks the terrible reality of "little
troubles."
It is not the great boulders, but the small pebbles on the road,
that bring the traveling horse on his knees ; and it is the petty
annoyances of life, ever present, to be met and conquered afresh
every day, that try most severely the metal of which we are made.
And when we are in the very thick of such a fight, how often are we
met with that aggravating little bit of sympathy that " it will be all
the same a hundred years hence."
There is no comfort in a dictum so mocking and so untrue. It
does not touch the question at all ; and it is not true. For nothing
happens for nothing ; and whether we did or did not do a certain
thing, or whether we got, or did not get another, may have very
important consequences, even a hundred years hence. Besides, this
kind of consolation, carried out to its logical conclusion, would take
every honest and honorable purpose out of life. A man could easily
persuade himself by it, that whether he did his duty or not, whether
he earned his bread or stole it, would be " all the same a hundred
years hence." We don't live for a hundred years hence, we are here
to do to-day* 8 duty, and whatever helps us best to-day is the help we
need.
What are we then to do with these ever-recurring little trials,
from which we see no release this side of the grave ? Do not *et us
blink matters. Our friends grow wea/ry of them. Smitten by the
same blows, vre go on repeating the same cries, and this monotony is
221
LITTLE TROUBLES.
hard to bear with. Friendship that can overlook our faults wears
out with our complaints. The sympathy that finds us every morn-
ing just as it leaves us every night, can no more maintain its life
than flame can burn in a vacuum. " To whom then shall we go ?"
Go to that divine Friend whose pierced hands have so often raised
us up. It was not to the unhappy Jesus forbade " repetitions." "We
may importune him without fear ; we may tell him all, and tell it
every day.
But will he care for such small troubles as harass our little affairs,
and let out our life, as it were, by multitudes of pin-pricks ? Yes,
for our God is not a God who only occupies himself with weighty
matters. He is no overtasked being who sits afar off, and abandons
the care of every-day trials and interests to inferior agents. He is a
God to whom everything is little, and everything is great, who
counts one poor human soul of more value than a world, who num-
bers the hairs of our heads, and counts our tears. We can never
weary God, and nothing that gives us an anxious thought or a weary
feeling is beneath his notice.
These little trials are the soul's drill and discipline. We make
our lives, as we sew stitch by stitch ; often wearily enough, often
faint and discouraged, but perseverance in well doing always touches
the heart of God, who seems to say at the last, " That wiU do /"
NXTETY is the poison of life ; the parent of many sins and
of more miseries. Why, then, allow it, when we know that
all the future is guided by a Father's hand ? Blair.
MANY dishes bring many diseases. Plvrw
222
TKANSEENT TKOUBLES
'OST of us have had troubles all our lives, and each day
has brought all the evil that we wished to endure. But
if we were asked to recount the sorrows of our lives, how
many could we remember? How many that are six months old
should we think worthy to be remembered or mentioned ? To-
day's troubles look large, but a week hence they will be forgotten
and buried out of sight.
If you would keep a book, and every day put down the things
that worry you, and see what becomes of them, it would be a
benefit to you. You allow a thing to annoy you, just as you
allow a fly to settle on you and plague you; and you lose your
temper (or rather get it ; for when men are surcharged with tern
per they are said to have lost it) ; and you justify yourselves for
being thrown off your balance by causes which you do not trace
out. But if you would see what it was that threw you off your
balance before breakfast, and put it down in a little book, and fol-
low it out, and ascertain what becomes of it, you would see what
a fool you were in the matter.
The art of forgetting is a blessed art, but the art of overlooking
is quite as important. And if we should take time to write down
the origin, the progress, and outcome of a few of our troubles, it
would make us so ashamed of the fuss we make over them, that we
should be glad to drop such things and bury them at once in eternal
forgetfulness. Life is too short to be worn out in petty worries,
frettings, hatreds, and vexations. Let us think only on whatso-
ever things are pure, and lovely, and gentle, and of good report.
Anonymous.
223
WOKKING AND WAITING.
HUSBANDMAN who many years
Had ploughed his field and sown in tears
Grew weary with his doubts and fears :
" I toil in vain ! these rocks and sands
Will yield no harvest to my hands ;
The best seeds rot in barren lands.
My drooping vine is withering ;
No promised grapes its blossoms bring ;
No birds among the branches sing ;
My flock is dying on the plain ;
The heavens are brass they yield no rain ;
The earth is iron, I toil in vain !"
While yet he spake, a breath had stirred
His drooping vine, like wing of bird,
And from its leaves a voice he heard :
" The germs and fruits of life must be
Forever hid in mystery,
Yet none can toil in vain for Me.
A mightier hand, more skilled than thine,
Must hang the clusters on the vine,
And make the fields with harvest shine.
Man can but work ; God can create :
But they who work, and watch, and wait,
Have their reward, though it come late.
Look up to heaven ! behold, and hear
234
CONTENT.
and thunderings in thy ear
%'er to thy doubts and fear."
ad, and lo 1 a cloud-draped car,
liling smoke and flames afar,
jhing from a distant star ;
ery thirsty flock and plain
dng up to meet the rain,
une to clothe the fields with grain ;
a the clouds he saw again,
ovenant of God with men,
.tten with His rainbow pen :
i-time and harvest shall not fail,
though the gates of hell assail,
iruth and promise shall prevail 1 " Anonymous.
CONTENT.
Mrs. L. H. Sigournti
T thou the man whose mansions hold
The worldling's pomp and miser's gold.
Obtains a richer prize
Than he, who, in his cot at rest
Finds heavenly peace a willing guest,
And bears the promise in his breast
Of treasure in the skies ?
fOW sour sweet music is,
When time is broke, and no proportion kept 1
So is it in the music of men's lives.
Shakespeare.
225
WOKKING AND WAITING.
HUSBANDMAN who many years
Had ploughed his field and sown i
Grew weary with his doubts and f i
" I toil in vain ! these rocks and sands
Will yield no harvest to my hands ;
The best seeds rot in barren lands.
My drooping vine is withering ;
No promised grapes its blossoms bring ;
Ne birds among the branches sing ;
My flock is dying on the plain ;
The heavens are brass they yield no rain ;
The earth is iron. I toil in vain !"
While yet he spake, a breath had stirred
His drooping vine, like wing of bird,
And from its leaves a voice he heard :
" The germs and fruits of life must be
Forever hid in mystery,
Yet none can toil in vain for Me.
A mightier hand, more skilled than thine,
Mnst hang the clusters on the vine,
And make the fields with harvest shine.
Man can but work ; God can create :
But they who work, and watch, and wait,
Have their reward, though it come late.
Look up to heaven ! behold, and hear
234
CONTENT.
The clouds and thunderings in thy ear-
An answer to thy doubts and fear."
He looked, and lo ! a cloud-draped car,
With trailing smoke and flames afar,
Was rushing from a distant star ;
And every thirsty flock and plain
Was rising np to meet the rain,
That came to clothe the fields with grain ;
And on the clouds he saw again,
The covenant of God with men,
Rewritten with His rainbow pen :
" Seed-time and harvest shall not fail,
And though the gates of hell assail,
My truth and promise shall prevail 1 " Anonymous.
CONTENT.
Mrs. L. H. Sigoumti
>HLNK'ST thou the man whose mansions hold
The worldling's pomp and miser's gold.
Obtains a richer prize
Than he, who, in his cot at rest
Finds heavenly peace a willing guest,
And bears the promise in his breast
Of treasure in the skies ?
fOW sour sweet music is,
When time is broke, and no proportion kept 1
So is it in the music of men's lives.
Shakespeare.
o 225
LET BY-GONES BE BY-GONES.
>ET by-gones be by-gones. If by-gones were clouded
By aught that occasioned a pang of regret,
O, let them in darkest oblivion be shrouded ;
'Tis wise and 'tis kind to forgive and forget.
Let by-gones be by-gones, and good be extracted
From ill over which it is folly to fret ;
The wisest of mortals have foolishly acted
The kindest are those who forgive and forget.
Let by-gones be by-gones. O, cherish no longer
The thought that the sun of affection has set ;
Eclipsed for a moment, its rays will be stronger,
If you, like a Christian, forgive and forget.
Let by-gones be by-gones. Your heart will be lighter
When kindness of yours with reception has met ;
The flame of your love will be purer and brighter,
If, God-like, you strive to forgive and forget.
Let by-gones be by-gones. O, purge out the leaven
Of malice, and try an example to set
To others, who, craving the mercy of heaven,
Are sadly too slow to forgive and forget
Let by-gones be by-gones. Remember how deeply
To heaven's forbearance we all are in debt ;
220
THE CHRISTIAN AT HOME.
They value God's infinite goodness too cheaply
Who heed not the precept, " Forgive and forget.
Chambers' Jbwrnal.
THE CHRISTIAN AT HOME.
HRISTIANITY begins in the home. If not there, it is
nowhere. We may attend meetings, and sing hymns, and
join devoutly in prayer ; we may give money to the poor, and
send missionaries and Bibles to the heathen ; we may organize socie-
ties of every description for doing good ; we may get up church
fairs, and tea-parties and tableaux and picnics ; we may, in short,
devote all our time and all our means to doing good, and yet not be
the true and earnest Christians we ought to be, after all.
If they cannot say of us in the family at home : " He or she
is a Christian, we know it, we feel it," if home is not a better and
happier place for our living in it, if there is not an influence going
out from us, day by day, silently drawing those about us in the right
direction, then it is time for us to stop where we are, and begin to
examine into our title to, the name of Christian.
Christianity. Christ-likeness. Is that ours ? Are we possessed
of that? Are we patient, kind, long-suffering, forbearing, seeking
with all our hearts to do good, dreading with all our hearts to do
evil?
For if we are Christ's we shall be like Him ; and the first fruits,
and the best fruits, of our daily living, will be in the better and
n r C8 o f those who are about us day by day. Anonymous.
227
KEIIGION IN THE FAMILY.
Bishop F. D. Huntington.
, my friends, with your children. Speak cheerfully, but
jjm reverently and solemnly, to them of the righteousness of
*^* God. Tell them He is their father, and tell them He is
their judge. Show them His face of compassion ; show them His
throne of retribution. Teach them that He loves the good ; teach
them that He hates lying, and lust, and all iniquity, and that, for
Hia goodness' sake, He will sweep those who do not hate them
finally into tribulation. Take care, yourselves, to touch not the
unclean thing, so that your counsel to your sons and daughters bo
not a mockery. Shake off the first dishonest penny from your
fingers, as the apostle shook off the venomous viper into the fire.
Stand in awe at your conscience ; stand in awe of the King of kings.
Expect and welcome, from the ministry of Christ, searching mes-
sage. Pray for prophets who will rebuke you, as their ancient
predecessors did Israel, for robbing man by any fraud, for robbing
God by keeping back the offerings at His altar which he requires at
your hands. And when we, your ministers, are weak, when our
lips stammer, or our courage falters, or our poor lives seem to
empty our words of power, turn to old Isaiah, and listen to the
burden of his advent vision :
"Hear, O, heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath
spoken. I have nourished and brought up children, and they have
rebelled against me. Wash you ; make you clean. Cease to do
evil ; learn to do well. Seek judgment ; relieve the oppressed ;
right the fatherless ; plead for the widow. Zion shall be redeemed
228
CERTAINTIES IN RELIGION.
with judgment, and her converts with righteousness. Say ye to
the righteous, it shall be well with them, for the reward of hia
/and stall be given him. The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."
CEKTAINTIES IN RELIGION.
Rev. Joseph Cook.
LITTLE while ago we were not in the world a little
while hence we shall be here no longer. This is arith-
metic. This is the clock. Demosthenes used to say that
every speech should begin with an incontrovertible proposition.
Now, it is scientifically incontrovertible that a little while ago, we
were not here, and a little while hence we shall be here no more.
De Tocqueville said that you will in vain try to make any man
religious who has no thought of dying. Now, the first of religious
certainties is, that we are going hence soon. As to that proposition
there is not a particle of doubt. I defy any man to deny that we
are going hence. I defy any man to deny that we want to go hence
in peace. I defy any man to show that we can go hence unless we
are harmonized with our environment. What is that ? Our envi-
ronment is made up of God, of the plan of our own natures, and
of our record in the past ; and therefore we must be harmonized
with God in conscience, and our record, or, in the very nature of
things, there cannot be peace for us. Aristotle built his whole
philosophy on the proposition that no thing can exist and not exist
at the same time, and in the same sense ; that is to say, self-contra-
diction is the proof of error everywhere. And now, since we
have an environment, made up of God, conscience and our record,
we must be either in harmony or in dissonance with it ; and if we
229
WINNING SOULS.
are in dissonance we are not in harmony with it ; and if we are in
harmony, we are not in dissonance with it. And so it is incontro-
vertible that with whatever environment we cannot escape from,
we must come into harmony, and that environment consists of con-
science and of God, and of our record.
Similarity of feeling with God, or a love of what He loves, and
a hate of what he hates, is an unalterable natural condition of peace
of soul in this life and the next.
WINNING SOULS.
Buhop E. 8. Janes.
in some way we can work and live and act for Christ.
We can all of us be true soldiers under the great Captain of
our salvation, and we may all of us in some way win souls to
the Master. I think this one passage of Scripture is enough to
prove this : " Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner
from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death, and shall
hide a multitude of sins." What a work ! What a result !
O, what an investment is this rational and immortal nature which
God has given us, which qualifies us for divine blessings and fo>
eternal felicity. What majesty, what interest, what value does tlm
give to our souls ! O, how much pertinency there was in the quee
tion of the Saviour, " What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the
whole 1 world and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in
exchange for his soul ? " And now if our own salvation be so pre-
cious and so important, the salvation of those poor degraded brethren
that we see around us, inasmuch as they share this nature, is of equal
moment. They are not as cultured, perhaps, as we are ; they are
not as cleanly in their person, they are not as happy in their condi-
230
WINNING SOULS.
tion, their social state as well as their personal character is unlike
ours, and yet, this immortality is in them ; this capacity for bearing
the image of God and enjoying the beatitudes of eternity is in them ;
consequently their souls are as precious as ours and their salvation as
important as ours. And besides this, Jesus died for them as well as
he died for us. They are just as much the purchase of his blood
and they are as much redeemed of his love as we are. If we should
succeed in acquiring the whole world and lose our own souls, then it
is a legitimate inference that their salvation is of more importance
than all this world. It is a grander enterprise, it is a sublimer result
to save a human soul through the mediation of Christ and through
the instrumentality of grace than to make a world. No wonder,
then, that the inspired writer said he that saves a soul is wise. It is
the very highest of human wisdom because we choose the greatest
interest, the sublimest and most sacred result, we choose the highest
sphere of usefulness to accomplish the greatest and grandest of al]
results : and if we seek to do this as Christians, by teaching men as
God teaches us by his word ; by influencing them as God influences
us by his truth ; by influencing them as God permits us in invoking
upon them the divine power and operation of the Holy Spirit O, if
we choose this greatest object of ambition, of effort, of aspiration,
and pursue it according to the teachings of the Bible, looking to
God to crown our effort with success, I repeat it, we are exercising
the very highest of human wisdom. There is nothing to compare
with it.
I think of the agencies which are ceaselessly at work to
make this bad world better, I am thankful that I live.
W. Morley Punslion, LL.D.
281
YOUR MISSION.
Danid Marck, D. D.
f ARK, the voice of Jesus crying,
" Who will go and work to-day ?
Fields are white and harvest waiting !
"Who will bear the sheaves away ? "
Loud and strong the Master calleth,
Rich reward he offers thee ;
Who will answer, gladly saying,
" Here am I ; send me, send me !"
If you cannot cross the ocean,
And the heathen lands explore ;
You can find the heathen nearer,
You can help them at your door.
If you cannot give your thousands,
You can give the widow's mite ;
And the least you do for Jesus,
Will be precious in his sight.
If you cannot speak like angels ;
If you cannot preach like Paul ;
You can tell the love of Jesus,
You can say He died for all.
If you cannot rouse the wicked
With the judgment's dread alarms.
You can lead the little children
To the Saviour's waiting arms.
282
TOUS MISSION.
If you cannot be the watchman
Standing high on Zion's wall,
Pointing out the path to heaven,
Offering life and peace to all ;
With your prayers and with your bounties
You can do what heaven demands ;
You can be like faithful Aaron,
Holding up the prophet's hands.
If among the older people,
You may not be apt to teach ;
" Feed my lambs," said Christ, our Shepherd,
" Place the food within their reach,"
And it may be that the children
You have led with trembling hand,
Will be found among your jewels
When you reach the better land.
Let none hear you idly saying,
" There is nothing I can do,"
While the souls of men are dying,
And the Master calls for you.
Take the task he gives you gladly ;
Let his work your pleasure be ;
Answer quickly when he calleth,
" Here am I ; send me, send me I "
O serve with lofty gifts the lowly needfl
Of the poor race for which the God-man died,
And do it all for love oh, this is great !
J. G. HoUcvnd.
238
WHATEVER YOU DO, DO IT WELL.
JOB slighted, because it is apparently unimportant, leads tu
habitual neglect, so that men degenerate, insensibly, into bad
workmen.
"That is a good rough job," said a foreman in our hearing,
recently, and he meant that it was a piece of work, not elegant in
itself, but strongly made and well put together.
Training the hand and eye to do work well, leads individuals to
form correct habits in other respects, and a good workman is, in
most cases, a good citizen. No one need hope to rise above his pre-
sent situation who suffers small things to pass by, unimproved, or
who neglects, metaphorically speaking, to pick up a cent because it
is not a dollar. Some of the wisest law-makers, the best states-
men, the most gifted artists, the most merciful judges, the most
ingenious mechanics, rose from the great mass.
A rival of a certain lawyer sought to humiliate him publicly by
Baying : " You blacked my father's boots once." " Yes," replied the
lawyer, unabashed, " and I did it well." And because of his habit
of doing even mean things well, he rose to greater.
Take heart, all who toil ! all youths in humble situations, all in
adverse circumstances. If it be but to drive the plow, strive to do
well ; if only to cut bolts, make good ones ; or to blow the bellows,
keep the iron hot. It is attention to business that lifts the feet
higher up on the ladder.
Says the good Book : " Seest thou a man diligent in his business,
he shall stand before kings ; he shall not stand before mean men "
Anonymous.
384
INDUSTRY.
Benjamin Franklin,
>HE way to wealth is as plain as the way to market. It de-
pends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality ; that is,
waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of
both. Without industry and frugality, nothing will do, and with
them everything.
Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all easy; and he
that riseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his busi-
ness at night, while laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon over-
takes him.
Industry need not wish, and he that lives upon hopes will die
fasting. There are no gains without pains ; then help, hands, for I
have no lands ; or if I have, they are smartly taxed. He that hath
a trade hath an estate, and he that hath a calling, hath an office of
profit and honor, but then the trade must be worked at, and the call-
ing followed, or neither the estate nor the office will enable us to
pay our taxes. If we are industrious, we shall never starve ; for, at
the working-man's house, hunger looks in, but dares not enter. Nor
will the bailiff or the constable enter, for industry pays debts, while
despair increaseth them.
Employ thy tune well, if thou meanest to gain leisure ; and since
thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour. Leisure is
time for doing something useful ; this leisure the diligent man will
obtain, but the lazy man never ; for a life of leisure and a life of
laziness are two things.
AET is the application of knowledge to a practical end.
Sir John Herschd .
885
KNOW THYSELF.
Mrs. L. H. Siyournry.
? HEN gentle twilight sits
On Day's forsaken throne,
'Mid the sweet hush of eventide.
Muse by thyself alone,
And at the time of rest,
Ere sleep asserts its power,
Hold pleasant converse with thyself
In Meditation's bower.
Motives and deeds review
By Memory's truthful glass,
Thy silent self the only judge
And critic as they pass ;
And if thy wayward face
Should give thy conscience pain,
Resolve with energy divine
The victory to gain.
When morning's earliest rays
O'er spire and roof-tree fall,
Gladly invite thy waking heart
Unto a festival
Of smiles and love to all,
The lowliest and the least,
And of delighted praise to Him,
The Giver of the feast.
236
KNOW THYSELF.
Not on the outer world
For inward joy depend ;
Enjoy the luxury of thought.
Make thine ownself thy friend ;
Not with the restless throng,
In search of solace roam,
But with an independent zeal
Be intimate at home.
Good company have they,
Who by themselves do walk,
If they have learned on blessed theme*
With their own souls to talk ;
For they shall never feel
Of dull ennui the power,
Not penury of loneliness
Shall haunt their hall or bower.
Drink waters from the fount
That in thy bosom springs,
And envy not the mingled draught
Of satraps or of kings ;
So shalt thou find at last,
Far from the giddy brain,
Self-knowledge and self-culture lead
To uncomputed gain.
THEY are never alone that are accompanied with noble though 1 .
Sir Philip Sidney.
287
IMPORTANCE OF CHARACTER
is a difference between character and reputation.
Character is what we really are. Reputation is what others
suppose we are. A man may have a good character and
a bad reputation, or he may have a good reputation and a bad
character. The reason of this is, that we form our opinions of
men from what they appear to be, and not from what they really
are. Some men appear to be much better than they really are,
while others are better than they appear to be. Most men are
more anxious about their reputation than they are about their
character. This is improper. While every man should endeavor
to maintain a good reputation, he should especially labor to possess
a good character. Our true happiness depends not so much on
what is thought of us by others, as on what we really are in our-
selves. Men of good character are generally men of good repu-
tation ; but this is not always the case, as the motives and actions
of the best of men are sometimes misunderstood and misrepre-
sented. But it is important, above everything else, that we be
right, and do right, whether our motives and actions are properly
understood and appreciated or not. Nothing can be so important
to any man as the formation and possession of a good character.
The influences which operate in the formation of character are
numerous, and however trivial some of them may appear, they are
not to be despised. The most powerful forces in nature are those
which operate silently and imperceptibly. This is equally true of
those moral forces which exert the greatest influences on our
288
IMPORTANCE OF CHARACTER.
minds, and give complexion to our characters. Among these, early
impressions, example, and habits, are perhaps the most powerful.
Early impressions, although they may appear to be but slight,
are the most enduring, and exert the greatest influences on the life.
By repetition they acquire strength, become deeply rooted in the
mind, and give bent and inclination to its powers. " The tiniest
bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life, after-
wards issue forth to the world, and become its public opinion ; for
nations are gathered out of nurseries." Examples, it is said, preach
to eyes ; and there are but few persons, especially among the young,
who can avoid imitating those with whom they associate. For the
most part, this is so unconscious that its effects are almost unheeded,
but its influence is not on that account the less permanent. The
models which are daily placed before us, tend to mould our char-
acter and shape our course in life. Habit results from the repeti-
tion of the same act, until we become so accustomed to it, that its
performance -requires no mental effort, and scarcely attracts our
attention.
By the influence of early impressions, the force of example, an*. 1
the power of habit, the character becomes slowly and impercep-
tibly, but at length decidedly formed ; the individual acquires those
traits and qualities by which he is distinguished, and which bear
directly upon his happiness and welfare. It is very important,
then, for every one, and especially for the young, to be very care-
ful as to the impressions he cherishes, the example he imitates,
and the habits he forms. These are important elements which go
to constitute character, and if they are of an improper nature, the
result will be ruinous. Character is everything. It matters not
what a man's reputation may be, without a good character he can-
not be really happy. Methodist Recorder.
239
INFLUENCE OF CHARACTER.
W. M. Taylor, D. I).
influence of character can never be over-estimated. We
call it influence, indeed; but we might, perhaps as
Whately somewhere says with more significance, style it
, for it is continually radiating from a man, and then most
of all when he is least conscious of its emanation. We are moulding
others wherever we are ; and if we were in every respect to live
according to the gospel, we should be the noblest missionaries of the
cross that the world has ever seen. Books are only powerful when
they are read ; sermons are only influential when they are listened
to; but character keeps itself at all times before men's attention,
and its might is felt by every one who comes within its sphere.
Other agencies are intermittent, like the revolving light, which, after
a time of brightness, goes out into a period of darkness ; but reli-
gious principle is continuous in its operation, and shines with the
steady radiance of a star. Hence, of all the ways by which Chris-
tians may tell on the surrounding world, this is the most potent, and
probably there are no means more blessed for the conversion of
sinners, and the elevation of spiritual life among believers, than the
habitual deportment of the disciples of Jesus. Frequently a servant
has been brought to Christ by the sight of the Christian consistency
of her mistress ; and not seldom all the members of a household
have been benefited by the piety of a humble maiden. I have
known the young men of an office seriously impressed by the ster-
ling principle of a fellow-clerk ; and sometimes the holy walk of a
bimple-minded artisan has won not only the admiration, but also the
240
INFLUENCE OF CHARACTER.
initation of his neighbors. Now, this is a means of usefulnet*-
within the reach of every one, and were we thoroughly alive to its
importance, we should he more careful than we are of our conduct,
for is it not the case that, instead of commending Christ by our
livoa, we too frequently give occasion to the enemies of the Lord to
blaspheme, and mar the force of the truth by our inconsistency ?
Instead of adding new energy to the gospel by our conduct, we take
away from its power by our iniquities ; and men say, if the life of a
Christian be such as we have manifested, they will be no Christians.
Who can tell how many have been thus repelled from the word of
truth ? And is it not a fact, that one of the strongest evidences of
the divinity of our religion may be derived from the consideration
that it has survived the injuries inflicted on it by the Christless con-
duct of its professed adherents ? My brethren, is this inconsistency
to continue among us ? Let us to-day resolve that, God helping us,
we shall live more thoroughly in harmony with those noble princi-
ples which Christ enforced by his teaching, and adorned by his
example. In the family, let us cultivate the graces of patience, for-
bearance, love, and self-sacrifice ; in the social circle, let us seek to
manifest meekness and purity ; in business pursuits, let us show that
we are actuated by justice and integrity ; yea, wherever we are, let
us endeavor to have our conversation so worthy of the gospel, that
men may take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus.
A GUILTY conscience is like a whirlpool, drawing in all to
itself which would otherwise pass by. Fuller.
HHHE character of the soul is determined by the character of ita
God.
p 241
STRENGTH OF CHAKACTER.
F. W. Roberhon, D.D.
mistake strong feeling to be strong character. A man
who bears all before him before whose frown domestics
tremble and whose bursts of fury make the children of
the house quake because he has his will obeyed, and his own way
in all things, we call him a strong man. The truth is, that he is a
weak man ; it is his passions that are strong : he, mastered by them,
is weak. You must measure the strength of a man by the power
of the feelings he subdues, not by the power of those which subdue
him. And hence composure is very often the highest result of
strength. Did we never see a man receive a flat grand insult, and
only grow a little pale and then reply quietly ? That was a man
spiritually strong. Or did we never see a man in anguish, stand as
if carved out of the solid rock, mastering himself ? or one bearing
a hopeless daily trial, remain silent and never tell the world what
it was that cankered his home peace ? That is strength. He who,
with strong passions, remains chaste he who, keenly sensitive, with
manly power of indignation in him, can be provoked, yet can
restrain himself and forgive these are strong men, spiritual heroes.
what we have wrought into our characters during life can
we take away with us. Hwnboldt.
CHABAOTKR, good or bad, has a tendency to perpetuate itself.
A. A. Hodge, D. D.
242
WORTH OF CHARACTER.
Qeo. H. Cotom.
'HE two most precious things this side the grave are our
reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the
most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and
the weakest weapon of the other. A wise man, therefore, will be
more anxious to deserve a fair name than to possess it, and this will
teach him so to live, as not to be afraid to die.
HE purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless Reputation ; that away,
Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay.
Shakespeare.
EARNESTNESS OF PURPOSE.
Timothy DwigU, D.D.
earnest men are so few in the world that their very earnest-
ness becomes at once the badge of their nobility ; and as men
in a crowd instinctively make room for one who seems eager
to force his way through it, so mankind everywhere open their
ranks to one who rushes zealously toward some object lying beyond
them.
ll/TOUNT upward 1 Heaven is won by prayer.
Be sober, for you are not there 1 Jofvn Kebfo.
243
WANT OF DECISION.
Sidney Smith.
GREAT deal of labor is lost to the world for the want of a
little courage. Every day sends to their graves a number of
obscure men, who have only remained in obscurity because
their timidity has prevented them from making a first effort, and
who, if they had only been induced to begin, would in all probability
have gone great lengths in the career of fame. The fact is, that in
doing anything in the world worth doing, we must not stand shiver-
ing on the bank, thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in,
and scramble through as well as we can. It will not do to be per
petually calculating risks and adjusting nice chances ; it did all very
well before the flood, when a man could consult his friends upon an
intended publication for a hundred and fifty years, and live to see
its success for six or seven centuries afterward ; but at present a man
waits and doubts, and consults his brother, and uncles, and his par-
ticular friends, till one day he finds that he is sixty-five years of age,
and that he has lost so much time in consulting first cousins and
particular friends, that he has no more time to follow their advice.
There is so little time for over-squeamishness at present, that the
opportunity slips away. The very period of life at which a man
chooses to venture, if ever, is so confined that it is no bad rule to
preach up the necessity, in such instances, of a little violence done
to the f eelings, and efforts made in defiance of strict and sober cal-
culations.
HAT I admire in Columbus, is not his having discovered a
world, but his having gone to search for it on the faith of
an opinion. Turgot.
244
DON'T BE DISCOURAGED.
fF a man loses his property at thirty or forty years of age, it is
only a sharp discipline generally, by which later he comes to
large success. If is all folly for a man or woman to sit down
in mid-life discouraged. The marshals of Napoleon came to their
commander and said : " We have lost the battle and. we are being
cut to pieces." Napoleon took his watch from his pocket, and said :
" It is only two o'clock in the afternoon. You have lost the battle,
but we have time to win another. Charge upon the foe !" Let our
readers who have been unsuccessful thus far in the battle of life not
give up in despair. With energy and God's blessing they may yet
win a glorious victory. Anonymous.
INFLUENCE.
Gharle* Dickens.
>H.EKE is nothing no, nothing beautiful and good, that dies
and is forgotten. An infant, a prattling child, dying in its
cradle, will live again in the better thoughts of those who
loved it, and play its part, though its body be burned to ashes or
drowned in the deepest sea. There is not an angel added to the
hosts of heaven, but does its blessed work on earth in those who
loved it here. Dead ! Oh, if the good deeds of human creatures
could be traced to their source, how beautiful would even death
appear ! for how much charity, mercy and purified affection would
be seen to have their growth in dusty graves I
245
EAUTHLY INFLUENCE.
Thomas Oarlyk.
is a high, solemn, almost awful thought for every individual
man, that his earthly influence, which has a commencement,
will never, through all ages, have an end ! What is done is
done, has already blended itself with the boundless, ever-living,
ever-working universe, and will work there for good or evil, openly
or secretly, throughout all the time. The life of every man is as
the well-spring of a stream, whose small beginnings are indeed
plain to all, but whose course and destination, as it winds through
the expanses of infinite years, only the Omniscient can discern.
Will it mingle with the neighboring rivulets as a tributary, or
receive them as their sovereign ? We know not : only in either case
we know its path is to the great ocean ; its waters, were they but a
handful, are here and cannot be annihilated or permanently held
back.
POWER OF INFLUENCE.
F. W. Fafor.
tUK many deeds, the thoughts that we have thought,
/ They go out from us thronging every hour ;
And in them all is folded up a power
That OR the earth doth move them to and fro ;
And mighty are the marvels they have wrought,
In hearts we know not, and may never know.
246
THE POWEB OF INFLUENCE.
%fjNFLUENCE is the power we exert over others by our thoughts,
5|[ words, and actions by our lives, in short. It is a silent, a
*^ pervading, a magnetic, and a most wonderful thing. It works
in inexplicable ways. "We neither see nor hear it, yet, consciously
or unconsciously, we exert it. No one can think or speak, or act
no one can live without influencing others. "We all sometimes
seem unconscious of this very important fact, and appear to have
adopted the strange idea that what we do, or think, or say, can affect
no one but ourselves. You influence others and mould their charac-
ters and destinies for time and for eternity far more extensively than
you imagine. The whole truth in this matter might flatter you ; it
would certainly astonish you if you could once grasp it in its full
proportions. It was a remark of Samuel J. Mills that " No young
man should live in the nineteenth century without making his influ-
ence felt around the globe." At first thought that seems a heavy
contract for any young man to take. As we come to apprehend
more clearly the immutable laws of God's moral universe we find
that this belting of the globe by his influence is just what every
responsible being does too often, alas, unconsciously. You have
seen the telephone, that wonderful instrument which so accurately
transmits the sound of the human voice 90 many miles. How true
it is that all these wonderful modern inventions are only faint reflec-
tions of some grand and eternal law of the moral universe of God !
God's great telephone I say it reverently is everywhere filling
earth and air and sea, and sending round the world with unerring
accuracy, and for a blessing or a curse, every thought of your heart,
247
THE POWER OF INFLUENCE.
every word that falls thoughtfully or thoughtlessly from your lips,
and every act you do. It is time you awoke to the conviction that,
whether you would have it so or not, your influence is world-wide
for good or for evil. Which ?
There is another immense fact which you or I may as well look
squarely in the face. An wiftuence never dies. Once born it lives
forever. In one of his lyrics, Longfellow beautifully illustrates this
great truth :
" I shot an arrow in the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where ;
* * * * *
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell on earth, I knew not where ;
*****
Long, long afterwards, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke ;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend."
No thought, no word, no act of man ever dies. They are as
immortal as his own soul. He will be sure to find them written
somewhere. Somewhere in this world he will meet their fruits in
part ; somewhere in the future life he will meet their gathered har-
vest. It may, and it may not, be a pleasant one to look upon.
An influence not only lives for ever, but it keeps on growing as
long as it lives. There never comes a time when it reaches its
maturity and when its growth is arrested. The influence which you
start into life to-day in the family, the neighborhood, or the social
circle, is perhaps very small now, very little cared for now ; but it
will roll forward through the ages, growing wider and deeper and
stronger with every passing hour, and blighting or blessing as it
rolls. Clvristum Weekly.
248
PERPETUITY OF INFLUENCE.
J. 0. WMttier,
OTHING fails of its end. Out of sight sinks the stone,
In the deep sea of time, bnt the circles sweep on,
Till the low-rippled murmurs along the shores run,
And the dark and dead waters leap glad in the sun.
DOING GOOD.
Richard Penrotf.
>ET some noble deed be thine
Before the day is ended ;
Ere the sun doth cease to shine,
Ere on thy bed thou dost recline,
Go where the fevered brow doth pine,
And see its wants attended,
And learn that in its restless dream
It craves the pure and limpid stream,
And know that in its fitful madness
It drains the cooling draught with gladneas ;
And the parched lips will bless thee
For the deed of kindness shown,
While some other tongue will tell thee
'Twas not done to one alone ;
For an Eye that never sleepeth
Beheld the action from his throne.
Let some tearful eye be dried
Before the day is ended ;
248
DOUXGt GOOD.
Take the wanderer to thy side,
But his sad folly ne'er deride ;
A multitude of sins thou'lt hide,
In some poor soul befriended,
And learn that in his reckless race
Ofttimes the pathway he will trace
To some harsh words, unkindly spoken,
And which his sobbing heart hath broken ;
Pour the balm of consolation ;
While the listening ear is shown,
Wound it not by ostentation ;
Do thy Master's work alone,
Remembering He ever keepeth
A faithful record on his throne.
Let some hungry child be fed
Before the day is ended ;
Go ! the orphan cries for bread,
Where squalor reigns in all its dread,
And where the widow's mournful tread
Should with thy steps be blended,
And see where vile and misery haunt,
Where shriveled babe and woman gaunt
Are stretched on beds where filth is reeking,
And tottering age with ruffians greeting ;
Perhaps a word of thine may cheer
Some sad heart whose hope had flown,
And bid it cast aside its fear
For a love before unknown,
Seeking Him who ever meeteth
A suppliant at Mercy's throne.
250
SYMPATHY NOT LOST.
>HE look of sympathy ; the gentle word,
Spoken so low that only angels heard ;
The secret art of pure self-sacrifice,
Unseen by men, but marked by angel's eyes ;
These are not lost.
The sacred music of a tender strain,
Wrung from a poet's heart by grief and pain,
And chanted timidly, with doubt and fear,
To busy crowds, who scarcely pause to hear :
This is not lost.
The silent tears that fall at dead of night
Over soiled robes that once were pure and white ;
The prayers that rise like incense from the sonl,
Longing for Christ to make it clean and whole :
These are not lost.
The happy dreams that gladdened all our youth,
When dreams had less of self and more of truth ;
The childhood's faith, so tranquil and so sweet,
Which sat like Mary at the Master's feet :
These are not lost
The kindly plans devised for others' good,
So seldom guessed, so little understood :
261
TRIALS.
The quiet, steadfast love that strove to win
Some wanderer from the ways of sin ;
These are not lost.
Not lost, O Lord ! for in thy city bright
Our eyes shall see the past by clearer light,
And things long hidden from our gaze below
Thou wilt reveal, and we shall surely know
They were not lost. Anonymous.
TEIALS.
come in a thousand different forms, and as many
avenues are open to their approach. They come from phys-
ical appetities, aesthetic tastes, social habits, bodily ills, the
desire for gain, the love of luxury and of ease. They come through
every contact with the unrenewed mind of the world, and from the
assaults of Satan. They come with the warm throbbings of our
youthful lives, keep pace with the measured tread of manhood's
noon, and depart not from the descending footsteps of decrepitude
and age. " Lead us not into temptation," should ever remind us of
our utter weakness and absolute dependence upon Almighty support
But we may not hope to be entirely free from either disciplinary
trial or the fiery darts of the enemy, until we reach that land into
which shall enter nothing that deceiveth or maketh a lie.
' * Courage, my soul ; thy bitter cross
In every trial here,
Shall bear thee to thy heaven above,
But shall not enter there."
Anonymous.
262
TRIALS, A TEST OF CHARACTER.
Wm. Morley Puruhan, LL.D.
are all the efforts of slander, permanently to injure the
fame of a good man! There is a cascade in a lovely
Swiss valley which the fierce winds catch and scatter so
Boon as it pours over the summit of the rock, and for a season the
continuity of the fall is broken, and you see nothing but a feathery
wreath of apparently helpless spray ; but if you look further down
the consistency is recovered, and the Staubbach pours its rejoicing
waters as if no breeze had blown at all. Nay, the blast which
interrupts it only fans it into more marvelous loveliness, and
makes it a shrine of beauty where all pilgrim footsteps travel And
BO the blasts of calumny, howl they ever so fiercely over the good
man's head, contribute to his juster appreciation and to his wider
fame. What are circumstances, I wonder, that they should hinder
a true man when his heart is set within him to do a right thing 1
Let a man be firmly principled in his religion, he may travel
from the tropics to the poles, it will never catch cold on the jour-
ney. Set him down in the desert, and just as the palm tree thrusts
its roots beneath the envious sand in search of sustenance, he will
manage somehow to find living water there. Banish him to the
dreariest Patmos you can find, he will get a grand Apocalypse
among its barren crags. Thrust him into an inner prison, and
make his feet fast in the stocks, the doxology will reverberate
through the dungeon, making such melody within its walls of stone
that the jailer shall relapse into a man, and the prisoners hearing it
shall dream of freedom and of home.
253
ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS IN LIFE.
A. D. P.
brilliant students gather into our seminary halls who
disappoint the ardent hopes of friends. One of the most
prominent sources of failure is a trust in genius, and a for-
getting the necessities of labor. In my seminary days I remember
few students who gave promise of success, but that prated of genius,
and relied upon genius as a power that was to carry them, as poets,
as lawyers, as preachers, up to the world's gaze, and no doubt many
an old student is plodding in the dust to-day who is just beginning
to find out that what we call genius was only an ignis fatuus. A
desire to be somewhat, was mistaken for the power to do. They are
just beginning to find out that desire ; that ardent aspiration is not
power, and we are beginning to go to the true sources of strength.
Years are wasted, but it may not yet be too late, O ardent-souled
alumnus, to rise ! " Shut a man alone from the world, bookless and
friendless, he will write thoughts of power." That was my faith
now I receive as my creed the thought that the truest genius is the
genius of hard work. In most cases what is termed bright-eyed
genius, is the student's evil genius, the real siren that sings amid
the rocks along the student's sail-way to deceive hia soul into false
hopes! O oblivion! oblivion! how many brilliant students hast
thou embosomed in thy waters, who verily thought the lightness of
their bodies would carry them gaily on the stream, forgetting that
all people must make endeavor to swim, or else consent to sink
beneath thy silent waves !
We read the lives of poets, learning how they wrote, but seek no
254
ELEMENTS OP SUCCESS IN LIPB.
power for ourselves, and write no poetry. "We become inspired by
the lives of heroes, bnt perform no heroic acts. We listen to tale*
of the miners concerning the riches of the inner world, and vainly
dream that these are to come at our bidding, but we delve not in the
mines. The most common kind of originality and genius is that
which makes good use of ideas, let them come from what source
they may. Genius is the power which makes good use of knowl-
edge, and presents old truths in a new light. In each new adjust-
ment the kaleidoscope exhibits new beauties ; so the true man, with
ardent study, adjusts and re-adjusts old thoughts, and what we call
genius is, as the country parson has it, the " successful putting of
hings." If one would be a true poet, or orator, he must have
matter, and to get this he must leave for awhile these poets and
these poets' lives, and go down into the under-world, and behold the
foundation of things. He must study the first principles of wisdom,
strict reasonings on the human mind, the deep and momentous
truths of the past world, histories, antiquities, and philosophy. He
must leave, for a season, the floating chimeras of the upper world,
and search the hidden depths of truth ; must dive deep into his own
heart and there trace motives and desires, and when he is an adept
there he may come above ground and stalk abroad among the stu-
pendous realities of the world.
The idea of study does not demand that we shall always be
poring over books. A man may study as he lolls over a fish-pole,
or lies beneath a tree. Under such circumstances, often, a man's
best thoughts come to him. Because a man to whom we have
accorded genius dashes off at times great things, is no sign there
was no forethought. Impromptu thoughts are generally fruits of
seeds before sown. The dashing off of a fine poem is often only
the outbursting of a volcano that has long been seething, or the
overflow of a dam that has long been collecting. The mighty river,
255
ELEMENTS OP SUCCESS IN LIFE.
which seems to have within itself the elements of an eternal flow,
would soon dry up were it not ever fed by the founts and the rains
all along its course. It only pours into the ocean waters it has
gathered from a thousand sources.
Alas, for the many brilliant young ministers that fade after the
first impulses of feeling are calmed ! I hardly remember one bril-
liant young preacher that in the end has amounted to anything.
But the plodders, the workers, are the ones that rise and take
position. The first blaze out like meteors, and soon are lost in shade ;
the second by steady step make slow but sure footsteps on to success.
But while matter and power are, in great measure, things of
acquirement, it is true that peculiarities of nature or experience
give a tinge to all the outgoings of our talents. This peculiar tone
of the soul is what all the time we have been mistaking for genius.
The spirit of earnestness should give tone to every effort, or it will
be like a tinking cymbal. Whatever we would do well, we must
not only do with our intellect, but with our souls. Our preachings
should emanate from the brain, and pass through the warm blood
of the heart to the tongue. Some of the sweetest strains of poe-
try, and the most pathetic peals of oratory have emanated from
souls tinged by the mellow hues of sorrow. A man's own life and
heart-movings will make an impress on all he does. Can a poet or
orator paint remorse who has never been in despair ? Can he who
has never been bereaved, utter true words of sympathy in a
parent's ear as that parent weeps over the tomb? True poetry
possesses a kind of divine despair can a heart pour it forth that
ias never known the divine frenzy?
" The grape must be crushed before
Can be gathered the glorious wine ;
So the poet's heart must be wrung to the core
Ere his song can be divine."
256
ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS IN LIFE.
Have you read Poe's Raven that grandest American poem,
which with a weird power deals with the most momentous hopes of
a human soul? Poe has printed a statement that the poem was
the result of mechanical effort ; but to a friend who related to me
the fact, Poe communicated what we are ready to receive as a truth,
the statement that the poem is a recital of a real experience when
within him hope was in terrible conflict with despair, in which con-
flict, alas ! despair comes off victor. Poe's talents, not his genius,
wrote the Raven; Poe's heart, with anguish wrung, gave it its
peculiar pathos. . . . .
When Summerfield was on his dying bed, he exclaimed, " Oh, if
I might be raised again, how I could preach ; I could preach as I
never have preached before ; I have had a look into eternity."
One more truth let me impress upon you, namely : There is little
greatness that is worth the name, that is not founded upon and ac-
companied by sound, moral, Christian principle. How poor, how
vain, how unreliable the acquirements of men, if no religious prin-
ciple gives tone to the impulses! How many have I known who
gave brilliant promise, who have dazzled only to disappoint us because
beneath all outside grandeur there was the cankering influence of a
corrupt heart. Mankind have two wings one the love of woman,
the other faith in religion ; the breaking of either will leave a man
an unsymmetrical, lop-sided creature. One of the most common
errors we fall into in our ardent vigor and youthful wisdom, is to
throw aside religion as a thing beneath us, forgetting it is a thing
about and above us. ....
Our free-school system, the maker of innumerable men ; our col-
leges, the conservators of a higher style of thought ; our charters of
liberty all that we extol in our land, are outgrowths of Christian
principle, or off springs of Christian hearts. Wherever the star-
pangled banner with its star-gems, like angel-eyes peering down as
257
ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS IN LIFE.
watching sentinels, has waved, there, though often invisible, has
waved the banner of the Cross, bearing aloft the noble sentence,
Through this conquer / .
All the callings of life have need of men ; and men are found
in all the callings of life. If you ask what places are vacant in
professional life, I answer there are plenty of vacant places on the
higher seats. There are plenty of common lawyers; there are a
plenty of ordinary physicians ; there is an over-stock of mediocre
preachers, but those who stand on the higher platforms are few.
The hill of fame which, in some sense, is synonymous with the hill
of success, is a tall and tapering cone, having, like pictorial represen-
tations of the temple of Belus at Babylon, a pathway winding round
and round, terrace above terrace, upward. Crowds set out for the
top and along the lower terraces multitudes crowd the way ; but as
you look up the company becomes thinner, till we behold a few
daring strugglers going up, up, up ! and a still smaller number stand-
ing on the apex. Friends, if you are in want of places, go up to the
higher terraces of the pyramid of success. Alexander Selkirk, on liis
lonely isle, could easily sing,
" I am monarch of all I survey,"
For he could also sing,
" My right there is none to dispute."
But an alumnus of to-day goes forth to join in the struggle with one
hundred thousand students who are striving to get upon the thrones I
Yet, nevertheless, there is always room on the higher seats, and
again I say, go up I
"pKESS on ! for it is God-like to unloose the spirit and forget your-
self in thought. N. P. WMi*.
258
AMBITION.
MBITION, the greatest incentive to advancement and civiliza-
tion; the greatest teacher of morality and wisdom; the
foundation of truth and virtue, and at the same time the
instrument of crime and iniquity ; the instigator of intemperance
and rashness ; is divided into two classes, godly and ungodly, the
latter of which was created in Heaven.
We suppose that Heaven is a place of eternal bliss and happiness,
and we have no reason to think otherwise, yet we learn from the
Bible that God allowed Satan, who was once an angel in Heaven,
to be subjected to temptation. For what reason we know not, and
it is not expedient for us to dwell upon the propriety of such an
act, unless we may become skeptical. We are not competent to
criticise the doings of our Maker. It is simply for us to know that
Satan was the sad victim of this ungodly ambition. He was so
ambitious that he desired to be upon a level with God, and on
account of his sin he was cast out of Heaven into everlasting dark-
ness.
When Adam and Eve were created, Satan, who had become a bit-
ter enemy to God, commenced to go about the earth with the malic-
ious determination of robbing Heaven of the sons of men. He first
came to Eve, the weaker of the two in the garden of " Eden," with
the same stumbling-block over which he fell. He well knew that
if the angels in Heaven were not able to resist such a temptation,
Eve would certainly yield to that which would cause her own
destruction. And great was the success of his first temptatioy
which he threw upon the path of mankind, for Eve, burning witD
259
AMBITION.
the eager desire of being a goddess, ate with Adam the forbidaon
fruit, and fell.
Hence this ambition, which was created in Heaven, and trans-
ported to earth, has passed down along the generations until it has
attained its height.
Alexander, who sat down and wept because he had no more
worlds to conquer, was cursed with this ambition. He fought with
no higher principles than the love of glory, and military honors.
He fought not so much in the defense of his country, but went into
foreign lands and burned cities, made widows and orphans, and
robbed proud mothers of their sons, to satisfy the thirst for fame.
Caesar was upon the same footing with Alexander, in this respect,
and thousands of others have lived, and thousands live to-day who
are the unfortunate possessors of this ambition.
There is no lack of such examples. We know that the harvest
of just ambition is success. She laughs at discouragements. In-
stead of being weakened by misfortunes, she is strengthened.
The way to success may be strewn with impediments, but have
ambition as your guide and she will clear the way of all obstacles.
The height of ambition is Heaven. It was the intention of our
Maker that this world should be a world of probation. We were
not created to live and die as do the inferior animals, but we have
been born for a higher and a nobler state. Although we are desir-
ous of leaving a blank at our death, which the world cannot fill ; yet
to what does all this amount ? Life is short at the longest, a
moment compared to eternity. Then when we are ambitious for the
things pertaining to this life, let us not forget the great hereafter.
r I \hLtt drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore. Byron,.
260
A WORTHY AMBITION.
John B. O&ugh.
? OIJNG man I if God has given you brains, heart and voice,
speak out. There are great reforms to be carried on. The
whole nation needs awakening. Speak out, sir, and your
speech will be welcome, wherever and on whatever particular branch
of reforms you choose to make yourself heard. Lift up your voice
for that which is " honest, lovely and of good report." Not in mere
wordy harangue, not in windy palaver, not in grandiloquent spouting,
nor in weary, drawling verbosity not in the jabbering garrulity
which is heard only when the speaker must be delivered of a speech.
But in words of true, sanctified earnestness, opening your mouth
because yon have something useful to say, saying it with the gen-
nine, unstudied eloquence which comes right from the heart, and in
all cases closing your mouth the moment you have done.
i 8 no * what men eat but what they digest, that makes them
strong ; not what we gain, but what we save that makes us
rich ; not what men read, but what they remember that
makes them learned ; and not what we preach but what we practise
that makes us Christians. These are great but common truths,
often forgotten by the glutton, the spendthrift, the book-worm and
the hypocrite. Lord Bacon.
have not wings we cannot soar,
But we have feet to scale and climb,
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time. Longfellow.
261
MATH? HOME LIFE BEAUTIFUL.
Prof. B. G. Northrop.
I~^ me say to parents: Make the home-life beautiful, with-
$ out and within, and they will BOW the seeds of gentleness,
true kindness, honesty, and fidelity in the hearts of their
children, from which the children reap a harvest of happiness and
virtue. The memory of the beautiful and happy home of childhood
is the richest legacy any man can leave to his children. The heart
will never forget its hallowed influences. It will be an evening
enjoyment, to which the lapse of years will only add new sweetness.
Such a home is a constant inspiration for good and as constant a
restraint from evil.
If by taste and culture we adorn our homes and grounds and add
to their charms, our children will find the quiet pleasures of rural
homes more attractive than the whirl of city life. Such attractions
and enjoyments will invest home-life, school-life, the whole future of
life with new interests and with new dignity and joyousness, for life
is just what we make it. We may by our blindness live in a world
of darkness and gloom, or in a world full of sunlight and beauty and
joy ; for the world without only reflects the world within. Also the
tasteful improvement of grounds and home exerts a good influence
not only upon the inmates, but upon the community. An elegant
dwelling, surrounded by sylvan attractions, is a contribution to the
refinement, the good order, the taste, and prosperity of every com
munity, improving the public taste and ministering to every enjoy-
ment. On the other hand, people who are content to dwell in huti
and cellars grow barbarous in their ideas. They become dirty and
ragged in their dress, uncouth in manner, coarse in habits, brutal in
262
WOMAN AT HOME.
character, without aspiration for a better life. There can be no pro-
gress in civilization but improvement in their homes and ground*
accompanies, if it does not directly produce the advance in civiliza-
tion. Improvements, a beautiful village, a fine park, are effective
instruments of civilization and education, and there is protection, as
well as education, in a fervent love of improvement, with its multi-
tude of associations. Attachment to one's native soil is an antidote
to the restless, roaming, and migratory spirit of our youth, as well aa
safe-guard from temptation. Nobody without local attachment can
have genuine patriotism.
WOMAN AT HOME.
T. Da Witt Talmage.
God, O woman ! for the quietude of your home, and
that you are queen in it. Men come at eventide to the
home ; but all day long you are there, beautifying it, sancti-
fying it, adorning it,' blessing it. Better be there than wear Vic-
toria's coronet. Better be there than carry the purse of a princess.
It may be a very humble home. There may be no carpet on the
floor. There may be no pictures on the wall. There may be no
silks in the wardrobe ; but, by your faith in God, and your cheerful
demeanor, you may garniture that place with more splendor than
the upholsterer's hand ever kindled.
To be womanly is the greatest charm of woman.
Gladstone.
THE HOMESTEAD.
Phosb Gary.
the old squire's dwelling, gloomy and grand,
Stretching away on either hand,
Lie fields of broad and fertile land.
Acres on acres everywhere *
The look of smiling plenty wear,
That tells of the master's thoughtful care.
Here blossoms the clover, white and red,
Here the heavy oats in a tangle spread,
And the millet lifts her golden head ;
And, ripening, closely neighbored by
Fields of barley and pale white rye,
The yellow wheat grows strong and high.
And near, untried through the summer days,
Lifting their spears in the sun's fierce blaze,
Stand the bearded ranks of the maize.
Straying over the side of the hill,
Here the sheep run to and fro at will,
Nibbling of short green grass their fill.
Sleek cows down the pasture take their ways,
Or lie in the shade through the sultry days,
Idle, and too full-fed to graze.
364
THE HOMESTEAD.
All ! you might wander far and wide,
Nor find a spot in the country's side
So fair to see as our valley's pride !
How, just beyond, if it win not tire
Your feet to climb this green knoll higher,
We can see the pretty village spire ;
And, mystic haunt of the whippoorwilla,
The wood, that all the background filla,
Crowning the tops to the mill-creek hills.
There, miles away, like a faint blue line,
Whenever the day is clear and fine,
You can see the track of a river shine.
Near it a city hides unseen,
Shut close the verdant hills between,
As an acorn set in its cup of green.
And right beneath, at the foot of the hill,
The little creek flows swift and still,
That turns the wheel of Dovecote mill.
Nearer the grand old house one sees
Fair rows of thrifty apple-trees,
And tall straight pears o'ertopping these.
And down at the foot of the garden, low,
On a rustic bench, a pretty show,
White bee-hives, standing in a row.
Here trimmed in sprigs, with blossoms, each
Of the little bees in easy reach,
Hang the boughs of the plum and peach.
266
THE HOMESTEAD.
At the garden's head are poplars tall,
And peacocks, making their harsh, loud call,
Sun themselves all day on the wall.
And here you will find on every hand
Walks and fountains and statues grand,
And trees from many a foreign land.
And flowers, that only the learned can name,
Here glow and burn like a gorgeous flame,
Putting the poor man's blooms to shame.
Far away from their native air
The Norway pines their green dress wear ;
And larches swing their long, loose hair.
Near the porch grows the broad catalpa tree,
And o'er it the grand wistaria
Born to the purple of royalty.
There looking the same for a weary while
'Twas built in this heavy, gloomy style-
Stands the mansion, a grand old pile.
Always closed, as it is to-day,
And the proud squire, so the neighbors say,
Frowns each unwelcome guest away.
Though some, who knew him long ago,
If you ask, will shake their heads of enow,
And tell you he was not always so,
Though grave and quiet at any time,
But that now, his head in manhood's prime,
Is growing white as the winter's rime.
266
HOME.
T. Do Witt Taknage.
l i|ffF yon wanted to gather up all tender memories, all lights and
Jj[ shadows of the heart, all banquetings and reunions, all filial,
* fraternal, paternal, conjugal affections, and had only just four
letters with which to spell out that height and depth and length
and breadth and magnitude and eternity of meaning, yon would
write it all out with these four capital letters : H-O-M-E.
THE POWER OF KINDNESS.
Wm. Morley Punthon, LL.D.
[UNGER and want are conditions surely of extremest need, and
a word of kindness in such a strait is welcome as the smile of
an angel, for it may redeem from hopelessness and despair,
and a helpful hand-grasp, with something in the hand the while, ii
worth a hundredfold its cost, for it may have ransomed for all
future time the most kingly thing on earth, the manhood of a man,
for industry, and society and God.
RULE OF CONDUCT.
Stntoa.
*|f[ WILL govern my life and my thoughts, as if the whole world
jp were to see the one and read the other ; for what does it sig-
* nify, to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God
(who is the searcher of our hearts) all our privacies are open !
267
FIRESIDE MUSINGS.
Ada A. Chaff*
ITTING where the fitful firelight
Shines and glimmers on the wall,
Listening to the ceaseless patter
Of the raindrops as they fall,
Musing like an idle dreamer
While the moments come and go,
Weaving fancies sad and tender
Into now and long ago.
Fire 1 oh tell me, am I sitting
Lowly at the Master's feet,
With a filial heart accepting
Joy and sorrow, bitter, sweet I
Sitting where, perchance, a mission
Is to shed one little ray
For a beacon to some pilgrim
Groping for the heavenly way ?
Falling raindrops ! tell me, tell me,
Do I heed the still, small voice ?
Listening to the call of duty ?
In the Saviour's love rejoice \
Listening to another's sorrow,
With a hope to soothe the pain ?
Do I scatter love and sunshine
As the clouds the falling rain!
268
FIRESIDE MUSINGS.
Roving thought 1 oh, whither, whither,
In thy musings dost thou speed ?
To some brother weary, toiling,
That perhaps of aid has need ?
Seeking out the spirit wand'ring f
Culling tares from golden grain?
Pondering on Christ's example,
That this life be not in vain ?
Child of earth ! say, art thou weaving
In the tangled web of life
Something more than tender fancies
Strength to brave the coming strife?
Weaving in each little duty,
Better far than wordly fame,
Weaving patience, love, forbearance,
Humbly in the Saviour's name ?
Would that we were ever sitting
Where we'd shed a steady light,
Listening to the voice of conscience,
Constant, always to the right ;
Musing on that better country,
Free from sorrow, care, or blight,
Where we'll weave our heav'nly fancies
If while here we weave aright.
r pHE voices that spoke to me when a child, are now speaking
through me to the world. Bishop Sim/pson.
I WOULD rather be right than be President. Henry Clay.
269
A PLEA FOR HOME.
Theodora L. Ouyler, D.D.
that the long winter evenings have come again it is a
good time to put it in a plea for home. This is the seeding
season for the mind. We have sometimes thought that one
reason whythe Scottish people are such readers and so many of their
humblest cottagers have taken high rank intellectually is that their
winter evenings are so prodigiously long and afford such opportuni-
ties for study.
There is no country in the globe not even excepting Britain
which contains more happy and cultured homes than our own. The
Germans make much of their domestic life, observing birthdays,
weddings, anniversaries, etc., with abundant merry-makings. The
French love cafes and crowds. They have not the word " home "
in their language and not enough of the thing itself in their social
existence. After peeping into some of the smoky, ill-furnished
chalets of Switzerland this year, I could not but feel a new pride
and satisfaction in the homes of the American laborers and small
farmers. Some of the brightest and richest homes in our land are
found under the low, broad roof of the Yankee farm-house. Look
in a moment at the group which glows in the blaze of the hickory
fire. The old father is running the sharp coulter of his mind
through a tough volume of science or theology or politics as steadily
as he put his plow through a stiff sod last summer. Mother lays
down her knitting to read a letter from the tall son at Yale or Wil-
liams or Dartmouth ; perhaps a letter from a missionary daughter in
the Orient or another who is settled in a Colorado parsonage. A
270
A PLEA FOB HOME.
tack of books loads the center-table. There is an antique " sampler"
on the walls, which dear* old grandma worked when she was sweet
sixteen. One of the younger girls touches a lively tune from the
piano before the winter evening is over. One of the older lads gets
back from the singing-school or an apple-bee in time for family
prayers. The old family Bible with its chronicle of wedlock and
births and burials is read devoutly ; and prayer puts its strong hem
around the finished day's work.
This is no mere fancy picture. The real wealth and stability
and virtue and future hope of our republic lie in just such homes
of industry and honest thrift. The best society roots there. The
church of God has its roots there too. If thousands of our young
men in the rural regions truly appreciated the quiet joys and bless-
ings of having such a home for themselves and their children, they
would not be in such hot haste to rush off to the large towns to
"seek their fortunes" and find only a precarious clerkship and a
cold fourth-story room in a boarding-house. If our humble voice
would be heard and heeded, we would take up Horace Greeley's old
refrain and cry aloud : " Stay out of the cities ! They are too full
already." And of nothing are they more full than of evil haunts,
broken expectations, lost characters, and mined lives. But young
men of ambition will pour into the cities in spite of all our notes
of warning. Employers have a duty to them also which is too sel-
dom discharged. It is the duty of thinking about the young clerk,
or salesman, or book-keeper, when the store, the office, or the count-
ing-room is locked up. Those young men must either have a home
or a haunt. Their evenings must be spent somewhere. The
devil will light up his decoy-lamps all over town. Now cannot our
rich employers occasionally invite the young men in their employ
to their own residences, and thus strengthen their own influence and
put in a new tether to hold their young " wards " to personal and
271
A PLEA FOR HOME. %
social purity ? There are no more thoroughly homeless class than
the thousands of youths from the country ; none appreciate more a
friendly invitation to the table or the fireside of a pleasant home.
Church sociables, prayer meetings, Young Men's Christian Associa-
tions, lectures, libraries, etc., are all excellent in their way. But no
one of them exactly fills the aching void and satisfies the hunger
for a glimpse of home.
Business men themselves need to be nudged, too, in regard to the
claims of home and household. Many of them live in an atmos-
phere of excitement and bake their daily bread in a very hot oven.
Many of you need the soothing sedative and cooling of the mind
which only a quiet home can give. When affairs go prosperously
with you, here is an outlet for a portion of your gains. Make yom
own homes attractive. Indulge yourself in the luxury of cheerful,
open fires, instead of black flues in the floor. A glowing open fire-
is a " means of grace " to the children. It makes a bright rallying-
point for the whole family. Tom will not be so anxious to run off
to the theater, and Mary will not be so hungry for an invitation to
the ball or the opera, and all the children will feel the visible influ
ence of one warm, cheerful heart-shrine. Before that fire spend a*
many evenings as you can. If a bad day's business has made yon
sore and unhappy, let your daughter's piano be to your ruffled spirit
what David's harp was to the distempered mind of Saul. Watch
your boy as he piles his blocks on the carpet, and see how easy i*
is to topple over the most ambitious structures when they get out of
the perpendicular. Learn the lesson of some of your own failures
from it, and how to begin again and pile better. A good romp
with your children or a half-hour with them over their lessons will
make them love you the more, and will expel many a " blue devil "
that found entrance into you during the day.
272
MAKE SOME ONE HAPPY.
To have such a home you must make it. The husband whf for-
sakes his household for his evening haunts elsewhere does not
deserve to have a home in this world ; he materially lessens his hope
for a good home in eternity. Beshrew all clubs ! Every true wife
hates the very name of them. She is jealous of such rivals with a
"godly jealousy." If there was a righteous uprising of indignant
wives to make a clean conflagration of every club-house and drink-
ing-haunt in our cities, I should esteem it a noble exercise of
" women's rights " that ought not to provoke the interference of the
fire department.
God meant, when he made us, that we should live in families.
It is the only way that the two sexes can come together without im-
pairing virtue and purity. There is no such school of true religion
on the globe as a happy, God-fearing home. No church is so effec-
tive for restraint from evil and for growth in all graces as "the
church in the house" There stands the domestic altar. There
speaks the word of truth and authority on every day in the whole
seven. There is felt a religion which acts and molds from the cradle
clear on to the judgment-seat. It is a nursery for the noblest life.
It is the earliest, the best, the surest preparation for the Home not
made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
MATTE SOME ONE HAPPY.
T. DeWitt Talmage.
HAT is a good day in which you make some one happy. It ia
astonishing how little it takes to make one happy. Feel that
the day is wasted in which you have not succeeded in this.
MAN'S best powers point him Godward.
Spurgeon.
R 273
THE TKIALS OF HOME.
W. K. Tweedie, D.D.
" Sorrowing yet always rejoicing."
HEN the first death happens in a home it speaks with a
voice which scarcely any other form of tribulation can
equal. We read of wars, and battles, and thousands slain,
but even these are far-off echoes to most, compared with our own
first death. That blow falls upon the very heart, and though faith
may enable even a mother to close the dying eye of her little one,
and smile through her tears, exclaiming
"My Saviour, I do this for the;"
yet nature may be wrung with anguish, even while grace enables
the tried one to triumph.
And the pang is often rendered more acute, or the stroke more
severe, by the inscrutable mystery of a little infant's death. Why
the terrible convulsions ? Why that low wail that smothered cry
far worse for the parent to bear than a blow? Why that little
frame pining slowly away, while skill is baffled in its attempts to
discover the cause ? Why is every breath a sigh or a moan, till even
a mother sometimes flees from the sight and the sound, and feels
that it would be a relief could her little sufferer die ? And when all
is over when the little one is coffined, and the marble dust is about
to be borne to the tomb, why that death at all? That little hand
never did sin ; that little heart never thought sin ; and why, then,
this living only to die this infant shroud, that infant coffin and
274
THE TRIALS OF HOME.
grave ? Have my sins, a parent may ask, brought down thia woe <
Is this the inquity of the fathers visited on the children I
Of this, at least, we are sure, " death passes upon all, for that all
have sinned." " In Adam all die." Thus God shows the mystery,
and bids us, when we cannot understand, be silent and adore.
What we know not now, we shall know hereafter ; and though our
rifled homes may cause the heart to ache, yet if such bereavements
urge the parents more sedulously to prepare for glory, the present
tribulation will deepen and prolong the future hosannas of the tried.
And nature may symbolically teach us the same lesson. When we
enter a mist cloud as it drifts or hovers along the mountain-side
which we are climbing, it sometimes dissolves around us so that the
sunshine becomes undimmed. In like manner, if not here, at least
hereafter, all the mist clouds will clear away from before the parent
who believes. Concerning his children torn from his embrace to the
toiub, he may learn to say,
"For us they sicken and for OB they die."
Meanwhile, could parents remember that they are encountering
their cares, and weeping their tears, and bearing their cross, and
seeing their hopes deferred to-day, or blighted to-morrow, while
attempting to train their children for God, they would be stimulated
to persevere, and not " faint in their minds."
But there is one form of grief more intense than even this.
The trials which crowd our homes are numerous, and no doubt, one
of the reasons may be that some would make their home their
heaven. Their aJJections center there ; and their family is the
Alpha and Omega of their exertions, their joys, and their hopes.
Now to prevent such idolatry, a thorn is often placed in the nest,
and men find labor and sorrow where they expected only sunshine
and smiles. There may be poverty, and that is bitter, or some dis-
275
THE TRIALS OF HOME.
aster may threaten to strip our homes bare, but it is when trials
assume the character of retributions that they convulse a household
the most. It was hard for David to know that Absalom was no
more ; and that he perished a rebel against his king and father,
made the pang more poignant still. But if that father associated
that death with his own home misdeeds, his sorrow would be the
most acute that man is doomed to feel. His touching wail, his
characteristic Oriental outcry over his lost son, thus acquires a
deeper meaning than before. " Would God I had died for thee,"
becomes not merely pathetic but profound. And that is the climax
of all anguish to see an object of affection go down, we fear, to a
darker home than the grave. It is sad for a widowed one to see
the delight of her eyes, the husband of her youth, snatched away
by death. It is agony to an affectionate family to see the mother
who bore them, and bore with them, carried to the narrow house.
But a moral death causes a deeper wound a more remediless sor-
row, and nothing but omnipotent grace can carry a sufferer through
such a grief. While he drinks "the wine of astonishment" his
solace may be " It is the Lord," and " the Judge of all the earth
will do right." But if the mourner find cause for self-accusation
in connection with his grief, his sorrow culminates there, and amid
such sadness the nightfall of life may often find us weeping over the
errors of its morning. If, on the other hand, our sorrows come
directly from another, our solace is more easily found. It will then
be the believer's endeavor to be silent where he cannot understand ;
and while he prays for repentance to the wanderer, he himself will
forgive, remembering that he is what he is only by the grace of
God.
For all this innumerable company of sorrowers, Christ pro-
nounced the benediction we are speaking of. But we must not
limit it to them. " Blessed are thev that mourn, over sin." Not
THE TRIALS OF HOME.
over its final penalty of perdition, but over the hateful and Christ-
wounding thing itself. Genuine sorrow over sin is probably the one
heart-grief which commands the tenderest symyathy of Jesus. How
tenderly He always treated the penitent from that weeping woman
who bathed His feet, clear on to that dying ruffian who prayed to
him from the adjoining cross ! There is no heart in the universe
that so sympathizes with us when we cry out in contrition as the
heart of Calvary's Redeemer. No pain does Jesus look upon so
kindly as the pain felt by the conscience over sin committed and the
spirit grieved.
Selfishness says : " Cover sin," and the sin thus covered up kills
like a cancer. Jesus says : " Confess sin and I will have mercy.
Abandon sin and flee unto me ! " And never do we draw so closely
to Jesus as when our inmost soul has been wounded by the arrows of
conviction, and we have felt what an abominable thing it is to
wound our Master in the house of His friends. The only way to
obtain peace of mind is to fling ourselves into the arms of Jesus.
He never loves us so tenderly as when we lie thus on his bosom as
a child hushes its last sobs on the bosom of its mother. And when
we look up into Christ's countenance, and say : " Dear Master, for-
give me ! " His answer is : " Blessed are they that mourn for sin ;
they shall be comforted." He is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Blessed are they that mourn ; for he who never mourns never
mends. Compunction, if it is of the godly sort, tends to growth in
grace. There are too many dry-eyed Christians in this world.
There ought to be more tears of penitence over our neglects of
Christ, more tears of sympathy with the afflicted, and more tears of
joy over the infinite good things which Jesus brings to us. They
that sow in the tears of contrition shall reap in the joys of pardon,
and the Saviour's smile. Such tears water the roots of our piety.
277
SANCTIFIED AFFLICTION.
Blessed are they that mourn and mend! The ladder to the higher
Christian life starts from the dnst of self-abasement, but every round
in it is a new grasp on Christ.
" Pining soul ! draw nearer Jesus,
Come but come not doubting thus;
Come, with faith that trusts more freely
His great tenderness for us.
" If our love were but more simple,
We should take him at his word ;
And our lives would be all sunshine,
In the sweetness of our Lord."
SANCTIFIED AFFLICTION
FFLICTIONS, if sanctified, are good. They ungrasp our hold
upon the world, and lift the eye to God. Temptations are
good; they make us flee to Christ and cling closer to his
hands. Like spies from the enemy of souls they serve to keep us on
the alert. Good are our inward conflicts with sin, they make us
yearn for heaven. God plucks from us our earthly friends that we
may look upon Him as He is our very best friend. He foils our
earthly hopes that we may not fail of the hope of heaven. He
plunges us into sorrow here that we may escape the sorrow that is
to come. He plants around the tree of pleasure angry briers, that
we may be induced to pluck the fruit of the tree of life. He, at
times, gives this life a bitter taste only to give a keener relish for
the life to come. If sanctified, every trial is a treasure ; each wound
a scar of glory ; each drop of grief will glitter a diamond in the
Christian's crown of bliss.
878
SANCTIFIED AFFLICTION.
Are our trials sometimes great I Great is our reward. Some
times the victims of disappointment here are tantalized by the hope
of often offered but seldom tasted good. The branches of the tree
of life do not withdraw themselves from the hand, and the water of
the river of life never retires from the lip.
The mariner in the midst of a storm longs for the break of day.
The storm-tossed Christian, too, sometimes feels that his night is
long and dark and wearisome. Let him be of good cheer ; behind it
all is coming up a brighter day. By the eye of faith and the aid of
revelation we can already see its streaks. At times we can almost
feel the winds of that fresh morning breaking in upon us 1 Chris-
tians, never despond in temptation, nor repine under losses, nor
murmur in afflictions. Bear them with a smile, for the eternal joys
of heaven far exceed the brief sufferings of earth.
He who was in afflictions, distresses, tumults, labors, who was
beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, 'imprisoned ; was in journeyings often,
in perils of robbers, in perils in the city, in the wilderness, in the
sea ; who was in stripes, in prisons, and in deaths often, could say, I
take pleasure in infirmities, necessities, reproaches, distresses, and
persecutions. Why? For I reckon that the sufferings of this
present time are of no account in comparison with the glory here-
after to be revealed in us.
Now could that white-robed*company be permitted to speak tc
us, we should hear them from the heights of bliss exclaim, in
triumph, "Weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in
the morning. The night is already past, the day is at hand. Then
lift up your heads, for the time of your redemption draweth nigh."
And from the Captain of our salvation made perfect through
sufferings there comes the exhortation, " Forasmuch as Christ hath
suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind ;
for if you suffer with bim ? you shall also reign with him. These
279
SANCTIFIED AFFLICTION.
light afflictions which are but for a moment, work out a far more
exceeding and eternal weight of glory !" The cup which my Father
giveth me, shall I not drink? "Why should I murmur?" said Henry
Martyn, in his last sickness ; " weakness, peril, and pain are but the
ministering angels whose office it is to conduct me to glory." " Oh,
what owe I," says Rutherford, " to the file, to the hammer, to the
furnace of my Lord Jesus 1" Watchman and Reflector.
HOLD it true, whate'er befall,
I feel it when I sorrow most
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
Alfred Tennyson.
HE stars shall fade away ; the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years,
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,
The wreck of matter and the crush of worlds.
Robert Pollock.
TT\EATBPS but a path that must be trod
If man would ever pass to God.
Thomas Parnell.
CONSOLATION.
Mary H. Houghton.
? OT always can we tell when the most vivid lightning and
startling thunder are to come. Light clouds gather here and
there, the sun is temporarily obscured, nothing ominous
appears in air or sky, when, quick as thought, the atmosphere seems
bursting with crash and peal and roar and flashings of fire, that
leave a wonder that everything is not shivered and aflame.
Again the sun shines, and a light shower falls. Soon a rainbow's
broad and brilliant arch repeats itself on the inky clouds that bank
the east. A little later sunset tints of surpassing beauty, pale-blue
and amber, brown and gold, sea-green and rose, purple and gray,
paint floating argosies of cloud that rise from the bosom of the west,
linger at the north, like ships at anchor, then slowly pass from sight
where the fading arches had been. Long rifts of clearer sky, like
far-off, soft-tinted seas, exquisite and of varying color, stretch beyond
and between the shifting fleet.
Some of the saddest experiences of life come without premoni-
tion. Yesterday life went well, hope was in the ascendant ; it was
easy to be content. To-day all is reversed ; the crushed heart can
scarcely lift itself to pray ; speech seems paralyzed. It appears cruel
that such calamity should be permitted when we might have been
so happy. Was there not some way by which it could have been
foreseen and avoided ? Where are life's compensations now I
What are its ambitions worth in the face of this ?
In other homes and in the busy streets move on, in close proces-
sion, life's hurrying cares. There is no pause with the world at
large because grief and desolation sit at our hearthstone.
The clanging bells, from their high towers, call to worship and
281
CONSOLATION.
to prayer. Their voices are unutterably sad. They did not sound
like this a week ago. A ripple of childish laughter floats into the
lonely house. Across the street a proud father leads his innocent,
sunny-haired boy. Further on a cheerful mother walks with her
trio of little ofnes. They are not tearful, or anxious, or bereaved ;
and their happiness, which yesterday would have made us glad,
to-day smites us with a keen sense of contrast. Night comes on,
with its gathering silence and shadow, and is even more dreadful
than the day. Thinking of the loved dead at night, our thoughts,
per force, take the gloom of the grave where their bodies lie ; but
Nature is tender and God is merciful, and there is sure to come
with the triumphant dawn some bright and comforting thought of
that morning-land where their souls are dwelling.
For the saddest day some duty waits ; and when one would with
folded hands keep idle company with grief, temporary consolation
comes unbidden. A little child, with its unceasing activity, its
numberless wants, its quick recovery from tears, its wonder that
we can not be entirely consoled by its caresses and comforted with
its toys, even this shallow comprehension of the storm that is beat-
ing at one's heart, is better than to be left in uninterrupted
communion with sadness.
Whatever the loss, ours is not long a solitary case. To the one
who has it to bear, every trial is a peculiar trial When God's hand
hath touched us we shrink and cry, " WTiat have I done that this
calamity should fall on me ?" We question if there " is any sorrow
like unto our sorrow." If we take thought only of our own cross, it
appears the heaviest of any. But when we begin to recognize the
losses and trials of others, and extend a helpful sympathy even
beyond our family and household, we experience the blessedness of
giving in a way to react upon and comfort our own hearts.
Our burdens, whether of bereavement or disappointment, or
282
CONSOLATION.
wrong or regret, weigh heavier or lighter at different times, accord-
ing to our moods and occupations, or the want of them. We find
some way to bear the grief we cannot escape and which in prospect
we coold not endure. Bitter, indeed, would be all chastening, if no
good came of r.. Who shall say that this rending of the soul, this
breaking up of all the depths of our nature, this strain upon our
capacities for suffering, is but the inevitable chance-work of existence !
What does it mean ? " That the trial of your faith being much
more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with
fire, might be found unto praise, and honor, and glory, at the
appearing of Jesus Christ." Were we perfect in sympathy ? Was
our charity unfailing ? Lacked we not in all directions that symme-
try of faith and purity of practice needed to effect a resemblance to
the divine model ? Would we be strong ? We must often be put
to the trial of our strength. Covet we the best gifts ? They are
not granted to the undisciplined.
We " rise on stepping-stones of our dead selves to higher things."
No one soul is so obscure that God does not take thought for its
schooling. The sun is the central light of the universe, but it has a
mission to the ripening corn and the purpling clusters of the vine.
The sunshine that comes filtering through the morning mists, with
healing in its wings, and charms all the birds to singing, should have,
also, a message from God to sad hearts. No soul is so grief-laden
that it may not be lifted to sources of heavenly comfort by recogniz-
ing the Divine love in the perpetual recurrence of earthly blessings :
" The night is mother of the day,
The winter of the spring ;
And even upon old decay
The greenest mosses cling.
Behind the cloud the star-light lurks ;
Through showers the sunbeams fall ;
For God, who loveth all his works,
Hath left his hope with all."
OUR LAMBS.
<M| LOVED them so,
jjjl That when the Elder Shepherd of the fold
* Came, covered with the storm, and pale and cold,
And begged for one of my sweet lambs to hold,
I bade Him go.
He claimed the pet
A little fondling thing, that to my breast
Clung always, either in quiet or unrest
I thought of all my lambs I loved him best.
And yet and yet
I laid him down
In those white, shrouded arms, with bitter tears ;
For some voice told me that, in after-years,
He should know naught of passion, grief or f ears,
As I had known.
And yet again
That Elder Shepherd came. My heart grew faint.
He claimed another lamb, with sadder plaint.
Another 1 She who, gentle as a saint,
Ne'er gave me pain.
Aghast I turned away.
There sat she, lovely as an angel's dream,
Her golden locks with sunlight all agleam,
284
OUR LAMBS.
Her holy eyes with heaven in their beam.
I knelt to pray.
"Is it Thy will?
My Father, say, must this pet lamb be given f
Oh 1 Thon hast many snch in heaven."
And a soft voice said : " Nobly hast thou striven,
Bnt peace, be still."
Oh ! how I wept,
And clasped her to my bosom, with a wild
And yearning love my lamb, my pleasant child.
Her, too, I gave. The little angel smiled,
And slept.
" Go ! go !" I cried :
For once again that Shepherd laid Hi's hand
Upon the noblest of our household band.
Like a pale spectre, there He took His stand.
Close to his side.
And yet how wondrous sweet
The look with which he heard my passionate cry :
" Touch not my lamb ; for him, oh 1 let me die 1"
" A little while," He said, with smile and sigh,
" Again to meet."
Hopeless I fell ;
And when I rose, the light had burned so low,
So faint, I could not see my darling go :
He had not bidden me farewell, but, oh !
I felt f arewelL
285
OUB LAMBS.
More deeply far
Than if my arms had compassed that slight frame,
Though could I but have heard him call my name
" Dear Mother 1" but in heaven 'twill be the eainet
There burns my star !
He will not take
Another lamb, I thought, for only one
Of the dear fold is spared, to be my sun,
My guide, my mourner when this life is <!one.
My heart would break.
Oh! with what thrill
I heard Him enter ; but I did not know
(For it was dark) that He had robbed me so,
The idol of my soul he could not go
O heart! be still!
Came morning, can I tell
How this poor frame its sorrowful tenant kept f
For waking, tears were mine ; I, sleeping, wept,
And days, months, years, that weary vigil kept
Alas! "Farewell."
How often it is said !
I sit and think, and wonder too, sometime,
How it will seem, when, in that happier clime
It never will ring out like funeral chime
Over the dead.
No tears ! no tears !
"Will there a day come that I shall not weep I
For I bedew my pillow in my sleep,
286
MY BABY.
Yes, yes ; thank God 1 no grief that dime shall keep,
No weary years.
Ay ! it is well ;
Well with my lambs, and with their earthly guide,
There, pleasant rivers wander they beside,
Or strike sweet harps upon its silver tide
Ay 1 it is welL
Through the dreary day,
They often come from glorious light to me ;
I cannot feel their touch, their faces see,
Yet my soul whispers, they do come to me.
Heaven is not far away. Anonymou*.
MY BABY.
UCH a little break in the Bod 1
So tiny to be a grave 1
Oh ! how can I render so soon to God
The beautiful gift he gave I
Must I put you away, my pet
My tender bud unblown
"With the dew of the morning upon you, yet,
And your blossom all unshown ?
My heart is near to break,
For the voice I shall not hear,
For the clinging arms around my neck,
And the footsteps drawing near.
287
MY BABY.
The tiny, tottering feet,
Striving for mother's knee,
For the lisping tones so sweet,
And the baby's kiss to me.
For the precious mother-name,
And the touch of the little hand,
1 am I so very much to blame
If I shrink from the sore demand I
How shall I know her voice,
Or the greeting of her eyes,
'Mid the countless cherubs that rejoice,
In the gardens of Paradise ?
How shall I know my own,
Where the air is white with wings
My babe, so soon from my bosom flown,
To the angels' ministerings ?
And this is the end of it all 1
Of my waiting and my pain
Only a little funeral pall,
And empty arms again.
O, baby 1 my heart is sore
For the love that was to be,
For the untried dream of love, now o^
'Twixt thee, my child, and me.
Yet over this little head,
Lying so still on iny knee,
1 thank my God for the bliss of the dead,
For the joy of the soul set free.
288
CHILDHOOD.
'Tis a weary world, at best,
This world that she will not know.
Would I waken her out of such perfect rest,
For its sorrow and strife ? Ah, no 1
Escaped are its thorns and harms ;
The only path she has trod
Is that which leads from the mother's arms
Into the arms of God. The Evangetist.
CHILDHOOD.
John &. Whittier.
life's sweetest mystery still
jjrt) The heart in reverence kneels ;
**^ The wonder of the primal birth
The latest mother feels.
"We need love's tender lessons taught
As only weakness can ;
God hath his small interpreters ;
The child must teach the man.
We wander wide through evil years,
Our eyes of faith grow dim ;
But he is freshest from His hands
And nearest unto Him !
And haply, pleading long with Him
For sin-sick hearts and cold,
a 289
OUR DEAR ONES.
The angels of our childhood still
The Father's face behold.
Of such the kingdom ! Teach thus u*,
O Master most divine,
To feel the deep significance
Of these wise words of thine I
The haughty feet of power shall fail
Where meekness surely goes ;
No cunning find the key of heaven,
No strength its gates unclose.
Alone to guilelessness and love
Those gates shall open fall ;
The mind of pride is nothingness,
The child-like heart is all.
OUR DEAR ONES.
Jam,*
>OD gives us ministers of love,
Which we regard not, being near ;
Death takes them from us, then we feel
That angels have been with us here !
a blessing to live, but a greater to die ;
And the best of the world, is its path to the sky.
John K MitcheiL
290
THE LITTLE OHTLDREK
Henry W.
LITTLE feet ; that such long years
Must wander on through hopes and fears ;
Must ache and bleed beneath your load ;
I, nearer to the wayside inn,
Where toil shall cease and rest begin,
Am weary thinking of your road.
0, little hands ; that weak or strong,
Have still to serve or rule so long,
Have still so long to give or ask ;
1, who so much with book and pen
Have toiled among my fellow-men,
Am weary, thinking of your task.
O, little hearts ; that throb and beat
With much impatient, feverish heat,
Such limitless and strong desires ;
Mine, that so long has glowed and burned,
With passions into ashes turned,
Now covers and conceals its fires.
O, little souls ; as pure and white,
As crystalline, as rays of light
Direct from Heaven, their source dk in ;
Refracted through the mist of years,
How red my setting sun appears ;
How lurid looks this sun of mine !
291
AEE ALL THE CHILDKEN EN?
Mrt. 8. T.
'HE darkness falls, the wind is high,
Dense black clouds fill the western sky ;
The storm will soon begin.
The thunders roar, the lightnings flash,
I hear the great round rain-drops dash
Are all the children in ?
They're coming softly to my side ;
Their forms within my arms I hide
No other arms as sure.
The storm may rage with fury wild,
With trusting faith each little child
With mother feels secure.
But future days are drawing near
They'll go from this warm shelter here,
Out in the world's wild din.
The rain will fall, the cold winds blow ;
Pll sit alone and long to know,
Are all the children in.
Will they have shelters then secure,
Where hearts are waiting strong and sure,
And love is true when tried ?
Or will they find a broken reed,
When strength of heart they so much need
To help them brave the tide I
292
ABB THE CHILDREN AT HOME I
God knows it all ; His will is best ;
I'll shield them now, and leave the rest
In His most righteous hand.
Sometimes souls He loves are riven
By tempests wild, and thus are driven
Nearer the better land.
If He should call me home before
The children go, on that blest shore,
Afar from care and sin,
I know that I shall watch and wait
Till He, the Keeper of the gate,
Lets all the children in.
AEE THE CHILDREN AT HOME?
Mrs. M. E. Sanggttr.
>ACII day when the glow of sunset
Fades in the western sky,
And the wee ones, tired of playing,
Go tripping lightly by,
I steal away from my husband,
Asleep in his easy-chair,
And watch from the open doorway
Their faces fresh and fair.
Alone in the dear old homestead
That once was full of life,
Ringing with girlish laughter,
Echoing boyish strife,
293
ABB THE CHILDREN AT HOME '<
We two are waiting together ;
And oft, as the shadows come,
With tremulous voice he calls me,
" It is night 1 are the children home P
" Yes, love 1" I answer him gently,
" They're all home long ago ;"
And I sing, in my quivering treble,
A song so soft and low,
Till the old man drops to slumber,
With his head upon his hand,
And I tell to myself the number
Home in a better land.
Home, where never a sorrow
Shall dim their eyes with tears !
Where the smile of God is on them
Through all the summer years !
I know 1 Yet my arms are empty
That fondly folded seven,
And the mother heart within me
Is almost starved for heaven.
Sometimes in the dusk of evening,
I only shut my eyes,
And the children are all about me,
A vision from the skies ;
The babes whose dimpled fingers
Lost the way to my breast,
And the beautiful ones, the angels,
Passed to the world of the blessed.
294
ABB THE CHILDREN AT HOME ?
With never a cloud upon them,
I see their radiant brows ;
M y boys that I gave to freedom
The red sword sealed their vows 1
In a tangled Southern forest,
Twin brothers, bold and brave,
They fell ; and the flag they died for,
Thank God ! floats over their grave.
A breath, and the vision is lifted
Away on wings of light,
And again we two are together,
All alone in the night.
They tell me his mind is failing,
But I smile at idle fears ;
He is only back with the children,
In the dear and peaceful years.
And still as the summer sunset
Fades away in the west,
A ad the wee ones, tired of playing,
Go trooping home to rest,
My husband calls from his corner,
" Say, love ! have the children come ?"
A ad I answer, with eyes uplifted,
" Yes, dear ! they are all at home !"
BABE in a house is a well-spring of pleasure,
A messenger of peace and love,
A resting-place for innocence on earth ; a link between angels
and men. 2t F. Tupp&r.
296
THE DEATH OF CHILDREN.
Oho*. WadMDorth, D.D.
His moral tillage, God cultivates many flowers seemingly only
for their exquisite beauty and fragrance. For when bathed in
soft sunshine they have burst into blossom, then the Divine
hand gathers them from the earthly fields to be kept in crystal vases
in the deathless mansions above. Thus little children die some in
the sweet bud, some in the fuller blossom ; but never too early to
make heaven fairer and sweeter with their immortal bloom.
Verily, to the eye of Faith, nothing is fairer than the death of
young children. Sight and sense, indeed, recoil from it. The
flower that, like a breathing rose, filled heart and home with an
exquisite delight, alas \ we are stricken with sore anguish to find its
stem broken and the blossom gone. But unto Faith, eagle-eyed
beyond mental vision, and winged to mount like a singing lark over
the fading rainbow unto the blue heaven, even this is touchinglv
lovely.
The child's earthly ministry was well done, for the rose does its
work as grandly in blossom as the vine with its fruit. And having
helped to sanctify and lift heavenward the very hearts that broke at
its farewell, it has gone from this troublesome sphere, ere the
winds chilled or the rains stained it, leaving the world it blessed and
the skies through which it passed still sweet with its lingering fra-
grance, to its glory as an ever-unfolding flower in the blessed garden
of God. Surely, prolonged life on earth hath no boon like this I
For such mortal loveliness to put on immortality to rise from the
carnal with so little memory of earth that the mother's cradle seemed
296
MY BOY.
to have been rocked in the house of many mansions to have no
experience of a wearied mind and chilled affections, but from &
child's joyous heart growing np in the power of an archangelic
intellect to be raptured as a blessed babe through the gates of
Paradise ah I this is better than to watch as an old prophet for the
car of fire in the Valley of Jordan.
MY BOY.
John Mot/tori*.
fsff HA \E a son, a third, sweet son ; his age I cannot teD,
!jj[ For they reckon not by years and months where he is gone to
** dwell.
I cannot tell what form is his, what looks he weareth now,
Nor guess how bright a glory crowns his shining seraph brow ;
But I know (for God hath told me this) that he is now at rest,
WTiere other blessed infants be, on their Saviour's loving breast.
I know the angels fold him close beneath their glittering wings,
And soothe him with a song that breaches of heaven's divinest
things.
I know that we shall meet our babe (his mother dear and I),
Where God for aye shall wipe away all tears from every eye.
>HE maelstrom attracts more notice than the quiet fountain ; a
comet draws more attention than the steady star ; but it i*
better to be the fountain than the maelstrom, and star than
comet, following out the sphere and orbit of quiet usefulness in
which God places us. John, Hatt, DJ).
897
HOME BEREAVEMENTS.*
Henry Ward Beeehar.
are joined together, many of us, by a common experience.
Many of us have met in each others' houses and in each
others' company on just snch errands of grief and sympa-
thy and Christian trinmph as this. How many of ns have sent
children forward ; and how many of us feel to-day that all things
are for our sakes ; and that those things which for the present are
not joyous but grievous, nevertheless work in us the peaceable fruit
of righteousness 1 So we stand in what may be called a relationship
of grief. We are knit together and brought into each other's com-
pany by the ministration of grief, made Christian and blessed.
To be sure, if we were to ask this life what would be best, there
is no father, there is no mother, who would not plead with all the
strength which lies in natural affection, " Spare me, and spare mine."
For the outward man this is reasonable and unrebukable; and
yet, if it be overruled by Him who loves us even better than He
loves His own life, then there comes the revelation of another truth :
namely, that the things which are seen are the unreal things, and
that the real things are the things which are invisible.
When our children that are so dear to us are plucked out of
our arms, and carried away, we feel, for the time being, that we
have lost them, because our body does not triumph ; but are they
taken from our inward man ? Are they taken from that which u
to be saved the spiritual man? Are they taken from memory?
Are they taken from love ? Are they taken from the scope and
* Remarks made at the funeral of a child in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn.
308
HOME BEREAVEMENTS.
reach of the imagination, which, in its sanctified form, ia only
another name for faith? Do we not sometimes dwell with them
more intimately than we did when they were with us on earth I
The care of them is no longer ours, that love-burden we bear no
longer, since they are with the angels of God and with God ; and
we shed tears over what seems to be our loss ; but do they not hover
in the air over our heads? And to-day could the room hold them
all?
As you recollect, the background of the Sistine Madonna, at
Dresden (in some respects the most wonderful picture of maternal
love which exists in the world), for a long time was merely dark ;
and an artist, in making some repairs, discovered a cherub's face in
the grime of that dark background ; and being led to suspect that
the picture had been overlaid by time and neglect, commenced
cleansing it ; and as he went on, cherub after cherub appeared, until
it was found that the Madonna was on a background made up
wholly of little heavenly cherubs.
Now, by nature motherhood stands against a dark background ;
but that background being cleaned by the touch of God, and by the
cleansing hand of faith, we see that the whole heaven is full of little
cherub faces. And to-day it is not this little child alone that we
look at, which we see only in the outward guise ; we look upon a
background of children innumerable, each one as sweet to its
mother's heart as this child has been to its mother's heart, each one
as dear to the clasping arms of its father as this child has been to the
clasping arms of its father ; and it is in good company. It is in a
spring-land. It is in a TBummer-world. It is with God. You haye
given it back to Him who lent it to you.
Now, the giving back is very hard, but you cannot give back to
God all that you received with your child. You cannot give back
to God those springs of new and deeper affection which were
299
HOME BEREAVEMENTS.
awakened by the coming of this little one. Yon cannot give back
to God the experiences which yon have had in dwelling with your
darling. You cannot give back to God the hours which, when you
look upon them now, seem like one golden chain of linked happi-
ness.
You are better, you are riper, you are richer, even in this hour
of bereavement, than you were. God gave ; and he has not taken
away except in outward form. He holds, he keeps, he reserves, he
watches, he loves. You shall have again that which you have given
back to him only outwardly.
Meanwhile, the key is in your hand ; and it is not a black iron
key ; it is a golden key of faith and of love. This little child has
taught you to follow it. There will not be a sunrise or a sunset
when you will not in imagination go through the gate of heaven
after it. There is no door so fast that a mother's love and a father's
love will not open it and follow a beloved child. And so, by its
ministration, this child will guide you a thousand times into a real-
ization of the great spirit-land, and into a faith of the invisible,
which will make you as much larger as it makes you less dependent
on the body, and more rich in the fruitage of the spirit.
To-day, then, we have an errand of thanksgiving. We thank
God for sending this little gift into this household. We thank God
for the light which he kindled here, and which burned with so pure a
flame, and taught so sweet a lesson. And we thank God, that, when
this child was to go to a better place, it walked so few steps, for so
few hours, through pain. Men who look on the dark side shake the
head, and say, " Oh, how sudden !" but I say, Since it was to go,
God be thanked that it was permitted to pass through so brief a
period of suffering ; that there were no long weeks or months of
gradual decay and then a final extinction ; that out of the fullness of
health it dropped into the fullness of heaven, leaving ita body as it
800
THE ANGEL-CHILD.
lies before you to-day a thing of beauty. Blessed be God for such
mercy in the ministration of sickness and of departure.
I appreciate your sorrow, having myself often gone through this
experience ; and I can say that there is no other experience which
throws such a light upon the storm-cloud. We are never ripe till
we have been made so -by suffering. We belong to those fruits
which must be touched by frost before they lose their sourness and
come to their sweetness. I see the goodness of God in this dispen-
sation as pointing us toward heaven and immortality. In this
bereavement there is cause for rejoicing ; for sure it is that you and
your child snail meet again never to be separated.
THE ANGEL-CHUD.
Mrs. C. L. HIM.
HE may not return, but to her thou shalt go,
When thy days are numbered and finished below ;
And it may to thy angel child be given
First to meet and to welcome her mother to heaven ;
And there, reunited to part never more
One song shall ye sing and one Saviour adore.
N angel stood and met my gaze
Through the low door-way of my tent;
The tent is struck, the vision stays :
I only know she came and went.
J. RussM LowsO.
Ml
EMPTY CRADLES.
Mrs. Georyie A, EL
@H, the empty, empty cradles,
That must now be put away,
For the little ones will need them
Never more by night or day,
For the pure and dreamless sleepers,
Never more they'll rock to rest,
Their bright heads upon the pillows,
Shall no more be softly prest !
In the still and solemn nightfall,
Death's pale angel noiseless sped,
" I have gathered only Lilies,
For my Lord, to-day," he said ;
Oh, the Lilies, the White Lilies,
That made earthly homes so bright,
How many, many buds are missing,
Since the happy morning light 1
Waxen hands, with blossoms in them,
Faces very white and fair,
Curtained eyes, like hidden star-light,
Silken rings of sunny hair.
Hushed and still, we gaze upon them
And we scarcely know our loss ;
But to-morrow we shall feel it,
Almost crushed beneath the cross.
302
EMPTY CRADLES.
Little robes, so richly broidered,
Wrought with so much love and pride.
Dainty laces, pale, pure ribbons,
They must all be laid aside ;
For in glorious robes of brightness
Are the little ones arrayed,
All unstained by earth the whiten ess,
Such a little while they stayed.
Ah, the busy, busy mornings,
And the nights of anxious care ;
Now, there is no need of watching,
There'll be time enough to spare.
There's no baby's voice, we'll listen,
Thinking that we hear it oft ;
On our face no baby fingers,
Touches like the rose leaves soft
Never mind the noisy household,
Nor loud foot-falls on the stair,
'Twill not wake the peaceful sleeper,
There's no baby anywhere.
In a casket, white as snow-flakes,
Nestling all among the flowers,
Are the pure and stainless Lilies,
That a little while were ours.
In our dreams, 'midst dazzling brightness,
And a rapturous burst of song,
Through our tears, we saw above us,
Oh I the radiant spirit throng 1
In their arms so softly cradled
Our own little ones we know,
80S
MY CHILD.
And we hear them whisper gently,
" The White Lilies from below."
Wide the shining gates are opened,
For the children are at home,
Back to us, come the sweet echoes,
" Oh, Buffed them to come 1 "
Pat away the empty cradles,
Keep we only in our sight
That bright glimpse of the fair dwelling
Which the children have to-night 1
MY CHILD.
John PierponL
gf CAKNOT make him dead !
!M[ His fair sunshiny head
^ Is ever bounding round my study-chair ;
Yet when my eyes, now dim
With tears, I turn to him,
The vision vanishes he is not there i
I walk my parlor floor,
And, through the open door,
I hear a footfall on the chamber stair j
I'm stepping toward the hall,
To give the boy a call,
And then bethink me that he is not there t
I thread the crowded street,
A satcheled lad I meet,
304
MY CHILD.
With the same beaming eyes and colored hair ;
And, as he's running by,
Follow him with my eye,
Scarcely believing that he IB hot there 1
I cannot make him dead 1
When passing by the bed,
So long watched over with parental care ;
My spirit and my eye
Seek him inquiringly,
Before the thought comes that he is not there t
Not there ? Where, then, is he ?
The form I used to see
Was but the raiment that he used to wear.
The grave, that now doth press
Upon that cast-off dress,
Is but his wardrobe locked he ia not there I
He lives 1 In all the past
He lives ; nor, to the last,
Of seeing him again will I despair;
In dreams I see him now ;
And on his angel brow,
I see it written, " Thou shalt see me there /*
Yes, we all live to God !
FATHKB, thy chastening rod
So help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear,
That in the spirit land,
Meeting at thy right hand,
'Twill be our heaven to find that he ia there ! "
806
SUNSHINE FOE THE SORROWING.
Bee. Theo. L. Ouyler.
MONG the readers of this paper there must be many who
" wear mourning." Every minister, as he runs his eye over
his congregation, sees the black badge of sorrow in every
part of the house. Yet many of the deepest and sorest griefs of the
heart do not hoist any outward signal of distress. For who ever
puts on crape for a family disgrace, or a secret heartache, or loss of
character, or an acute contrition for sin, or a backsliding from
Christ ? Set it down as a fact that God sees ten-fold more sorrow
than the human eye ever detects.
What a clear streak of sunshine our Lord let into this legion of
sorrowing hearts when he pronounced that wonderful benediction :
"Blessed are they that mourn!" Perhaps some poor Galilean
mother who came up that day to hear Jesus of Nazareth, with
her eyes red from weeping over a lost child, whispered to herself :
" That is for me ; I am a mourner." " Ah ! " thought some peni-
tent sinner who felt the plague of his guilty heart, " that means me ;
I am in trouble to-day." It did mean them. Christ's religion is
the first and only religion ever known in this world which recognizes
human sorrow, and has any sunshine of consolation for broken
hearts. Do cold-blooded infidels realize that fact when they attempt
to destroy men's faith in the Gospel of Calvary ?
We are apt to limit this benediction of Jesus to one class of
sufferers. We take this sweet little text into sick rooms, or to fu-
nerals, or into the lonely group which gather around a mother's
deserted chair or a little empty crib. It was meant for them. It
has fallen upon such stricken hearts like the gentle rain upon the
806
SUNSHINE FOR THE SORROWING.
new-mown grass. Many of us know full well how good the balm
felt when it touched our bruised and bleeding hearts. I remember
how, when one of my own " bairns " was lying in his fresh-made
grave, and another one was so low that his crib seemed to touch
against a tomb, I used to keep murmuring over to myself Wesley's
matchless lines :
"Leave, oh leave me not alone,
Still support and comfort me I"
In those days I was learning (what we pastors have to learn) just
how the arrow feels when it enters, and just how to sympathize
with our people in their bereavements. Somehow a minister is
never fully ready to emit the fragrance of sympathy for others
until he has been bruised himself. There is a great lack about all
Christians who have never suffered. Paul abounded in consola-
tion because he had known sharp tribulations in his own experience.
What a precious spilling of his great sympathetic heart that was
when he overflowed into that sublime passage which ends the fourth
and begins the fifth chapter of his Epistle to the Corinthians. The
outward man perishing the inward man renewed day by day.
The affliction growing " light " in proportion to the transcendent
weight of the eternal glory ! The old tent dropping to pieces and
the heavenly mansion looming up so gloriously that his homesick
soul longed to quit the fluttering tent, and to " be present with the
Lord." These are indeed mighty consolations to bear with us into
our houses of mourning. They are the foretastes which make us
long for the full feast and the seraphic joys of the marriage-supper
of the Lamb. We experience what the old godly negro, " Uncle
Johnson," did when he said : " Oh, yes, massa, I feel bery lonesome
since my Ellen died, but den de Lord comes round ebery day and
gibs me a taste ob de kingdom, jus' as a nus would wid de spoon ;
but oh, how I wants to get holds ob de whole dish!"
807
WE KNOW NOT WHAT IS BEFORE U8.
Mary G. Brainard.
ijf KNOW not what shall befaU me,
God hangs a mist o'er my eyes,
*"* And each step in my onward path
He makes new scenes to rise,
And every joy He sends to me
Gomes as a sweet surprise.
I see not a step before me
As I tread on another year,
But the past is still in God's keeping,
The future His mercy shall clear,
And what looks dark in the distance
May brighten as I draw near.
For perhaps the dreaded future
Has less bitter than I think ;
The Lord may sweeten the waters
Before I stoop to drink ;
Or, if Marah must be Marah,
He will stand beside its brink.
It may be He has, waiting
For the coming of my feet,
Some gift of such rare value,
Some joy so strangely sweet,
That my lips shall only tremble
With the thanks they cannot speak.
808
PASSING AW AT.
O, restful blissful ignorance !
'Tig blessed not to know :
It keeps me still in those arms
Which will not let me go,
And hushes my soul to rest
In the bosom that loved me so !
So I go on not knowing ;
I would not if I might,
Rather walking with God in the dark
Than going alone in the light ;
Bather walking with Him by faith
Than walking alone by sight.
My heart shrinks back from trials
Which the future may disclose,
Yet I never had a sorrow
But what the dear Lord chose ;
So I send the coming tears back
With the whispered word, " He knows
PASSING AWAY.
Mrs. P. D.
is written on the rose
In its glory's full array ;
Bead what those buds disclose
" Passing away."
It is written on the skies
Of the soft blue summer day ;
809
PASSING AWAY .
It is traced in sunset's dyes
" Passing away."
It is written on the trees,
As their young leaves glistening play,
And on brighter things than these
" Passing away."
It is written on the brow
Where the spirit's ardent ray
Lives and burns, and triumphs now -
" Passing away."
It is written on the heart,
Alas ! that there decay
Should claim from love a part
" Passing away."
Friends, friends ! O shall we meet
In a land of purer day ?
There lovely things and sweet
Pass not away.
Shall we know each others' eyes
And the thoughts that in them lay,
When we mingled sympathies?
Passing away.
O, if this may be so,
Speed, speed, thou closing day.
How blest, from earth's vain show
To pass away I
810
BY-AND-BYE.
Mrs. Preston.
? HAT will it matter by-and-bye,
Whether my path below was bright,
Whether it wound, through dark or light,
Under a gray or golden sky,
When I look on it by-and-bye?
What will it matter by-and-bye,
Whether unhelped I toiled alone,
Dashing my foot against a stone,
Missing the charge of the angel high,
Bidding me think of the by-and-bye ?
What will it matter by-and-bye,
Whether with dancing joy I went
Down through the years with a gay content,
Never believing nay, not I,
Tears would be sweeter by-and-bye ?
What will it matter by-and-bye,
Whether with cheek to cheek I've lain,
Close to the pallid angel, Pain,
Soothing myself with sob and sigh
"All will be elsewise by-and-bye?"
What will it matter ? Naught if I
Only am sure the way I've trod,
Gloomy or gladdened, leads to God,
311
BROKEN TIES.
Questioning not of the how, the why,
If I but reach Him by-and-bye.
What will I care for the unshared sigh,
If, in my fear of lapse or fall,
Close I have clung to Christ through all,
Mindless how rough the road might lie,
Sure He will smoothen it by-and-bye ?
What will it matter by-and-bye ?
Nothing but this That joy or pain
Lifted me skyward helped to gain,
Whether through rack, or smile, or sigh,
Heaven home all in all by-and-bye 1
BROKEN TIES.
[OW many there are in every human experience 1 How many
even apart from those that death occasions I Your memory
goes back to the home of your childhood. All its belongings
became, as it were, a part of your nature. You recall the familiar
surroundings. Your interests were bound up with them. And then
the time came when those ties must be sundered. You went forth
from the old home into new scenes. You found new ties binding
themselves about you, but the old ones were broken.
And so it has been all the way along. You became attached to
persons and the shifting scenes of life have carried them away from
you, and though you hear now and then of their well-being, the old
intimacy is perforce gone, the old ties are sundered. The ties that
312
LITE WELL.
hold us to our surroundings are continually breaking. No year ia like-
that which preceded it, no month, no day even.
Let us guard against those things that may give offense or that
may through any fault of ours break the tie that binds us to an old
friend. There is the bitterness of parting and the added bitterness
of self-reproach, the sad recollection of what might have been.
And, since all things and relations change, since ties must be
broken, it is well for us to learn to enjoy to the utmost our present
The time is coming when your home ties perhaps must be sundered.
Enjoy, then, the present relations. It may be a humble home, and
you are planning for one larger, and, to your imagination, more
enjoyable. Yery well ; only do not fail to take all the enjoyment
you can from your present surroundings. Your friend will go to
some distant place by and by. Enjoy his society while you have it.
Your children, while they will always be your children, will never-
theless grow up and go out from the home-nest. The ties that bind
you to their youth will be severed. Enjoy them while you have
Ihem with you. It is well for us to plan as wisely as may be for the
future ; but it is folly for us to seek our enjoyment in the future.
Let us enjoy what we have now, for " change " is written on all our
iransitory and mutable life. It will be only when we have sundered
the last bonds that bind us to this life that we shall be where there
i* no more breaking of ties, no more regrets over pleasures that are
goiTtr, but fweet enjoyment of an eternal present Christian
LIVE WELL.
John
love thy life, nor hate ; but whilst thon liveet,
live well, how long or short, permit to heaven.
813
LIFE. A PLAY.
Shatxipear*.
LL the world'a a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man, in his time, plays many parts ;
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms ;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like a snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress' eye-brow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard ;
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel ;
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair, round belly, with good capon lined,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side ;
His youthful hose well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank ; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
314
COMPUTATION OF LIFE.
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion,
Sam* teeth, scms eyes, scms taste, 8<ms everything.
COMPUTATION OF LIFE.
J. R. Planch*.
>HKEESCOKE and ten, by common calculation,
The years of man amount to but we'll say
He turns fourscore ; yet, in my estimation,
In all those years he has not lived a day.
Out of the eighty, you must first remember
The hours of night you pass asleep in bed ;
And counting from December to December,
Just half your life you'll find you have been dead.
To forty years at once by this reduction
We come ; and sure the first five of your birth,
While cutting teeth and living upon suction,
You are not alive to what this life is worth !
From thirty-five next take for education,
Fifteen, at least, at college and at school,
When, notwithstanding all your application,
The chances are, you may turn out a fool.
Still twenty we have left us to dispose of,
But during them your fortune you've to make ;
And granting, with the luck of some one knows of,
'Tis made in ten, that's ten from life to take.
315
LIFE'S EPITAPH.
Ont of the ten you must allow for yet left
The time for shaving, tooth and other aches
Say four, and that leaves six too short, I vow, for
Regretting past and making fresh mistakes 1
Meanwhile each hour dispels some fond illusion,
Until at length, sam eyes, sans teeth, you may
Have scarcely sense to come to this conclusion,
You've reach'd fourscore, but haven't lived a day.
LIFE'S EPITAPH.
are all very busy busy writing epitaphs. "We do not let
a day pass without doing something in this line, and we
are all busy, not in writing epitaphs for others, but in
writing our own. And we are making it very sure that people will
read what we have written when we are gone. Shall we not be
remembered ? If not by many, we certainly shall by a few, and that
remembrance we are making sure of by the tenor of our lives.
Our characters are the inscriptions we are making on the hearts of
those who know, and who will survive us. We do not leave this
office to others. We are doing it ourselves. Others might f alsify
and deceive by what they might say of us, but we are telling the
truth. The actions of our passing life are facts visible, plain, unde-
niable. We engrave them on the mind of all observers. How
interesting the question, What kind of epitaphs are we writing?
Will they be read with joy or sorrow ? Remember the epitaphs we
write are not for the marble that tells where we lie, but for the
memory of every one that knew us. CongregaUonalist.
816
THE LIFE CLOCK.
HERE is a little mystic clock,
No human eye hath seen ;
That beateth. on and beateth on,
From morning until e'en.
And when the sonl ia wrapped in sleep,
And heareth not a sound,
It ticks and ticks the live-long night,
And never runneth down.
Oh, wondrous is that work of art,
Which knells the passing hour ;
But art ne'er formed or mind conceived,
This life clock's magic power.
Nor set in gold, nor decked with gems,
By wealth and pride possessed ;
By rich or poor, or high or low,
Each bears it in his breast.
When life's deep stream, 'mid beds of flowery
All still and softly glides,
Like the wavelet's step, with a gentle beat,
It warns of passing tides.
When threatening darkness gathers o'er,
And hope's bright visions flee,
817
LIFE'S BOUNDARY LINK
Like the sullen stroke of the muffled oar,
It beateth heavily.
When passion nerves the warrior's arm
For deeds of hate and wrong,
Though heeded not the fearful sound,
Its knell is deep and strong.
When eyes to eyes are gazing soft,
And tender words are spoken,
Then fast and wild it rattles on,
As if with love 'twere broken.
Such is the clock that measures life,
Of flesh and spirit blended,
And thus 'twill run within the heart
Till that strange tie is ended. Anonymcm*.
LIFE'S BOUNDARY LINE.
(THE DOOMED MAN.)
J. Addixon Alexander, 23. A
HERE is a time, we know not when,
A place, we know not where,
That marks the destiny of men,
To glory or despair.
There is a line by us unseen,
That crosses every path,
The hidden boundary between
God's patience and His wrath.
318
LIFE'S BOUNDARY LIKE.
To pass that limit is to die,
To die as if by stealth ;
It does not quench the beaming eye,
Or pale the glow of health.
The conscience may be still at ease,
The spirits light and gay ;
That which is pleasing still may please,
And care be thrust away.
But on that forehead God has set
Indelibly a mark
Unseen by man, for man as yet
Is blind and in the dark.
And still the doomed man's path below
May bloom as Eden bloomed
He did not, does not, will not know,
Or feel, that he is doomed.
He knows, he feels that all is well,
And every fear is calmed ;
He lives, he dies, he wakes in hell,
Not only doomed but damned 1
1 where is this mysterious bourne,
By which our path is crossed ;
Beyond which, God Himself hath sworn
That he who goes is lost ?
How far may men go on in sin ?
How long will God forbear?
"Where does hope end, and where begin
The confines of despair?
319
OF LIFE THE RESPONSIBILI'liJw* Of L1FM.
An answer from the skies is sent,
" Ye that from God depart,
While it is called to-day repent,
And harden not your heart 1 "
BREVITY OF LIFE.
Henry King.
>IKE to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are,
Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew,
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood
E'en such is man, whose borrowed light
Is straight called in, and paid to-night.
The wind blows out, the bubble dies,
The spring entombed in autumn lies.
The dew dries up, the star is shot,
The flight is past and man forgot !
THE KESPONSIBILITIES OF LIFE.
Alexander Reed, D.l>
>HIS world is a solemn fact ; we are in it ; let us try to under-
stand it, let us grapple with its mysteries, let us think much
of its responsibilities, let us ponder the thoughts of the
inquiring minds of past ages, let us prize all the light we have from
man from God, so that we may be guided aright amid its perils
and changing experiences.
820
LIFE.
Lord Byron.
}ETWEEET two worlds life hovers, like a star
'Twixt night and morn upon the horizon's verge,
How little do we know that which we are 1
How less what we may be ! The eternal surge
Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar
Our bubbles ; as the old burst, new emerge,
Lashed from the foam of ages, while the graves
Of empires heave but like some passing waves.
MYSTERY OF LIFE.
Anna Letitia Barbavld.
>IFE 1 I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part ;
And when, or how, or where we met,
I own to me's a secret yet.
Life, we've been long together,
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather ;
'Tis hard to part when friends are dear ;
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear ;
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time ;
Say not Good-night, but in some brighter clime
Bid me Good-morning,
u 821
BOTJNDAKIES OF LIFE.
Oliver 'WendeU Holmes.
)ETWEEN" two breaths what crowded mysteries lie
The first short gasp, the last and long-drawn sigh !
Like phantoms painted on the magic slide,
from the darkness of the past we glide,
As living shadows for a moment seen
In airy pageant on the eternal screen,
Traced by a ray from one unchanging flame,
Then seek the dust and stillness whence we came.
THE VANITY OF LIFE.
Kdw. Young
all this toil for triumphs of an hour I
What though we wade in wealth or soar in fame I
Earth's highest station ends in " Here he lies :"
And " Dust to dust" concludes her noblest song.
LIFE, A BOOK.
John Maton.
AN'S life's a book of history ;
The leaves thereof are days ;
The letters, mercies closely joined ;
The title is God's praise.
,322
OUE LIFE A SERMON.
T. DC Witt, Talmago.
UC birth is the text from which we start. Tenth is the intro-
duction to the discourse. During our manhood we lay down
a few propositions and prove them. Some of the passages are
dull, and some sprightly. Then come inferences and applications.
At seventy years we say " Fifthly and Lastly." The doxology is
sung. The benediction is pronounced. The book closed. It is
getting cold. Frost on the window pane. Audience gone. Shut
up the church. Sexton goes home with the key on his shoulder.
HOW TO LIVE.
Wm. 0. Bryant,
O live that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon ; but, sustain'd and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
>OD demands an account of the past ; that we must render here-
[ after. He demands an improvement of the present, and this
* we must render now.
323
THE VOYAGE OF LIFE.*
>WAS my purpose, on a day,
To embark and sail away,
As I climbed the vessel's side,
Love was sporting in the tide ;
" Come," he said, " ascend make haste,
Launch into the boundless waste."
Many mariners were there,
Having each his separate care ;
They that rowed us held their eyes
Fixed upon the starry skies ;
Others steered or turned the sails
To receive the shifting gales.
LOVE, .with power divine supplied,
Suddenly my courage tried ;
In a moment it was night,
Ships and skies were out of sight ;
* Thia poem is from the pen of Madame Guyon a woman of great wealth,
high intellectual culture, and intense suffering for the cause of Christ. She
lived two hundred years ago, and was a zealous member of the Roman Catholic
Church. Through a long train of complicated providences, involving the
keenest trials, she was at length led to an experience of peculiar richness and
depth. Self was crucified, and she sank into the perfect will of God. Sur-
rounded by the darkness and superstition of papacy, and tempted by all the
blandishments which wealth and social position could offer, she reached a
plane of Christian experience which comparatively few attain among the Pro-
testant Churches. " God is no respecter of persons."
S24
THE VOYAGE OF LIFE.
On the briny wave I lay,
Floating rushes all my stay.
Did I with resentment burn
At this unexpected turn ?
Did I wish myself on shore,
Never to forsake it more ?
No ! " My and," I cried, " le stiM, ;
Jf I must le lost, Iioitt"
Next he hastened to convey
Both my frail supports away ;
Seized my rushes ; bade the waves
Yearn into a thousand graves.
Down I went, and sunk as lead,
Ocean closing o'er my head.
Still, however, life was safe ;
And I saw him turn and laugh ;
" Friend," he cried, " adieu ! lie low,
While the wintry storms shall blow ;
When the Spring has calmed the main,
Ton shall rise, and float again."
Soon I saw him, with dismay,
Spread his plumes and soar away ;
Now I mark his rapid flight ;
'Now he leaves my aching sight ;
He is gone whom I adore,
*Tis in vain to seek him more.
How I trembled then, and feared,
When my Love had disappeared 1
825
THE VOYAGE OF LIFE.
"Wilt thou leave me thus," I cried,
" Whelmed beneath the rolling tide ?"
Vain attempt to reach his ear 1
Love was gone, and would not hear.
Ah 1 return and love me still ;
Bee me subject to thy will ;
Frown with wrath, or smile with grace,
Only let me see thy face !
Evil I have none to fear ;
All is good, if thou art near.
Yet he leaves me cruel fate 1
Leaves me in my lost estate ;
Have I sinned ? Oh, say wherein ?
Tell me, and forgive my sin 1
King and Lord, whom I adore,
Shall I see thy face no more 1
Be not angry I resign
Henceforth all my will to thine.
J consent that thou depart,
Though thine absence break my heart;
Go, then, and forever too ;
AH is right that thou will do.
This was just what love intended ;
He was now no more offended.
Soon as I became a child,
Love returned to me <md smiled.
Jiwer strife shall more betide
'Tvrioot the Bridegroom and his bride.
826
CHRISTIAN LIVING.
TRUE Christian living in the world is like a ship sailing on
the ocean. It is not the ship being in the water which will
sink it, but the water getting into the ship. So, in like man*
ner, the Christian is not ruined by living in the world, which he
must needs do whilst he remains in the body, but by the world
living in him. The world in the heart has mined millions of
immortal souls. How careful is the mariner to guard against leak-
age, lest the water entering into the vessel should, by imperceptible
degrees, cause the vessel to sink ; and ought not the Christian to
watch and pray, lest Satan and the world should find gome
unguarded inlet to his heart ? New York Observer.
FALSE PRIDE IN LIFE.
John G.
|ECAUSE you nourish in worldly affaire,
} Don't be haughty and put on airs,
"With insolent pride of station ;
Don't be proud and turn up your nose
At poorer people in plainer clothes,
But learn, for the sake of your mind's repose,
That wealth's a bubble that comes and goes ;
And that all Proud Flesh, wherever it grows,
Is subject to irritation.
827
LIFE RE-ACTING UPON LIFE.
Mrs. Elisabeth B. Browning*
stream from its source
Flows seaward, how lonely soever its source,
But what some land is gladdened.
No star ever rose
And set without influence somewhere. Who knows
What earth needs from earth's lowest creature 1 No life
Can be pure in its purpose and strong in its strife,
And all life not be purer and stronger thereby.
tUR lives are albums, written through
With good or ill, with false or true ;
And as the blessed angels turn
The pages of our years,
God grant they read the good with smiles,
And blot the bad with tears.
Jolm Milton.
HERE is none made so great, but he may both need the help
and service, and stand in fear of the power and unkindnesB,
even of the meanest of mortals. Seneca.
Do to-day thy nearest duty. CLoetht.
628
YOUNG MEN LEAVING HOME.
>HE critical period in a young man's life is when he leaveb
home, the presence and influence of his parents, his instruc-
tors and early associates, to start in life for himself, and to
make new companions and acquaintances. A large majority leave
the country and settle in our large towns and cities. They are
drawn to these centers supposing the chances of success are more
favorable, and the sphere of operation much larger. They come
with their ambition on fire, and with visions of wealth before them.
They come with a mother's prayers, youthful purity and vigor, inex-
perienced in crime, ignorant of the devices of wicked men, unsus-
picious, and consequently easily entrapped. Soon they find them-
selves among strangers, and with entirely new surroundings. The
quiet of their country home is exchanged for the din and bustle of
business. Instead of spending their evenings around the bright and
pleasant hearthstone of the old homestead, they find themselves in
the crowded street, amid the glare of temptations. It is a great dis-
advantage, in fact, a misfortune, for a young man to be a stranger.
The devil is sure to tempt him when lonely.
How weak we all are when alone. How little we seem when
among absolute strangers. How much of life is wrapped up in our
hearts. How love strengthens character and surrounds it with
bulwarks. All this the young man forfeits when he leaves home
and takes the risk of unfavorable surroundings in a strange city.
A young man without a home, or some special friends whom he
can visit in their own private homes, in a large city, is to be pitied.
YOUNG MEN LEAVING HOME.
For a whole year young men in our cities never sit down in quiet
conversation with a family group. They know no families. . They
are only acquainted with those like themselves, whose chief attrac-
tion is the street or the theater. Society, in the higher sense of the
term, they know nothing about. They are not at ease in the com-
pany of the refined and religious. Their taste is gross and sensual ;
their conversation has the ring of coarseness ; their manners are
rough ; their ease and grace in virtuous company are gone. Such
society becomes distasteful. They prefer the club-room to the
parlor, the ball to the private circle at home, the boisterous crowd of
the street to the intelligent society of ladies or the elevating influence
of music.
Thus we see hundreds and thousands of young men slowly going
down to ruin. One restraint after another is broken; old friend-
ships lose their power ; early recollections fade slowly away ; home
is forgotten, or seldom visited ; church is neglected ; the old Bible,
the mother's gift, is unread and unstudied ; and deeper and deeper
they plunge for gratification. To silence conscience they benumb
their f eelings with strong drink. To bury thoughts of former inno-
cence and of home, they rush into all kinds of amusements and
excitements. Keflection, self-examination, thoughts of accounta-
bility to God, these become purgatory to the soul, hence, they
must be thoughtless, indifferent, and even scoffers at religion. They
soon destroy health, blast character, and come down to a sick and
dying bed. They break a mother's heart, fill an untimely grave,
and lose their souls.
How sad and heartrending this scene. O, God ! pity and save
these straying lambs, lost in our city vices, and on the road to hell !
Christian young men, unite, combine, organize, pray, work, and turn
their A feet into the royal highway of God's redeemed people.
Church-members, welcome them to your churches, your pews.
830
YOUNG MEN LEAVING HOMK.
hem ; invite them to come again. Be kind to them, and
luck a jewel from the mire to shine in Christ's ooronet.
in saving one soul, set in motion a wave of influence and
good that shall roll on through the ages, and never ceafle.
ffi Voices.
mix with the world for the pleasure it affords, we shad be
(j to be among the first to be reconciled to the freedom
id laxity it allows. The world ie ; A ot brought up to us,
ik down to the world ; the drop becomes of the consistence
of the ocean into which it falls ; the ocean itself remains
1. Dr. James Walker.
re judged not by their intentions, but by the result of
ir actions. Lord Chesterfidd.
Bnerous heart should scorn a pleasure which gives others
James Thomson.
is the true alchemist which beate out in patibiit transmu-
on the baser metals into gold.
W. MorUy Pwuhon, LLJ).
only strike while the iron is hot, but make it hoi by striking.
Olvoor Oromwtll.
881
YOUNG MEN LEAVING HOME.
For a whole year young men in our cities never sit down ij
conTeraation with a family group. They know no families.
are only acquainted with those like themselves, whose chief I
tion is the street or the theater. Society, in the higher sense j
term, they know nothing about. They are not at ease in th
pany of the refined and religious. Their taste is gross and
their conversation has the ring of coarseness ; their mann^
rough ; their ease and grace in virtuous company are gone,
society becomes distasteful. They prefer the club-room
parlor, the ball to the private circle at home, the boisterous c
the street to the intelligent society of ladies or the elevating ii
of music.
Thus we see hundreds and thousands of young men slowlj
down to ruin. One restraint after another is broken; old
ships lose their power ; early recollections fade slowly away J
is forgotten, or seldom visited ; church is neglected ; the old ]
the mother's gift, is unread and unstudied ; and deeper and
they plunge for gratification. To silence conscience they bj
their feelings with strong drink. To bury thoughts of forme
cence and of home, they rush into all kinds of amusemenj
excitements. Reflection, self-examination, thoughts of ace
bility to God, these become purgatory to the soul, hencj
must be thoughtless, indifferent, and even scoffers at religion,
soon destroy health, blast character, and come down to a sij
dying bed. They break a mother's heart, fill an untimelyj
and lose their souls.
How sad and heartrending this scene. O, God 1 pity
these straying lambs, lost in our city vices, and on the road
Christian young men, unite, combine, organize, pray, work,
their v feet into the royal highway of God's redeemed
Church-members, welcome them to your churches, yourj
830
YOUNG MEN LEAVING HOME.
Speak to them ; invite them to come again. Be kind to them, and
you may pluck a jewel from the mire to shine in Christ's coronet.
You may, in saving one soul, set in motion a wave of influence and
power for good that shall roll on through the ages, and never ceape.
Christian Voices.
IMF we mix with the world for the pleasure it affords, we shaii be
likely to be among the first to be reconciled to the freedom
*^ and laxity it allows. The world ie aot brought up to us,
but we sink down to the world ; the drop becomes of the consistence
and color of the ocean into which it falls ; the ocean itself remains
unchanged. Dr. James Walker.
JV/TEN are judged not by their intentions, but by the result of
their actions, Lord Chettenrfald.
HPHE generous heart should scorn a pleasure which gives others
pain. James Thomson.
~|~ ABOK ifl the true alchemist which beate out in patient transmu-
Id.
W. MorUy PwMhon, LLJ).
tation the baser metals into gold.
NOT only strike while the iron is hot, but make it hoi by striking.
Olwcr OromwfU.
881
BETUENING HOME.
Miss Mulock.
sometimes meet with men who seem to think that any
indulgence in an affectionate feeling is weakness. They
return from a journey, greet their families with a distant
dignity, and move among their children with the cold and lofty
splendor of an iceberg surrounded by its broken fragments.
There is hardly a more unnatural eight than one of those
families without a heart. A father had better extinguish a boy's
eyes than take away his heart. Who that has experienced the joys of
friendship, and values sympathy and affection, would not rather lose
all that is beautiful in Nature's scenery than be robbed of the hid-
den treasure of his heart ? Cherish, then, your heart's best affection.
Indulge in the warm and gushing emotions of filial and fraternal
love.
TRAVELING HOME.
Byran W. Proctor.
>OUCH us gently, Time,
Let us glide adown thy stream
Gently as we sometimes glide
Through a quiet dream.
Humble voyagers are we,
Husband, wife, and children three ;
One is lost an angel, fled
To the azure overhead 1
883
HOME, SWEET HOME 1
John Byword Pay**.
pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home 1
A charm from the skies seems to follow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.
Home, home I Sweet home 1
There's no place like home !
An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain ;
O, give me my lowly thatched cottage again 1
The birds singing gaily, that came at my call :
Oive me these, and the peace of mind dearer than alL
Home, home I Sweet home !
There's no place like home 1
MEMORY OF HOME.
T. Buchanan Read,
BETWEEN broad fields of wheat and corn
Is the lowly home where I was born.
The peach-tree leans against the wall,
And the woodbine wanders over all.
There is the barn, and as of yore
I can smell the hay from the open door,
And see the busy swallows throng,
And hear the peewee's mournful song.
Oh, ye who daily cross the sill,
Step lightly, for I love it still.
333
JOYS OF HOME.
John Sowing.
WEET are the joys of home,
And pure as sweet ; for they
Like dews of morn and evening come,
To make and close the day.
The world hath its delights,
And its delusions, too ;
But home to calmer bliss invitei,
More tranquil and more true.
The mountain flood is strong,
But fearful in its pride ;
While gently rolls the stream along
The peaceful valley's side.
Life's charities, like light,
Spread smilingly afar ;
But stars approached, become more bright,
And home is life's own star.
The pilgrim's step in vain
Seeks Eden's sacred ground !
But in home's holy joys again
An Eden may be found.
A glance of heaven to see,
To none on earth is given ;
And yet a happy family
Is but an earlier heaven.
384
HARVEST HOME.
Jos. Montgomery.
OW in the morn thy seed,
At eve hold not thy hand ;
To doubt and fear give thou no heed ;
Broadcast it o'er the land.
Beside all waters BOW,
The highway furrows stock ;
Drop it where thorns and thistles grow,
Scatter it on the rock.
The good, the fruitful ground,
Expect not everywhere ;
O'er hill and dale, by plots, 'tis found ;
Go forth, then, everywhere.
Thou knowest not which may thrive,
The late, or early sown ;
Grace keeps the precious germ alive,
When, and wherever strown.
And duly shall appear,
In verdure, beauty, strength,
The tender blade, the stalk, the ear,
And the full corn at length.
335
OUB LAST FAREWELLS FAREWELL TO HOME.
Thou canst not toil in vain ;
Cold, heat and moist and dry,
Shall foster and mature the grain
For garners in the sky.
Hence, when the glorious end,
The day of God is come,
The angel reapers shall descend
And heaven cry " Harvest Home."
OUR LAST FAREWELLS.
Carlos Wttcoat
UR lifo is like the hurrying on the eve
Before we start on some long journey,
When our preparing to the last we leave,
Then run to every room the dwelling round,
And sigh that nothing needed can be found ;
Yet go we must, and soon as day shall break ;
We snatch an hour's repose, when loud the sound
For our departure calls ; we rise and take
A quick and sad farewell, and go ere well awake.
FAREWELL TO HOME.
Robert SovQuy,
^AREWELL, my home, my home no longer now,
Witness of many a calm and happy day ;
And thou, fair eminence, upon whose brow
Dwells the last sunshine of the evening ray.
336
i 1
WELCOME HOME.
THE FAMILY MEETING.
Farewell ! Mine eyes no longer shall pursue
The westering sky beyond the utmost height,
When slowly he forsakes the fields of light.
No more the freshness of the falling dew,
Cool and delightful here shall bathe my head,
As from this western window dear, I lean
Listening the while I watch the placid scene
The martins twittering underneath the shed.
Farewell, my home, where many a day has passed
In joys, whose loved remembrance long shall last.
THE FAMILY MEETING.
Charle* Spragut.
"E are all here !
Father, mother, sister, brother,
All who hold each other dear
Each chair is fill'd ; we're all at home :
To-night, let no cold stranger come :
It is not often thus around
Our old familiar hearth we're found :
Bless then the meeting and the spot ;
For once, be every care forgot ;
Let gentle Peace assert her power,
And kind Affection rule the hour ;
We're all all here.
We're not all here !
Some are away, the dead ones dear,
Who thronged with us this ancient hearth,
And gave the hour to guiltless mirth,
v 337
THE FAMILY MEETING.
Fate, with a stern, relentless hand,
Look'd in and thinn'd our little band ;
Some, like a night-flash, pass'd away,
And some sank lingering day by day ;
The quiet grave-yard some lie there
And cruel ocean has his share :
We're not all here.
We a/re all here 1
Even they, the dead though dead, so dear,
Fond Memory, to her duty true,
Brings back their faded forms to view.
How life-like through the mist of years,
Each well-remember'd face appear? !
We see them as in times long past.
From each to each kind looks are cast ;
We hear their words, their smiles behold,
They're round us, as they were of old
We a/re all here 1
We are all here !
Father, mother, sister, brother,
You that I love with love so dear.
This may not long of us be said ;
Soon must we join the gather 5 d dead,
And by the hearth we now sit round,
Some other circle will be found.
Oh ! then, that wisdom may we know,
Which yields a life of peace below ;
So, in the world to follow this,
May each repeat, in words of bliss,
We're all all here !
338
-a*e HEAVEN,
The way to heaven. You have only to turn to the right
md go straightforward. BISHOP OF LONSDALK.
tie who fteldom thinks of heaven is not likely to get the-?
The way to hit the mark is to keep the eye fixed vj*m it.
BlSUOP ITOR-NK
THE AXGET, OF PEACE.
HEAVEN.
EXPRESSLY FOB THIS WOBK.]
By Fanny J. Orotby.
I where shall human grief be stilled
And joy for pain be given,
Where dwells the sunshine of a love
In which the soul may always rove I
A sweet voice answered Heaven.
O, heart, I said, when death shall come
And all thy cords be riven,
What lies beyond the swelling tide I
The same sweet voice to mine replied
In loving accents Heaven.
Where, where shall friendship never die I
Nor parting hand be given ?
My heart was filled with strange delight,
For in that silent hush of night,
I heard the answer Heaven.
O, voyager on life's fitful sea ;
By stormy billows driven ;
Say, what can soothe thy aching breast,
Or, give thee comfort, joy and rest,
like Mother, Home and Heaven ?
843
THE APOSTLE JOHN'S IDEA OF HEAVEN.
James W. Alexander, D.D.
" We know not what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear
we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as he is."
is the apostle John's idea of heaven. "We shall see Him
as He is." This will be enough. Here we have seen by
glimpses, cloudily, in an enigma, " through a glass darkly ;"
but then clearly, nearly, fully, " face to face." And the object so
seen is of all in the universe the most worthy of being contemplated.
God shines in Him. " In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the God-
head bodily." To see Him, in the fullness of his unvaried excel-
lence, will be a celestial pleasure, well worth dying for.
PAUL'S ESTIMATE OF HEAYEN.
Hannah More.
RECKON," he says, like a man skilled in spiritual arithme-
tic. " I reckon," after a due estimate of tneir comparative
value, " that the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed."
No man was ever so well qualified to make this estimate. Of
the sufferings of the present world, he had shared more largely than
any other man. Of the glory that shall be revealed, he had a
glimpse granted to no other man. He had heard the words of God,
and seen the vision of the Almighty, and the result of this privileged
experience was, he " desired to depart and be with Christ ;" he
desired to escape from this valley of tears ; he was impatient to
recover the celestial vision, eager to perpetuate the momentary fore-
of the glories of immortality.
344
HEAVEN A HOME.
Thomas Guthrit.
fOME 1 oh, how sweet is that word ! what beautiful and tendei
associations cluster thick around it ; compared with it, house,
mansion, palace, are cold, heartless terms. But home ! that
word quickens the pulse, warms the heart, stirs the soul to its depths,
makes age feel young again, rouses apathy into energy, sustains the
sailor in his midnight watch, inspires the soldier with courage on the
field of battle, and imparts patient endurance to the worn-down sons
of toil. The thought of it has proved a seven-fold shield to virtue ;
the very name of it has a spell to call back the wanderer from the
paths of vice ; and far away, where myrtles bloom, and palm-trees
wave, and the ocean sleeps upon coral strands, to the exile's fond
fancy it clothes the naked rock, or stormy shore, or barren moor, or
wild Highland mountain with charms he weeps to think of, and
longs once more to see. Grace sanctifies these lovely affections, and
imparts a sacredness to the homes of earth by making them types of
Heaven. As a home, the believer delights to think of it. Thus,
while lately bending over a dying saint, and expressing our sorrow
to see him lay so low, with the radiant countenance rather of one
who had just left Heaven, than of one about to enter it, he raised
and clasped his hands, and exclaimed in ecstasy, "I am going
home."
IN Heaven hands clasp forever.
Greek Proverb.
345
HEAVEN.
Daniel March, D.D.
are warranted in ascribing to that blessed state all that is
most genial and ennobling in occupation ; all that is most
enduring and satisfying in possession; all that is most
pure and excellent in character. The occupations of heaven are end-
less praise, triumph, joy. The possessions of heaven are infinite
glory, riches, knowledge. The character of heaven is perfect love,
holiness, peace. These things we can at present know only in part,
and the word of divine revelation itself must of necessity tell us
much of what heaven is by telling us what it is not. With all our
studies and all deepest experience we shall never fathom the full
meaning of the one word Heaven.
HEAVEN A CITY.
Thomcu Chithrif.
CITY never built with hands, nor hoary with the years of
time ; a city whose inhabitants no census has numbered ; a
city through whose streets rush no tide of business, nor nod-
ding hearse creeps slowly with its burden to the tomb ; a city with-
out griefs or graves, without sins or sorrows, without births or
burials, without marriages or mournings ; a city which glories in
having Jesus for its king, angels for its guards, saints for citizens ;
whose walls are salvation, and whose gates are praise.
346
HEAVEN A RESTING-PLACE.
Ohat. MacJcay.
>ELL me, ye winged winds,
That round my pathway roar,
Do ye not know some spot,
Where mortals weep no more ?
Some lone and pleasant dell,
Some valley in the west,
Where, free from toil and pain,
The weary soul may rest ?
The loud wind dwindled to a whisper low
And sighed for pity as it answered, no 1
Tell me, thou mighty deep,
Whose billows round me play,
Know'st thou some favored spot,
Some island far away,
Where weary man may find
The bliss for which he sighs,
Where sorrow never lives
And friendship never dies ?
The loud waves rolling in perpetual flow,
Stopped for a while, and sighed to answer, no I
And thou, serenest moon,
That with such holy face
Dost look upon the earth
Asleep in night's embrace,
847
MY FATHER'S HOUSE.
Tell me, in all thy round,
Hast thou not seen some spot
Where miserable man
Might find a happier lot ?
Behind a cloud the moon withdrew in woe,
And a voice sweet but sad responded, no !
Tell me, my secret soul,
Oh, tell me, hope and faith,
Is there no resting-place,
From sorrow, sin, and death,
Is there no happy spot,
Where mortals may be blest,
Where grief may find a balm,
And weariness a rest ?
Faith, hope and love, best boons to mortal given,
Waved their bright wings and whispered, yes, yes, in Heaven.
MY FATHER'S HOUSE.
Mrs. H. B. Stow*.
>ET not your heart be troubled," then He said,
" My Father's house has mansions large and fair j
I go before you to prepare your place ;
I will return to take you with Me there."
And since that hour, the awful foe is charmed,
And life and death are glorified and fair ;
Whither He went, we know the way we know,
And with firm step press on to meet him there.
348
TILE HEAVENLY PLACE.
Howard Orotby, D.D.
are accustomed to say that space and time are only
conditions of our finite and composite natures, and
that to unfettered spirits there would be recognition
of neither space nor time. Whether this be so or not, no man
can tell. It is a transcendentalism that it is folly to talk about.
Time and space are absolute necessities to our thinking. Every
conception of our mind is formed on them as a foundation; and
we can have no idea of God himself except as in time and
space. Hence we must (whether we will or no), take the word
" place " of our text literally. Even if it be not literally a place,
we ihmk of it as a, place, for we cannot think of it in any other
way. We are not up to this. And, moreover, from the words
being used when our Saviour might have said simply, "I go to pre-
pare for you," we may infer that it is actually a place (as we under-
stand the word) that is meant here. Farther than that perhaps
would be only fancy, and in that region of fancy we cannot find it
profitable to wander. Bat that on which we may dwell with profit
is, first, that the place is prepared by our Lord ; and, secondly, that
it is prepared for us. What a place that must be which Christ pre-
pares, which His almighty power and infinite love combined make
ready for our abode ! It must be a place where every purified de-
sire of the heart shall have perpetual satisfaction, and where Christ's
own happiness shall be shared by those for whom he died. If these
are to be the characteristics of that future home, it makes very litr
349
THE HEAVENLY PLACE.
tlo difference what the special forms of occupation, or the objective
elements beheld by the sonl in that better world may be. The
inner sonl longs for happiness it is only the outward and change-
able sense that would dictate its form. That it is pure and holy
and that it has Christ, our Lord and Saviour in it this is enough.
We know the delicious contents of the vessel, if we do not know
the shape and color of the vessel containing.
Imagery may be valuable as a help, provided we do not rest
our hope and affections and desires upon the images, but upon the
ineffable and indescribable beyond. The Christians of the earliest
age were always looking forward. Christ's coming was the con-
trolling and encouraging thought of their daily life. The patriarchs
and holy saints of the other dispensation were always looking for-
ward toward the heavenly country. In different ways the Spirit
of God led them to anticipate the developments of God's saving
grace in the enjoyment of glory. This lifted them above earthly
despondences and saved them from a thousand snares. As God's
people, that should be our position, and looking unto Jesus, unto
him preparing our place, our eternal place. Our conversation or
citizenship is in heaven. Our treasures are there. Our hearts
should be there. God's consolations are not like men's, mere
soothers of the troubled mind, but seeds of positive and independent
joy. God's grace comes with a set-off that belittles the earthly care
and sorrow. If a soldier in the ranks is wounded, it is one thing
to apply soothing cataplasms to stay the pain, but it is a grander
thing and a better thing for his general to come to him and bestow
upon him the title, rank and insignia of a high officer. And so our
God gives us in the heavenly title and its pledges, the possession of
a divine and eternal joy as against all the aches and pains of this
little day of earth. Tea, he makes the aches subserve the glory and
work directly into it. "This light affliction, which is but for a
850
THOUGHTS OF HEAVEN.
moment, worTceth for us a f ar more exceeding and eternal weight
of glory." We have had those who are very dear to ns pass beyond
this narrow world, out of our sight. How the Lord stays our
tears by these words of our text !
They are in the place prepared for them and for us by Jesus.
"To depart" is "to be with Christ." This is the "/or letter" of
the apostles which those dear ones now know all about. And still
the place with its many abodes, is being prepared by the same
Jesus ; and you and I, conducted by Him, will one after another
enter into the joy of our Lord.
THOUGHTS OF HEAVEN.
Wm. Pewce.
G3i LOVE to think of heaven, it seems not far away,
flj[j Its crystal streams refresh me as I near the closing day ;
*^ Its balmy winds are wafted from the heavenly hills above,
And they fold me in an atmosphere of purity and love.
I love to think of heaven, I long to join the choir,
To sing the song cf Jesus my soul would never tire ;
The loved ones gone before me, are joining in the song,
They cast their crowns before the Lamb who sits upon the throne.
I love to think of heaven, where the weary are at rest,
No sorrow there can enter the mansions of the blest ;
All tears are wiped away by the Saviour's loving hand,
And sin and death are banished from that glorious happy land.
I love to think of heaven, and the greetings I shall meet,
From the loving band of loved ones, who walk the golden street ;
And the patriarchs and prophets I shall know them every one :
It is written in the "Word, " We shall know as we are known."
351
BECOGNITION IN HEAVEN.
The gospel seer Isaiah, and the plaintive Jeremiah,
And Elijah, who ascended in the chariot of fire ;
And Daniel, the beloved, and the Hebrew children three,
The robed in white, 'and crowned, will be known by you and me.
Bnt oh, the rapturous vision when our eyes behold the King,
And hear the thrilling welcome, " Ye blessed, enter in ! "
Ten thousand suns encircle Him, ten thousand crowns adorn
The sacred head that bow'd in death the head once crowned wi ih
thorns.
Assemble, all ye hosts, ye thrones, dominions, powers 1
There is no king like Jesus ! there is no heaven like ours !
All glory hallelujah ! let heaven and earth unite
To celebrate His praises with infinite delight.
RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN.
Robert
WHEN a Mother meets on high
The babe she lost in infancy,
Hath she not then for pains and fears,
The day of woe, the watchful night
For all her sorrows, all her tears,
An over-payment of delight ?
T^RIENDS, even in heaven, one happiness would mis*
Should they not know each other when in bliss.
Bishop Thomas
852
ATTRACTIONS OF HEAVEN.
Bernard Barton.
CHOUGH earth has fully many a beautiful spot,
As a poet or painter might show,
Yet more lovely and beautiful, holy and bright,
To the hopes of the heart and the spirit's glad sight,
Is the land that no mortal may know.
O ! who but must pine in this dark vale of tears,
From its clouds and its shadows to go,
To walk in the light of the glory above,
And to share in the peace, and the joy, and the love,
Of the land that no mortal may know I
There the crystalline stream, bursting forth from the throne,
Flows on, and forever will flow ;
Its waves as they roll are with melody rife,
And its waters are sparkling with beauty and life,
In the land which no mortal may know.
And there on its margin, with leaves ever green,
With ito fruits healing sickness and woe,
The fair tree of life, in its glory and pride,
Is fed by that deep, inexhaustible tide
Of the land which no mortal may know.
THE truest end of life is to know the life that never ends.
Wittiwn Pewn.
ENTEKING HEAVEN.
Ito. J. L. Harris.
yon ever try to imagine the soul's impressions when it first
enters heaven ? I remember distinctly my impressions when
entering for the first time the city of New Tork. It was on
the evening of a beautiful May-day. The soft strains of ' music from
the band which had accompanied us on our journey were wafted out
on the evening air, and fell sweetly on many a listening ear. The
sun was just setting. His departing rays hung lingeringly upon the
distant hill-tops, as if loath to bid the city adieu.
The noble steamer which had borne us down the Hudson was
rounding to at the pier. I had heard and thought much about
this great city, of its bustling throng, its crowded Broadway, its
shaded avenues, its enchanting parks, its stately mansions, and
magnificent churches; and now it lies just before me in all its
reality. There were its forests of ship-masts, its domes and lofty
spires glittering in the evening sunlight. I could hear the hum of
voices, the roll of wheels, and the tramp of hurrying footsteps, while
from a passing band there came notes of sweetest music. In a few
moments I was to mingle with that human throng, and look with
my own eyes upon the wonders of the great metropolis. I shall
never forget the impressions of that hour.
If earthly scenes so impress us, how then must it be with the
saint when first entering the great metropolis of heaven ? The old
ship upon which he has crossed the swelling sea is just gliding into
the quiet harbor, and rounding to at the heavenly pier. The eternal
city is just before him ; the sunlight of glory floods all its streets,
354
ENTERING HEAVEN.
jubl bathes its " many mansions " and beantiful landscapes in mellow
splendor. The God-built stories of the New Jerusalem rise before
him in all their matchless grandeur. He sees the golden streets,
the gates of pearl, the sea of glass, the river of life, and the throne
of God.
The song of angels mingling with the harps of heaven now fall
upon his ear. Never has he heard such music. He may have heard
the loud swell of the rich-toned organ, and the majestic burst of
praise which has gone up from a thousand well-trained voices. But
now, when he hears even the first notes of the ransomed throng, the
thoughts of all earthly music are forgotten. John says, " I heard a
great voice of much people in heaven saying, Alleluia ! Salvation,
and glory, and honor, and power, unto the Lord our God. And I
heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice
of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying
Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." As this mighty
chorus comes swelling up the vales, trembling along the hills, and
echoing over the plains, his rapt spirit is filled with an intensity of
bliss known only to heavenly hearts.
Friends who had preceded him to glory now meet him. Angels
come and bid him welcome to the skies, while those who had borne
him from earth to his home in heaven lead him to the Lamb. He
sees now, not " through a glass darkly," but face to face. He eeefl
the Saviour " as He is." The vail has been removed, and he looks
with undimmed vision upon the " King in his beauty."
He stands transfixed, and gazes with mute and inexpressible
wonder. Gushing streams of bliss come pouring in upon him, flood
ing every averie of his wonder-stricken soul. The Saviour, rising,
addresses him, saying, " Well, done, good and faithful servant," *nd
then places a crown upon his head.
O, bliss of bliss I O, joys of joys ! Heaven itself has no language
855
ENTERING HEAVEN.
to express the rapture which a blood-washed soul will experience
when Jesus shall place the crown of life upon its brow and a harp
within its hand.
See him now as the Lamb leads him out u into green pastures,
'and beside the still waters." He stands upon the banks of the crys-
tal stream which flows from the throne of God ; as he gazes upon its
placid surface, the voicings and harpings of saints and angels come
trembling along the shore. Their sweet vibrations strike every
chord of his immortal heart, tuning it to sing in unison with the
heavenly choir, when, for the first time, he joins with the blood-
washed throng in singing, " "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to
receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor,
and glory and blessing. Glory and honor, and power be unto Him
that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever."
Surely one such moment of bliss would more than balance all
the woes and sorrows of earth. It is more than language can
express or imagination conceive. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear
heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which
God hath prepared for them that love Him." I wait in joyous hope
to see the day that " crowns me at His side." I long to feel the
unutterable bliss ; to experience the consciousness of the first full
draught from the fountain of immortality.
"HEN I get to Heaven, I shall see three wonders there.
The first wonder will be to see people there that I did not
expect ; the second wonder will be to miss many persona
whom I did expect to see ; and the third and greatest wonder of all
will be to find myself there. John Newton.
356
DELIGHTS OF HEAVEN.
Isaac
HEKE is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign ;
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain,
There everlasting spring abides,
And never-with'ring flowers ;
Death, like a narrow sea, divides
This heavenly land from ours.
Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dress'd in living green ;
So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
While Jordan roll'd between.
Could we but climb where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o'er,
Not Jordan's stream, nor death's cold flood,
Should fright us from the shore.
Y knowledge of that life is small,
But 'tis enough that Christ knows all,
And I shall be with him. Baxter.
357
BEAUTIFUL HEAVEN.
Delia E. W*Uctr.
BEAUTIFUL Heaven, blissful abode,
JJM Evergreen fields in the city of God ;
*^ The gate ajar by faith I see,
And the blessed Saviour that died for ma
Beautiful fields, ever green,
"With nothing but the vail between.
When life is spent and the vail is rent,
Our vision bright shall behold the sight.
The jasper walls, the streets of gold,
The Lamb of God, the Shepherd's fold,
The saint's sweet rest,
In the land of the blest.
My soul in its vision would fain take its flight,
And soar to that beautiful land of light,
Away to that blissful home on high,
Where we shall live to love and never die.
And there, where the white-robed angels are,
Within the gate that's left ajar,
Would seek to dwell in the land of the blest,
Forever with God's saints at rest.
Oh I beautiful home, sweet Eden land,
No storms ever beat on thy glittering strand ;
O ! my dear Saviour, fain would I flee,
And be forever at rest with thee.
358
SONGS IN HEAVEN.
M. T. B.
music be so very sweet,
While here we plod along,
What mufit it be when our tired feet
Shall tread the Shore of Song 1
If Christian fellowship can bind
Our hearts in bonds of love,
What may it not be when we find
Ourselves at Home, above ?
If here we take delight in prayer,
And love God's throne of grace,
Then may we long, without a fear,
To meet Him face to face.
'Tis said, perhaps it may be true,
" Prayer ends with earthly daya ;
Or, rather, that it flows into
One ceaseless song of praise."
When we shall tread the shore of song,
Where music ever rings ;
When we shall join the radiant throng
And see the King of kings ;
Then shall the worth of prayer be shown,
The soul of song be given,
And sweetest fellowship be known
To all who're safe in Heaven.
m
HYMNS OF HEAVEN.
TTuso. L. Ouytor, D.D.
4feff HAT) rather be the author of "Kock of Ages" that crown-
llj[ jewel of sacred minstrelsy than of either of President Ed-
*** wards' masterly treatises. Charles Wesley did more for
Christ when he sang
"Jesus, lover of my soul I"
than if he had written fifty volumes of sound theology. The hymn
itself would be enough to make Wesley's and Calvin's spirits
embrace each other before the throne of their Kedeemer, and weep
that they ever had a controversy while in the flesh.
Among the ancient hymns of heaven we must not overlook that
noble lyric composed by old Bernard of Cluny. Its opening verse
i%
"Jerusalem, the golden 1
With milk and honey bleat,
Beneath thy contemplation
Sink heart and voice oppressed I"
The whole hymn reads like one of holy Rutherford's " Letters,"
turned into rhyme. It is rich in scriptural imagery, without degen-
erating into the coarser sensuous language which disfigures some of
the piouo doggerel in our Sabbath-school music books. In fact,
some of these descriptions of heaven would answer about as well for
Mohammed's Paradise. They give children the idea that the glori-
fied spirits on high are enjoying a sort of celestial picnic, with no
end of good things to eat, and of angels to sing to them under the
green bowers.
In my own childhood I got a very different conception of the
860
ECHOES FBOM HEAVEN.
holy habitation of the redeemed, when I heard that glorious hjxna
of Isaac Watta :
"There is a land of pure delight
Where saints immortal reign,
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain."
As the inspired singer of this lay looked across Southampton
water to the verdant banks of the Isle of Wight, he caught a beau-
tiful image of death as a "narrow sea" dividing the heavenly land
from ours. He imagines the lovely island across the water to be a
type of that land, and writes
" Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green ;
So to the Jews old Canaan stood
While Jordan rolled between."
Of many another hymn of heaven I wish I had time and space
to write. In our days several fine additions have been made to this
celestial hymnology. Among them are " Rest for the "Weary," and
Dr. Muhlenberg's " I would not Live alway."
ECHOES FROM HEAVEN.
John Oumminff, D.D.
the shores of the Adriatic, the wives of fishermen whose hus-
bands have gone far out upon the deep, are in the habit, at
eventide, of going down to the seashore and singing, as female
voices only can, the first stanza of a beautiful hymn. After they
have sung it, they listen till they hear, borne by the winds across the
desert sea, the second stanza, sung by their gallant husbands as they
are tossed by the gale upon the waves. Perhaps, if we could listen,
we too might hear on this desert world of ours, some sound, some
whisper, borne from afar, to remind us that there is a heaven and a
home. 361
HEAVENLY BEAUTIES.
Ml Marth.
are invited to enjoy a perfect sympathy with the Bride-
groom of our souls, to have a complete oneness of interest
with Tfim in all that concerns His kingdom and glory ; a&
well as to live constantly upon His grace, holiness, wisdom, power,
and lore.
Just as we live our natural lives by breathing in the air that
Burrounda us, unconsciously, more often than consciously, we may
still live and move, and have our being in Christ, even when we are
necessarily occupied with other thoughts and duties ; and be ready,
the instant we are " let go " from outward objects and claims, to
return joyfully " to our own company," our Blessed Lord himself.
Into this purer, higher atmosphere, all who have accepted Jesus
as their Saviour might be lifted up simply by looking unto TTim
with the same look of hope and trust with which they passed from
death unto life.
"Looking unto Jesus to be made patient with Hia patience,
active with His activity, loving with His love ; asking, not * What
can If but, 'What cannot He!' and waiting upon Hig strength,
which is made perfect in weakness. Looking onto Jesus, in order
that the brightness of His face may be the light of our darkness,
that our joys may be holy, and our sorrows calm."
" Higher, higher, every thought
More into His presence brought,
Every passion, every feeling,
More His bidden life revealing.
Less of self, from hour to hour,
More of Christ's transforming power,
362
THE CHRISTIAN IN HEAVEN.
Yearnings heavenward to aspire
Unto Jesus, higher, higher.
"Higher, higher, till at length,
Going on from strength to strength,
Passing up, from grace to grace.
I behold that longed-for face,
Which is ever o'er me leaning
With its deep and tender meaning,
And doth into light retire
But to lead me higher, higher."
THE CHKISTIAN IN HEAVEN.
John 8. 0. Atoott, D.D.
>HE question often is asked, " If Christians in heaven know all
that is transpiring upon earth, suppose a sainted mother sees
a son or a daughter here going in the ways of ruin, how can
she be happy?"
This is a mystery which God has not yet explained to us. It
seems, now, impossible that a mother can be happy in heaven with
her child forever banished from her. But let us remember that
God is more truly the parent of every being on earth than its
earthly father or mother can possibly be.
"We are God's sons and daughters in a far higher sense than we
are the sons or daughters of our earthly parents. God made our
bodies and our spirits. God became man, and, by his own humilia-
tion and sufferings upon the cross, made atonement for our sins.
Year after year, with yearning utterance, God has cried out to us,
" My son, my daughter, give me thine heart." Tes, God is our
father in a far more exalted sense than any earthly parent can be.
Earthly love is frail and variable. God's love is unchanging.
363
THE OHBISTIAW IN HEAVEN.
In the heavenly world we shall be like God. "Beloved, now
are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we
shall be ; bnt we know that when lie shall appear we shall be like
Him." 1 John, iii. 2. God will open to ns there views of which
here we can form no conception. And if God, our living, heavenly
Father, can be happy on His eternal throne while some of Hifl chil-
dren are in persistent rebellion against Him and are suffering the
rebels' dreadful doom, earthly parents, translated to heaven, sharing
God's nature, with souls ennobled, expanded, illumined with celestial
light, will certainly witness nothing in the administration of God's
government which will thrill their souls with anguish.
The intelligence of every hearer will assent to the remark that it
cannot be that our happiness in heaven will be based upon our ignor-
ance. It cannot be that God, in order to save us from sorrow, will,
when we are in heaven, find it necessary for our happiness to con-
ceal from us what is transpiring under His government. There we
shall be like God, and shall know even as we are known.
The question may arise, " What bearing has this subject upon the
doctrine of modern Spiritualism ? " It is sufficient to remark that
in all the descriptions which the Bible gives us of the visits of
angels to this world, they came in dignity worthy of their exalted
character. They were ever intrusted with the fulfillment of some
sublime mission as in all the instances recorded in the Old Testa-
ment ; as in the annunciation to the Virgin ; as when the celestial
retinue accompanied the Son of God to his birth in the manger ; as
when Moses and Elias, in anticipation of the dreadful scenes of the
cross, met Jesus upon the Mount of Transfiguration.
It will require stronger evidence than has ever yet been pre-
sented to my mind to lead me to believe that the spirits of the just
made perfect in heaven can ever come to earth in degrading guise,
performing ignoble functions and bearing but idle talcs.
864
THE CHRISTIAN IN HEAVEN.
It must be to all minds a cheering thought that our loved ones in
heaven are still with us in spirit on earth. It is a cheering thought
that when we die we shall still be interested in all that is transpiring
on this globe ; that we shall know, far more intimately than we can
now know, every event which is taking place here. Our vision is
now limited. Then we shall embrace in one view all the nations,
tribes, and families, from the equator to the poles.
Such is the prospect which is presented to the Christian in the
future world. Such is the home, and such the enjoyments we may
have forever. To extricate man from the ruin in which he is
involved by the fall, Jesus, the Son of God, has died, in atoning
sacrifice, upon the cross. To influence the sinner to abandon rebel-
lion, and return to his allegiance to the heavenly King, the Holy
Spirit pleads in all the earnest voices of nature and of providence.
And our heavenly Father bends over us with parental love, hie
earnest entreaty being, " My son, my daughter, give me thine heart."
Reader, can you renounce such offers, and live in rejection of the
Saviour, when such love invites, and when such dignity and glory
are offered to you ? Become a Christian, and your life upon earth
will be far more happy than it can otherwise be ; your nature will
be ennobled as your name is enrolled in the sacramental hosts of
God's elect ; you may then lead others to the Saviour, and thus be a
co-worker with God in redeeming a lost world.
Become a Christian, and death shall then be to you but transla-
tion to a higher and nobler sphere of action ; then, through all the
ages of immortality, you shall soar in perfect holiness and ever-
increasing bliss. Every possible consideration urges you to become
a Christian. To accept Jesus as your Saviour brings upon you,
eventually, every conceivable blessing. To reject him dooms you to
woe. Delay not this decision. Every hour of delay is full of peril.
Now is the accepted time. To-morrow, to you may never come.
THE LAND OF BEULAH.
0. Huntinyton.
GLOEIOTJS land of heavenly light,
Where walk the ransomed, clothed in white,
On hills of myrrh, through pastures green,
No curse, no cloud upon the scene I
Land where the crystal river glides,
And fruits immortal deck its sides ;
O land of rest in Eden's bowers.
No dreary days, no weary hours I
No nights of unavailing grief,
Nor crying which brings no relief ;
For God shall wipe away all tears,
And into the past are passed our fears.
Beulah, if e'er my weary feet
Shall press thy blissful shore,
And tread each shining, golden street,
To go out thence no more,
What shall I care for all the way
That led to thee at last
For every dark, despairing day,
For ever, ever past ?
If e'er the loved of earthly years
Shall welcome me to thee,
What shall I care for all these tears
Oft flowing bitterly?
8G6
THE SILENT 8HOEE.
If I may stand before His throne,
And look upon His face,
What shall I care that oft, alone,
Like Him, I ran my race?
Safe on thy ever blissful plains,
My heart's own treasure gathered there ;
Farewell for ever, sins and pains,
Farewell, bereavement, sorrow, care 1
THE SILENT SHORE.
Charfa LatA
sprightly neighbor, gone before
To that unknown and silent shore,
Shall we not meet as heretofore
Some summer morning,
When from thy cheerful eyes a ray
Hath struck a bliss upon the day,
A bliss that would not go away,
A sweet forewarning I
is little matter at what hour of the day
The righteous fall asleep. Death cannot com*
To him untimely who has learned to die.
The less of this brief life, the more of heaven ;
The shorter time, the longer immortality.
Dean
887
HEAVEN NOT FAR AWAY.
heaven is nearer than mortals think,
When they look with trembling dread,
At the misty future that stretches on,
From the silent home of the dead.
Tis no lonely isle on a boundless main,
No brilliant, but distant shore,
Where the lovely ones who are called away,
Must go to return no more.
No, heaven is near us : the mighty vail
Of mortality blinds the eye,
That we can not see the angel bands
On the shores of eternity.
The eye that shuts in a dying hour,
Will open the next in bliss ;
The welcome will sound in the heavenly world
Ere the farewell is hushed in this.
We pass from the clasp of mourning friends.
To the arms of the loved and lost ;
And those smiling faces will greet us there,
Which on earth we have valued most.
Tet oft in the hours of holy thought,
To the thirsting soul is given,
That power to pierce through the mist of sense,
To the beauteous scenes of heaven.
868
FALLING LEAVES Typical of the Autumn of Life.
THBEE IS NO DEATH.
Then very near seem its pearly gates,
And sweetly its harpings fall ;
Till the soul is restless to soar away,
And longs for the angel's call.
I know when the silver cord 13 loosed,
When the vail is rent away,
Not long and dark shall the passage be,
To the realm of endless day. Anonymous*
THEKE IS NO DEATH.
Bulwer Lytton.
>HEKE is no death ! The stars go down
To rise npon some fairer shore ;
And bright in Heaven's jeweled crown
They shine forevennore.
There is no death ! The dust we tread
Shall change beneath the summer showers
To golden grain or mellow fruit,
Or rainbow-tinted flowers.
The granite rocks disorganize
To feed the hungry moss they bear,
The forest leaves drink daily life
From out the viewless air.
There is no death ! The leaves may fall,
The flowers may fade and pass away ;
They only wait through wintry hours
The coming of the May.
x 869
THEKE IS NO DEATH.
There is no death I An angel form
Walks o'er the earth with silent tread ;
He bears our best-loved things away,
And then we call them " dead."
He leaves our hearts all desolate,
He plucks our fairest, sweetest, flowers,
Transplanted into bliss, they now
Adorn immortal bowers.
The bird-like voice, with joyous tones
Made glad these scenes of sin and strife,
Sings now an everlasting song
Amid the tree of life.
And where he sees a smile too bright,
Or hearts too pure for taint and vice,
He bears it to that world of light,
To dwell in Paradise.
Bom unto that undying life,
They leave us but to come again ;
"With joy we welcome them the same,
Except in sin and pain.
And ever near us, though unseen,
The dear, immortal spirits tread ;
For all the boundless universe
Is life there is no dead.
870
OUB FRIENDS IN HEAVEN.
[OW beautiful is the belief of man's immortality! The dead
alive again, and forever. "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes,
dust to dust," is only spoken over the body, when consigned
to " the house appointed for all the living." Not such the requiem
of the soul. A refrain of immortality concludes earth's history and
announces eternity's beginnings. "Not lost, but gone before."
Such is the cherished and beautiful faith of man in all ages and
O
lands ; a mere glimmering indeed in minds unirradiated with divine
truth ; and only a power and a joy when God's voice audibly falls
upon the ear in words of counsel and prophecy.
The sainted dead dwell in life; beholding "the king in his
beauty ;" shining " as the brightness of the firmament, and as the
stars for ever and ever." They fade no more, nor realize pain ; a
wealth of love is theirs, a heritage of goodness, a celestial habitation ;
and in them thoughts, hopes, feelings expand and move forward in
ceaseless progressions. We may feel sad because they are lost to us ;
but while we weep and wonder, they are wrapped in garments of
light and warble songs of celestial joy. They will return to us no
more; but we shall go to them; share their pleasures; emulate
their sympathies ; and compete with them in the path of endless
development. We would not call them back. In the homes above
they are great, and well-employed and blest. Shadows fall upon
them no more ; nor is life ruffled with anxious cares ; love rules their
Life and thoughts ; and eternal hopes beckon them forever to the
pursuit of infinite good.
To whom are these thoughts strange and dull? Who has no
371
OUR FRIENDS IN HEAVEN.
treasure in Heaven well-remembered forms hallowed by separation
and distance stars of hope illumining with ever increasing beauty
life's utmost horizon ? What family circle has remained unbroken
no empty chair no cherished mementoes voices and footsteps
returning no more no members transferred to the illimitable
beyond ? Where is he who has stood unhurt amid the chill blasts,
that have blighted mortal hopes, and withered mortal loves ? Alas !
the steps of death are everywhere ; his voice murmuring in every
sweep of the wind ; his ruins visible on towering hill and in seques-
tered vale. We all have felt or seen his power. Beneath l^ie
cypress we rest and weep ; our hearts riven with memories of the
loved and lost ; and yet hope springing eternal from earth's mauso-
leums to penetrate and possess the future.
Heaven is ours ; for is it not occupied by our dead ? Heaven
and earth lay near together in the myths of the ancients ; and shall
it be otherwise in the institutions of Christianity ? We need faith.
Our paths are surrounded by the departed; our assemblies multi-
plied by their presence ; our lives bettered by their ministries.
From beneath night shadows we look forward into the approaching
day ; and while we gaze the beams of the morning spread light and
loveliness over the earth. It is not otherwise, as from beneath the
night of time we peer anxiously after the pure day of Heaven.
Faith penetrates the vail, and bids the invisible stand disclosed ;
while its magic wand wakens into life forms well-known, but holier
and lovelier far than we knew them here. Such thoughts make us
better, purer, gentler. We cannot keep society with the sainted
dead, and with the great God in whose presence they dwell, without
feeling a nobler life throbbing through us. They draw us upward.
We grow less earthly, more heavenly ; and God-like aspirations
come to us, as we wander along the border land where dwell the
sainted dead. Too little do we seek such communings. Our time
372
DUE FRIENDS IN HEAVEN.
is so absorbed with perishable and unsatisfying forms of good ; and
so we lose the image of the heavenly, and grow carnal. The beanty
of our life fades ; and we are left to hanker after passing shadows
and unsubstantial dreams. Let us tear away oftener from these
earthly moorings ; let us walk more steadily in the light of celestial
companionship; and so attain to the true and the good, as they
have attained who roam the hills of immortality.
" They dwell with thee the dead ;
Pavilioned in auroral tents of light ;
Their spheres of heavenly influence round thee spread,
Their pure transparence vailing them from sight,
Angelic ministers of love and peace,
Whose sweet solicitudes will never cease."
Communion by faith with the immortals can not fail to
strengthen us for the stern conflicts of life. At once this earthly
existence is seen in its true light ; the opening of a day that shall
never close ; the spring-time of a year that will know no end, the
initial chapter in a volume whose records shall find no final page
nor incident. When life is thus truly gauged, we learn to place a
proper estimate upon its passing pomps and pleasures ; and we grow
less sensitive to the world's smiles and frowns ; more careful to seek
after the eternal good. The example of the sainted dead, who
toiled and endured till they now reign, affects us; and we feel
strong for like conflicts, and ready for equal labors, till in us too the
mortal shall put on the immortal. Divine ties spring up, and last
forever, binding the heart to the good, the beautiful, the true, and
making it strong for the work and trials of life.
And communion with the dead, whom we have known and
loved on earth, will make Heaven more real and attractive to us ;
dissipating the vagueness of the notion with which it is too often
regarded; begetting within us abiding attachments for celestial
373
MINISTERING ANGELS.
Beats. God, who created the world, and whose providence is every-
where visible in promoting our welfare, is there ; and Jesus, who
died for us, and with whom we have grown familiar in his earthly
history ; and the Holy Spirit, the sanctifier of the church, and whose
gentle influences we have felt within us. And our friends are there,
changeless, loving spirits now, yet with lineaments familiar and
forms well remembered. The homes of the blest are no longer
vague, indistinct, poorly defined. We see them the beautiful city,
the outlined hilk of immortality the on-flowing river making glad
the palaces of God. And we can have an idea of what they must be
how substantial in their foundations how vast in their propor-
tions how rich in their furnishings to be fitting habitations for
the immortals. Heaven comes nearer to us, and grows more attrac-
tive, as we think of the loved ones who dwell there. Anonymous,
MOTSTEKING ANGELS.
>HE beautiful have gone with their bloom from the gaze of
human eyes. Soft eyes that made it springtime to our
hearts are seen no more. We have loved the light of many
a smile that has faded from us now ; and in our hearts have lingered
sweet voices that now are hushed in the silence of death. Seats are
left vacant in our earthly homes, which none again can fill. Kindred
and friends, loved ones, have passed away one by one ; our hearts
are left desolate ; we' are lonely without them. They have passed
with their love to "that land, from whose bourne no traveler
returns." Shall we never see them again? Memory turns with
lingering regret to recall those smiles and the loved tones of those
874
MINISTERING ANGELS.
dear familiar voices. In fancy they are often by our side, but their
home is on a brighter shore. They visit us in our dreams, floating
over our memory like shadows over moonlit waters. When the
heart is weary with anguish, and the soul is bowed with grief, do
they not come and whisper thoughts of comfort and hope ? Yes,
sweet memory brings them to us, and the love we bore them lifts
the heart from earthly aspirations and we long to join them in that
better land. They hover round us, the ethereal, dear, departed ones
the loving and the loved, they watch with eyes that slumber not.
When gentle dreams are wandering to the angel land, in whispers
wake the hymning strains of that bright and happy choir, revealing
many a tale of hope, and bliss, and tenderness, and love. They tell
of sunny realms, ne'er viewed by mortal eye of forms arrayed in
fadeless beauty and lofty anthems to their great Creator's praise
are sounded forth in sweet, seraphic numbers. And this bright
vision of the blest dissolves the tumult of life's jarring scenes ; they
fade in air, and then we glory in the thought that we are heirs of
immortality. And why is it that we regard with such deep rever-
ence and love, those bright, celestial beings of another sphere ? Ah,
it is because they take an interest in our welfare, and joy over our
success in the great battle of life. They are not selfish in their hap-
piness, but fain would have us share it with them. Kwgswoood
Chronicle.
''E have, amid all changes, three unchangeables an unchange-
able covenant, an unchangeable God, and an unchangeable
heaven ; and while these three remain " the same yesterday,
to-day, and forever," welcome the will of our Heavenly Father in
all events that may happen to us. Come what will, nothing can
come amiss. Rw- Matthew Henry.
875
THE STAKLESS CKOWN.
J. L. H.
2AKEED and worn with earthly care, I yielded to repose,
And soon before my raptured sight a glorious vision rose.
I thought, while slumbering on my couch in midnight's
solemn gloom,
I heard an angel's silvery voice, and radiance filled my room.
A gentle touch awakened me ; a gentle whisper said,
" Arise, O sleeper, follow me !" and through the air we fled :
We left the earth so far away that like a speck it seemed,
And heavenly glory, calm and pure, across our pathway streamcl
Still on he went ; my soul was wrapped in silent ecstasy ;
I wondered what the end would be, what next would meet my eye.
I knew not how we journeyed through the pathless fields of light,
When suddenly a change was wrought, and I was clothed in white.
We stood before a city's walls, most glorious to behold ;
We passed through streets of glittering pearl, o'er streets of purest
gold.
It needed not the sun by day, nor silver moon by night ;
Tl>e glory of the Lord was there, the Lamb himself its light.
Bright angels paced the shining streets, sweet music filled the air,
A ad white-robed saints, with glittering crowns, from every clime
were there ;
A ad some that I had loved on earth stood with them round the
throne.
" All worthy is the Lamb," they sang, "the glory His alone."
876
THE STABLESS OEOWN.
But, fairer far than all beside, I saw my Saviour's face,
And as I gazed, He smiled on me, with wondrous love and grace,
Slowly I bowed before His throne, o'erjoyed that I at last
Had gained the object of my hopes, that earth at length was past.
And then in solemn tones He said, " Where is the diadem
That ought to sparkle on thy brow, adorned with many a gem ?
I know thou hast believed on Me, and life, through Me, is thine,
But where are all those radiant stars that in thy crown should shine I
Yonder thou seest a glorious throng, and stars on every brow ;
For every soul they led to me, they wear a jewel now ;
And such thy bright reward had been, if such had been thy deed,
If thou hadst sought some wandering feet in paths of peace to lead,
" I did not mean that thou should'st tread the way of life alone,
But that the clear and shining light which round thy footsteps shone
Should guide some other weary feet to my bright home of rest,
And thus in blessing those around, thou had'st thyself been blest."
The vision faded from my sight ; the voice no longer spake ;
A spell seemed brooding o'er my soul, which long I feared to break,
And when at last I gazed around, in morning's glimmering light,
My spirit fell, o'erwhelmed amid that vision's awful night.
I rose and wept with chastened joy that yet I dwelt below
That yet another hour was mine, my faith by works to show,
That yet some sinner I might tell of Jesus' dying love,
And help to lead some weary soul to seek a home above.
And now while on the earth I stay, my motto this shall be, .
" To live no longer to myself, but Him who died for me."
And graven on my inmost soul this word of true divine,
" They that turn many to the Lord bright as the stars shall shine."
877
OUR SHEAVES WITH US."
Elizabeth Afors.
>HE time for toil is past, and night has come,
The last and saddest of the harvest eves ;
"Worn out with labor long and wearisome,
Drooping and faint, the reapers hasten home,
Each laden with his sheaves.
Last of the laborers, Thy feet I gain,
Lord of the harvest ! and my spirit grieves
That I am burdened, not so much with grain
As with a heaviness of heart and brain ;
Master, behold my sheaves 1
Few, light, and worthless yet their trifling weight
Through all my frame a weary aching leaves ;
For long I struggled with my hapless fate,
And staid and toiled till it was dark and late,
Yet these are all my sheaves !
Full well I know I have more tares than wheat,
Brambles and flowers, dry stalks and withered leaves ;
Wherefore I blush and weep, as at Thy feet
I kneel down reverently, and repeat,
Master, behold my sheaves I
I know these blossoms, clustering heavily
With evening dew upon their folded leaves,
Can claim no value nor utility ;
Therefore shall fragrancy and beauty be
The glory of my sheaves.
378
THE SHORE OF ETERNITY.
So do I gather strength and hope anew ;
For well I know Thy patient love perceives
Not what I did, but what I strove to do
And though the full, ripe ears be sadly few,
Thou wilt accept my sheaves.
THE SHORE OF ETERNITY.
P. W. Faber, D.D.
LONE I to land alone upon that shore,
With no one sight that we have ever seen before ;
Things of a different hue.
And the sounds all new,
And fragrances so sweet the soul may faint.
Alone ! Oh, that first hour of being a saint.
Alone I to land upon that shore,
On which no wavelets lisp, no billows roar,
Perhaps no shape of ground,
Perhaps no sight or sound,
No forms of earth our fancies to arrange
But to begin, alone, that mighty change I
Alone 1 to land alone upon that shore,
Knowing so well we can return no more ;
No voice or face of friend,
None with us to attend
Our disembarking on that awful strand,
But to arrive alone in such a land !
379
THE SHORE OF ETERNITY.
Alone 1 to land alone upon that shore 1
To begin alone to live f orevermore,
To have no one to teach
The manners or the speech
Of that new life, or pnt us at our ease ;
Oh I that we might die in pairs or companies I
Alone ? The God we know is on that shore,
The God of whose attractions we know more
Than of those who may appear
Nearest and dearest here ;
Oh, is He not the life-long friend we know
More privately than any friend below ?
Alone ? The God we trust is on that shore,
The Faithful One whom we have trusted more
In trials and in woes
Than we have trusted those
OA whom we leaned most in our earthly strife ;
Oh, we shall trust Him more in that new life 1
Alone ? The God we love is on that shore
Love not enough, yet whom we love far more,
And whom we loved all through
And with a love more true
Than other loves yet now shall love Him more ;
True love of Him begins upon that shore I
So not alone we land upon that shore ;
'Twill be as though we had been there before ;
We shall meet more we know
Than we can meet below,
And find our rest like some returning dove,
And be at home at once with our Eternal love.
HYMNS OF LONGING FOB REST.
Theodore L. Ouyltr,D.D.
THAT I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away,
and be at rest 1 " The reference in this beautiful verse is to
the turtle-dove of Palestine, a bird of such free spirit that
if confined in a cage, it soon droops ami dies. How often the child
of God breathes this yearning aspiration for a higher and a holier
atmosphere. How often, in seasons of grief and disappointment, and
utter disgust with the inconsistency of our fellow-creatures, the
homesick heart pines for escape into the very bosom of Jesus. For
there only is rest, full, sweet, and all-satisfying.
This aspiration is not only breathed in prayer. It is uttered in
song. Many of our richest hymns are prayers in metre. And few
yearnings break forth oftener in the psalmodies of God's people than
the yearning for soul-rest. Of the hymns that are pitched to this
key we might mention many. Of the hymnists who have composed
them, none is more celebrated than James Montgomery.
He is the Cowper of the nineteenth century not in the poetry
of nature, but in sacred song. Scotland gave him birth, as she did
to Henry Lyte and Horatius Bonar. He was born in Ayrshire, the
land of Robert Burns, in 1771. His father was a Moravian mission-
ary, who labored and died in the West Indies. James united with
the Moravian Church at the age of forty-three, and his memory is
held in high veneration among that small, but true-hearted band of
Christians. The Moravian body is like a tuberose, small in bulk,
but sends its sweet odors afar off. With this communion Montgo-
mery worshiped until in his later years, and then he attended an
Evangelical Episcopal church (St. George's) in Sheffield, England.
881
HYMNS OF LONGING FOB BEST.
During my student days I spent some time at Sheffield, and
often met the venerable poet. He was small of stature, with hair as
white as snow. Although he had long been an editor (and once
been imprisoned for his bold utterances in his newspaper, the Iris),
he would be easily mistaken for a clergyman. He wore an exceed-
ingly conspicuous white cravat, which reached close to his chin, and
gave you the impression that he was suffering from a chronic sore
throat. "When I first called on him at his residence, " The Mount,"
several of his most familiar lines began to repeat themselves to me,
such as :
" Friend after friend departs,
Who hath not lost a friend I"
And that other exquisite verse which often weaves itself into our
secret devotions :
" Here in the body pent,
Absent from Him I roam,
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent,
One day's march nearer home."
There are few finer verses in the whole range of devotional
poetry. It is a pilgrim's wayfaring song, as he pulls up the tent-
pins every morning, and moves onward towards his everlasting rest.
Montgomery never visited this country, but he was full of warm
enthusiasm toward America, in whose churches his hymns are sung
every Sabbath. He was also full of honest indignation that so many
people would persist in confounding him with the spasmodic Robert
Montgomery, whose poem on " Satan " has been impaled, like a
buzzing beetle on a pin, by the sharp pen of Macaulay. " Only
think," said the dear old poet to me, " that I should have just got a
letter, telling me that my poem on Satan is the best I ever wrote."
I do not wonder that his wrath waxed warm under such an imputa-
tion. The last time I ever saw the veteran, he was sitting in his
382
HYMNS OF LONGING FOB BEST.
pew at St. George's, the good gray head " bending reverently over
his prayer-book, as he joined in the responses. He " flew away and
was at rest " in 1854, at the ripe old age of eighty-three.
Montgomery's most popular hymn is that one which breathes ont
the longing of a weary heart :
"O where shall rest be found,
Rest for the weary soul ?
'Twere vain the ocean depths to sound
Or pierce to either pole."
Ten thousand times have God's best beloved children, when
made sick at the worthlessness and emptiness of worldly treasures,
broke out in the fervid protestation :
"This world can never give
The bliss for which I sigh ;
"Pis not the whole of life to live,
Nor all of death to die."
Of Montgomery's other favorite hymns, "Prayer is the Soul's
Sincere Desire," and " What are these in Bright Array ?" I wish I
had space to speak. But we must confine ourselves in this brief
article to those songs of Zion which are full of longings for the
better life and the better land.
Of this class of hymns there is one which everybody knows, and
everybody sings, and yet almost nobody knows its authorship, for
Robert Seagrwe is one of God's " hidden ones " from all celebrity in
the world of letters. He was a minister of the English Established
Church, but being a caged dove there, he broke loose into dissent.
This unfettered spirit of his gave birth to that vigorous hymn
whose uplift has carried us often into the higher climes :
" Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings,
Thy better portion trace ;
Rise from transitory things,
Towards heaven, thy native place."
883
AT EVENTIDE IT SHALL BE LIGHT.
Seagrave sang this one bird-song about the year 1748, but I
never heard that he sang again; but his inspiring lyric is ringing
yet, like the notes of a lark at the gates of heaven. Probably all the
sermons preached that year throughout Christendom have not lifted
so many souls towards the gates of pearl as that single melody of
Robert Seagrave. We must all seek to become acquainted with him
in our Father's house.
Yes, and we shall all love to know Horatius Bonar there, and
thank him for his many hymns so full of heavenward aspiration.
Another songstress from our own land, too, who has lately flown
above the clouds sweet, sorrowful Phebe Gary. For she taught us
all to sing, amid our care-burdens and our crosses :
" One sweetly solemn thought,
Comes to me o'er and o'er ;
I am nearer home to-day,
Than I ever have been before."
AT EVENTIDE IT SHALL BE LIGHT.
age," says one whose words have survived his name, " is
a blessed time, when looking back over the follies, sins, and
mistakes of past life too late, indeed, to remedy, but not
too late to repent we may put off earthly garments one by one, and
dress ourselves for heaven. Griefs that are heavy to the young are
to the old calm and almost joyful, as tokens of the near and ever-
nearing time when there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor
crying, neither any more pain." Even though walking in darkness
for awhile, the aged have the sure promise, " At eventide it shall be
light." Anonym&us.
884
BEUNION IN HEAVEN.
Fro. Morley Punthon.
[EAVEN is not a solitude ; it is a peopled city, a city in which
there are no strangers, no homeless, no poor, where one does
not pass another in the street without greeting, where no one
is envious of another's minstrelsy or of another's more brilliant
crown. When God said in the ancient Eden, " It is not good for
man to be alone," there was a deeper signification in the words than
could be exhausted or explained by the family tie. It was the
declaration of an essential want which the Creator in His highest
wisdom has impressed upon the noblest of His works. That is not
life you don't call that life where the hermit in some moorland
glade drags out a solitary existence, or where the captive in some
cell of bondage frets and pines unseen ? That man does not under-
stand solitude.
Life, all kinds of life, tends to companionship, and rejoices in it,
from the larvae and buzzing insect cloud up to the kingly lion and
the kinglier man. It is a social state into which we are to be
introduced, as well as a state of consciousness. Not only, therefore,
does the Saviour pray for His disciples, " Father, I will that those
whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may
behold my glory," but those who are in that heavenly recompense
are said to have come " to the general assembly and church of the
first-born written in heaven." Aye, and better than that, and dearer
to some of us, " to the spirits of just men made perfect."
The question of the recognition of departed friends in heaven,
Mid special and intimate reunion with them, Scripture and reason
T 886
WHAT MUST IT BE TO BE THERE?
enable us to infer with almost absolute certainty. It is implied in
the fact that the resurrection is a resurrection of individuals, that
it is this mortal that shall put on immortality. It is implied in the
fact that heaven is a vast and happy society ; and it is implied in
the fact that there is no unclothing of nature that we possess, only
the clothing upon it of the garments of a brighter and more glorious
immortality.
Take comfort, then, those of you in whose history the dearest
charities of lif e have been severed by the rude hand of death, those
whom you have thought about as lost are not lost, except to present
right. Perhaps even now they are angel watchers, screened by a
kindly Providence from everything about, that would give you pain ;
but if you and they are alike, in Jesus, and remain faithful to the
end, doubt not that you shall know them again. It were strange,
don't you think, if amid the multitude of earth's ransomed ones that
we are to see in heaven, we should see all but those we most fondly
and fervently long to see ? Strange, if in some of our walks along
the golden streets, we never happen to light upon them ? Strange,
if we did not hear some heaven song, learned on earth, trilled by
wine clear ringing voice that we have often heard before ?
WHAT MUST IT BE TO BE THEKE!
Mn. Elizabeth Mdl*.
speak of the realms of the blessed,
Of that country so bright and so fair ;
And oft are its beauties confessed
But what must it be to be there ?
886
JOY IN THE MORNING.
We speak of its pathways of gold,
Of its walls decked with jewels BO rare,
Of its wonders and pleasure untold-
But what must it be to be there I
"We speak of its service of love,
The robes which the glorified wear,
The Church of the First-born above
But what must it be to be there ?
We speak of its freedom from sin,
From sorrow, temptation, and care,
From trials without and within
But what must it be to be there ?
Do thou, Lord, midst pleasure or woe,
For heaven our spirits prepare ;
Then soon shall we joyfully know
And feel what it is to be there.
JOY IN THE MORNING Ps. m. &.
Beo. Dwiffht WiU.\
CHOUGH dark the night and dreary,
And eyes that watch are weary,
The daylight cometh after
With song and love and laughter,
And down the mountains cold
The sunlight pours its gold.
887
JOY IN THE MOBNING.
If while the world is sleeping,
Lone vigils thou art keeping,
And midnight skies are stooping,
O'er thee in sadness drooping,
This know, the King of light
Is speeding in his flight.
He cometh from his chamber,
O'er paths of gold and amber ;
The gates are backward swinging,
The morning chime is ringing ;
He comes with wheels of fire,
And steeds that never tire.
Poor soul, in storm o'ertaken,
"With cold and hunger shaken 1
The conqueror is riding,
The night itself is hiding,
And flies in swift dismay,
O'er the mountains far away.
Christian, a royal weeper
Is evermore thy keeper ;
The night he passed in waiting,
From dark to light translating,
Hath brought the matin song
And thou shall listen long.
r |\HJC most important thought I ever had was that of my personal
to God. Darnel Webster.
THE SUNSET HOUR OF LIFE.
>HE stream is calmest when it nears the tide,
And flowers are sweetest at the eventide,
And birds most musical at close of day.
And saints divinest when they pass away.
Morning is holy, but a holier charm
Lies folded close in evening's robes of balm,
And weary man must ever love her best,
For morning calls to toil, but night to rest.
She comes from Heaven, and on her wings doth bear
A holy fragrance, like the breath of prayer ;
Footsteps of angels follow in her trace,
To shut the weary eyes of day in peace.
All things are hushed before her as she throws
O'er earth and sky her mantle of repose ;
There is a calmer beauty and a power
That morning knows not, in the evening hour.
Until the evening we must weep and toil
Plow life's stern furrow, dig the weedy soil
Tread with sad feet our rough and thorny way,
And bear the heat and burden of the day.
Oh ! when our sun is setting may we glide,
Like summer evening down the golden tide ;
And leave behind us, as we pass away,
Sweet, starry twilight round our sleeping clay.
Anonynunu.
THE JOY OF INCOMPLETENESS.
all our lives were one broad glare
Of sunlight, clear, unclouded ;
If all our path were smooth and fair,
By no soft gloom enshrouded ;
If all life's flowers were fully blown
Without the sweet unfolding,
And happiness were rudely thrown
On hands too weak for holding,
Should we not miss the twilight hours,
The gentle haze and sadness ?
Should we not long for storms and showen^
To break the constant gladness ?
If none were sick and none were sad,
What service could we render ?
1 think if we were always glad,
We scarcely could be tender.
Did our beloved never need
Our patient ministration,
Earth would grow cold, and miss indeed
Its sweetest consolation ;
If sorrow never claimed our heart,
And every wish were granted,
Patience would die, and hope depart
Life would be disenchanted.
And yet in heaven is no more night,
In heaven is no more sorrow I
390
THERE'S NOTHING TRUE BUT HEAVEW.
Such unimagined new delight
Fresh grace from pain will borrow.
As the poor seed that underground
Seeks its true life above it,
Not knowing what will there be found
When sunbeams kiss and love it ;
80 we in darkness upward grow,
And look and long for heaven,
But cannot picture it below,
Till more of light be given. Swnday Magazine.
THEKE'S NOTHING TRUE BUT HEAVEN.
Thomas Monre
>HIS world is all a fleeting show
For man's illusion given ;
The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,
There's nothing true but Heaven !
And false the light on Glory's plume,
As fading hues of even ;
And Love, and Hope, and Beauty's bloom,
Are blossoms gathered from the tomb,
There's nothing bright but Heaven !
Poor wanderers of a stormy day,
From wave to wave we're driven,
And Fancy's flash and Reason's ray
Serve but to light the troubled way,
There's nothing calm but Heaven 1
391
DEPARTURE OF FRIENDS.
Jamtt Montgomery.
[FRIEND after friend departs :
Who hath not lost a friend ?
There is no union here of hearts,
That finds not here an end.
"Were this frail world our only rest,
Living or dying, none were blest.
Beyond the flight of time,
Beyond this vale of death,
There surely is some blessed clime
Where life is not a breath,
Nor lif e's affection transient fire,
Whose sparks fly upward to expire.
There is a world above,
Where parting is unknown ;
A whole eternity of love,
Fonn'd for the good alone ;
And faith beholds the dying here,
Translated to that happier shore.
Thus star by star declines,
Till all are passed away,
As morning high and higher shines,
To pure and perfect day;
Nor sink those stars in empty night,
They hide themselves in heaven's own light.
802
NO SECTS OT HEAVEN.
Mr 3. Elizabeth S.
BALKING of sects quite late one eve,
What one and another of saints believe,
That night I stood in a troubled dream
By the side of a darkly-flowing stream,
And a " churchman " down to the river came,
"WTien I heard a strange voice call his name :
" Good father, stop ; when you cross this tide
You must leave your robes on the other side."
But the aged father did not mind,
And his long gown floated out behind,
As down to the stream his way he took,
Hi hands hold firm of a gilt-edged book.
" I'm bound for Heaven, and when I'm there
I shall want my Book of Common Prayer ;
And though I put on a starry crown,
I shall feel quite lost without my gown."
Then he fixed his eyes on the shining track,
But his gown was heavy, and held him back ;
And the poor old father tried in vain
A single step in the flood to gain.
I saw him again on the other side,
But his silk gown floated on the tide,
And no one asked, in that blissful spot,
If he belonged to " the church" or not
KO SECTS IN HEAVEN.
Then down to the river a Quaker strayed,
His dress of sober hue was made,
a My hat and coat must be all of gray,
I cannot go any other way."
Then he buttoned his coat straight up to his
And staidly, solemnly waded in,
And his broad-brimmed hat he pulled down tight
Over his forehead, so cold and white.
But a strong wind carried away his hat,
And he sighed a few moments after that,
And then, as he gazed to the farther shore,
The coat slipped off and was seen no more.
Poor, dying Quaker, thy suit of gray
Is quietly sailing away away.
But thou'lt go to heaven as straight as an arrow,
Whether thy brim be broad or narrow.
Next came Dr. "Watts with a bundle of psalms,
Tied nicely up in his aged arms,
And hymns as many a very wise thing,
That the people in heaven, " all round," might sing.
But I thought he heaved an anxious sigh,
As he saw that the river ran broad and high 1
And looked rather surprised, as one by one,
The psalms and hymns in the wave went down.
And after him, with his MSS.,
Came Wesley, the pattern of godliness.
But he cried, " Dear me, what shall I do f
The water has soaked them through and through."
And there, on the river, far and wide,
894
NO SECTS IN HEAVEN.
Away they went on the swollen tide,
And the saint, astonished, passed through alono,
Without his manuscripts, up to the throne.
Then gravely walking, two saints by name,
Down to the stream together came,
But as they stopped at the river's brink,
I saw one saint from the other shrink.
" Sprinkled or plunged, may I ask you, friend,
How you attained to life's great end ?"
" Thus, with a few drops on our brow."
" But I've been dipped, as you'll see me now.
" And I really think it will hardly do,
As I'm ' close communion,' to cross with yon,
You're bound, I know, to the realms of bliss,
But you must go that way, and I'll go this."
And straightway plunging with all his might,
Away to the left his friend at the right,
Apart they went from this world of sin.
But how did the brethren " enter in 2"
And now where the river was rolling on,
A Presbyterian church went down ;
Of women there seemed an innumerable throng,
But the men I could count as they passed along,
And concerning the road they could never agree,
The old or the new way, which it could be;
Nor ever a moment paused to think
That both would lead to the river's brink.
And a sound of murmuring long and loud
Came ever up from the moving crowd,
TO SIOT8 IN HEAVICN.
" You're in the old way, and I'm in the new,
That is the false, and this is the true,"
Or, " I'm in the old way, and you're in the new,
That is the false, and this is the true."
But the brethren only seemed to speak,
Modest the sisters walked, and meek.
And if ever one of them chanced to say
What troubles she met with on the way,
How she longed to pass to the other side,
Nor feared to cross over the swelling tide,
A voice arose from the brethren then,
" Let no one speak but the ' holy men,'
For have ye not heard the words of Paul 1
* Oh, let the women keep silence all.' "
I watched them long in my curious dream,
Till they stood by the border of the stream,
Then, just as I thought, the two ways met,
But all the brethren were talking yet,
And would talk on, till the heaving tide
Carried them over, side by side ;
Bide by side, for the way was one,
The toilsome journey of life was done ;
And priest and Quaker, and all* who died ;
Came out alike on the other side ;
No forms, or crosses, or books had they,
No gowns of silk, or suits of gray ;
No creeds to guide them, or MSS.,
For ll had put on " Christ's Righteousness."
* A.11 seen in the dream.
896
HEAVEN.
P. W. Xtibtr, D.D.
|H, what is this splendor that beamjB on me now,
This beautiful sunrise that dawns on my soul,
While faint and far off land and sea lie below,
And under my feet the huge golden clouds roll!
To what mighty Tn'rig doth this city belong,
With its rich jeweled shrines, and its gardens of flowers,
With its breaths of sweet incense, its measures of song,
And the light that is gilding its numberless towers ?
Bee I forth from the gates, like a bridal array,
Come the princes of heaven, how bravely they shine !
Tis to welcome the stranger, to show me the way,
And to tell me that all I see round me is mine.
There are millions of saints in their ranks and degrees,
And each with a beauty and crown of his own ;
And there, far outnumbering the sands of the seas,
The nine rings of angels encircle the throne.
And oh, if the exiles of earth could but win,
One sight of the beauty of Jesus above,
From that hour they would cease to be able to sin,
And earth would be heaven ; for heaven is love.
But words may not tell of the vision of peace,
With its worshipful seeming, its marvelous fires ;
897
AKnOIPATION OF HEAVEN.
Where the soul is at large, where its Borrows all cea^o,
And the gift has outbidden its boldest desires.
No sickness is here, no bleak, bitter cold,
No hunger, debt, prison, or weariful toil ;
No robbers to rifle our treasures of gold,
No rust to corrupt, and no canker to spoil.
My God ! and it was but a short hour ago,
That I lay on a bed of unbearable pains ;
All was cheerless around me, all weeping and woe ;
Now the wailing is changed to angelical strains.
Because I served Thee, were life's pleasures all lost ?
Was it glooin, pain, or blood, that won heaven for me!
Oh no I one enjoyment alone could life boast,
And that, dearest Lord 1 was my service of Thee.
I had hardly to give ; 'twas enough to receive,
Only not to impede the sweet grace from above ;
And, this first hour in heaven, I can hardly believe,
In so great a reward for so little a love.
ANTICIPATION OF HEAYEN.
Thomcu Moor*,
>O, wing thy flight from star to star,
From world to luminous world, as far
As the universe spreads its flaming wall ;
Take all the pleasures of all the spheres,
And multiply each through endless years,
One minute of heaven is worth them all.
A HOME IN HEAVEN.
Wittiam Hunter.
HOME in heaven 1 What a joyful thought,
As the poor man toils in his weary lot 1
His heart opprest, and with anguish driven
From his home below, to his home in heaven.
A home in heaven 1 As the sufferer lies
On his bed of pain, and uplifts his eyes
To that bright home ; what a joy is given,
With the blessed thought of his home in heaven.
A home in heaven ! When our pleasures fade,
And our wealth and fame in the dust are laid,
And strength decays, and our health is riven,
We are happy still with our home in heaven.
A home in heaven I When the faint heart bleeds,
By the Spirit's stroke, for its evil deeds ;
Oh 1 then what bliss in that heart forgiven,
Does the hope inspire of a home in heaven.
A home in heaven 1 When our friends are fled
To the cheerless gloom of the mouldering dead ;
We wait in hope on the promise given ;
We will meet up there in our home in heaven.
A home in heaven ! When the wheel is broke,
And the golden bowl by the terror-stroke ;
THOSE MANSIONS ABOVE.
When life's bright sun sinks in death's dark even,
We will then fly up to onr home in heaven.
Our home in heaven ! Oh, the glorious home,
And the Spirit, joined with the bride, says " Cornel*
Gome, seek His face, and your sins forgiven,
And rejoice in hope of your home in heaven,
THOSE MANSIONS ABOVE.
*
FOR a home in those mansions above ;
O for a rest in that haven of love ;
O to be free from this body of sin,
This warfare without, these conflicts within !
Give me, dear Saviour, a heart wholly Thine,
A heart that can feel " my Beloved is mine,"
A heart that can say, " I know I am His,"
That, ransomed from woe, I am purchased for blist.
Give me, .O Father, Thy Spirit Divine,
Proving the purchased possession is Thine,
The earnest of joys they only can know
Who walk in the light of the Spirit below.
On me then bestow that armor complete
That covers the head and reaches the feet,
The armor they wear who fight the good fight,
And, having " done all," stand fast in Thy might
Clad in this armor, sent down from above,
Wrought in the councils of covenant love,
400
THOSE MANSIONS ABOVE.
Our aim ever upward, our hearts all aglow,
Joyfully onward and homeward we go.
We strain every nerve, we strive for the prize
Of our calling in Christ : a home in the skies :
The battles all fought, the victory won,
We have the reward " Good servant, well done ;
" Come, enter thy home, these mansions above,
Rest in the haven of infinite love ;
From sorrow and sin forever released,
Come sit with the guests at the heavenly feast."
All stains washed away, in robes of pure white
We bask in His rays, we shine in His light ;
The crown of rejoicing we evermore wear,
The glory of Christ eternally share.
Make me, O Father, more grateful for life,
More willing to bear the turmoil and strife,
More anxious to serve, more like Him to be
Who gave His own life a ransom for me.
That, bearing Christ's image, e'en here below,
My work done in Him, His glory may show,
Till the summons I hear, in accents of love,
" Daughter, come higher, and serve Me above."
What glories await the spirit set free
From fetters of earth, untrammelled to be ;
The work begun here is continued above,
And all that blest life is service and love.
Parish Visitor.
401
AT HOME IN HEAVEN.
Charla F. Deem, D.D.
'ILL any soul that reaches Heaven feel strange there ? "Will
it seem a foreign country ? "Will all its sights, and sounds,
and suggestions be totally unfamiliar? "Will they make
ao responsive note on any chord of the harp of memory? Will
they shed no ray of light on the lens of hope ? There are many of
us who are looking forward to a residence in Heaven. Will it be
more than a residence ? Will it be a home ? We know the difference
between the two when applied to places upon earth. There are
many kinds of residences ; there is but one home. A lunatic asy
him, a penitentiary, the place where we must live, but do not want
to live, is a residence. The only real home a man has upon earth is
the spot in which he would rather be than in any other. The place
in which he gets most rest, most comfort, most solace, most satisfac-
tion to every craving of his nature that is home. How do we look
forward toward Heaven? Is it simply the termination of the
journey, where, in the natural course of things, the pilgrimage
ceases ? Such a state of affairs may occur to a man who has gone
from his home, and whose business or duty has taken him across the
ocean to a foreign port. There he may have to stay all the days of
his life, and behind him leave wife and children, father and mother.
He looks forward with interest to his arrival. He would rather be
there than on the stormy ocean. But it is not home. Now, how
do we feel toward Heaven ? Is \ simply the end of the road we
must travel as Christians, and which we must terminate somewhere,
sometime ; or have we longings for it ? Does it come into our
402
AT HOME IN HEAVEN.
-
dreams ? Do thoughts of it often lift our souls as the tides lift up
the seas? Do we feel that every other residence is a tent, but
heaven is our mansion ; that we go to every other place because we
must, but are stretching ourselves to be in heaven because we
would? Are we heavenly-minded and heavenly-hearted? If so,
we shall be at home in Heaven. It may be so sweet, so delicious, so
satisfactory, so fulfilling, as to come in sudden and sublime contrast
with all our previous experience. In this sense it may, for a brief
season, be startling and somewhat strange; but if we have been
spiritually-minded upon earth, each new moment of heaven will
bring us the fulfillment of some hope, or the completion, in shouts
of laughter, of some song which we had begun upon earth, and
which had been drowned in sobs. It will be the being "forever
with the Lord " that will make our heaven everlasting.
" Forever with the Lord ? " Why not now with the Lord ? Is
not our present life a part of " forever ?" If now with the Lord if
our communion be with Him if we are learning His ways and
walking in His companionship here, and are to be learning Hia ways
and walking in His companionship in heaven, why should we not be
at home in heaven ?
The angels come down to earth. They have their mission of
ministry. Their duties probably take them, sometimes, into place*
where they feel very strange ; but there must be other spots amid
the circumstances of which even angels must feel very much at
home. Where a family is consecrated to God where perfect love
prevails where Jesus reigns where the Father's will is done in
earth as it is in heaven, oh ! surely there the good angels must feel
at home.
How blessed is the work of the angels and the men who arc
striving more and more to make earth like heaven, so that the deni-
zens of the one shall be the citizens of the other.
403
MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN.
visiting an art gallery or conservatory of music, our enjoy-
ment will be in the ratio of the previous training and develop-
ment of our tastes and sympathies in this direction. As those
entertainments would be to the blind or deaf, so would the joys of
heaven be to the sinner. Place him under the very shadow of the
tree of life, and he would say, " I don't want to be here."
Heaven must be begun upon earth. "We must carry its bud in
our hearts here, or we can never see its full blossom hereafter.
Entrance into heaven is not the result of a projectile force lifting as
into an unknown sphere. It is the result of a process begun in time.
The Church is God's training school, where the appetites and affec-
tions for the joys of heaven are developed. Our great work is not
merely to get men into heaven, but to prepare them for it. When
they are ready they will be there soon enough.
Our characters are now catching colors which will survive the
judgment day. What gigantic importance this gives to time ! As
we sit before the artist's camera while our photograph is being
impressed upon the sensitive plate, how important it is that we
maintain the right position. A slight move will spoil the picture.
So during our brief years on earth our characters are impressed for
eternity. Death will be the artist closing the watch, and announc-
ing the process completed, and the impression then made cannot be
altered. The soldiers used to say when a comrade fell, "Poor
fellow, he has received his discharge." But death is not a discharge.
It is only a transfer. It takes us to the judgment seat and leaves us
404
FOEETOKENS OF HEAVEN.
as it found us. The direction which the main current of our affec-
tions and aspirations has taken upon earth will there become fixed.
Let us not lose the opportunities now passing or we lose the inherit-
ance. Let us not miss the tide or it will be forever too late. United
Presbyterian.
FOKETOKENS OF HEAVEN.
S. W. Hamilton.
>ET the traveler, however remote his stray, find something con-
genial to his own latitude and country, and the sense of alien-
ation is redeemed. Should he unexpectedly discover the
daisy of his native fields, or catch the wood-note that had caroled
from his native groves should he hear his mother tongue should
he enjoy the right and protection of some institution at which his
youthful heart had learned to boumd though the earth's diameter
struck through between his sojourn and his own land, even that
sojourn would be less to him than home. And the Christian has
now much akin to heaven. His heart is there. Eternal life abides
in him. Now he possesses the principles which heaven but matures,
and cherishes the affections which it but expands.
LESSED are they that are homesick, for they shall come at iait
to the Father's house.
Hewrich Settings.
405
JOYS OF HEAVEK
Nanoy A. W. Pneit
these chilling winds and gloomy skies,
M) Beyond Death's cloudy portal
**^ There is a land where beauty never dies,
And love becomes immortal.
A land whose light is never dimmed by shade,
Whose fields are ever vernal,
Where nothing beautiful can ever fade,
But blooms for aye eternal.
We may not know how sweet its balmy air,
How bright and fair its flowers ;
We may not hear the songs that echo there,
Through those enchanted bowers.
The city's shining towers we may not see,
With our dim earthly vision :
For Death, the silent warder, keeps the key
That opes those gates elysian.
But sometimes, where adown the western sky
The fiery sunset lingers,
Ite golden gates swing inward noiselessly,
Unlocked by silent fingers.
And while they stand a moment half ajar,
Gleams from the inner glory,
406
UNVEILED HEAVEN.
Stream lightly through the azure vault afar,
And half reveal the story.
O land unknown ! O land of love divine !
Father all-wise, eternal,
Guide, guide, these wandering, way-worn feet of mine,
Unto those pastures vernal.
UNVEILED HEAVEN.
Ernst Lange, D.D.
HAT no human eye hath seen, what no mortal ear hath
heard,
What on thought hath never been, in its noblest flights,
conferred
This hath God prepared in store
For His people evermore !
When the shaded pilgrim-land fades before the closing eye,
Then revealed on ether, heaven's own scenery shall lie ;
Then the veil of flesh shall fall,
Now concealing, darkening all.
When this aching head shall rest, all its busy pulses o'er,
From her mortal robes undrest, shall my spirit upward soar,
Then shall nnimagined joy
All my thoughts and powers employ.
is the heaven our God bestows?
No prophet yet, no angel knows.
John Kebl.
407
IMMORTALITY.
Oeorga D. Prentfo.
cannot be that earth is man's only abiding place. It cannot
be that our life is a bubble, cast up by the ocean of eternity |
to float another moment upon its surface, and then sink into
nothingness and darkness forever. Else why is it that the high and
glorious aspirations which leap like angels from the temples of our
hearts, are forever wandering abroad, satisfied ?
Why is it that the rainbow and the cloud come over us with a
beauty that is not of earth, and then pass off and leave us to muse
on their faded loveliness ?
Why is it that the stars which hold their festival around the
midnight throne are set above the grasp of our limited faculties, and
are forever mocking us with their unapproachable glory ?
Finally, why is it that bright forms of human beauty are pre-
sented to the view, and then taken from us, leaving the thousand
streams of the affections to flow back in an Alpine torrent upon our
hearts ?
We are born for a higher destiny than that of earth. There is a
realm where the rainbow never fades; where the stars will be
spread out before us like the islands that slumber on the ocean ;
and where the beautiful beings that here pass before us like visions
will stay in our presence forever 1
RELIGION is the best armor a man can have, but the worst cloak.
408
TIME AND ETERNITY.
Bbrativ* Bono*.
51 T is not Time that flies ;
jlp "Pis we, 'tis we are flying :
* It is not Life that dies ;
'Tis we, 'tis we are dying.
Time and Eternity are one ;
Time is Eternity begun ;
Life changes, yet without decay ;
'Tis we alone who pass away.
It is not Truth that flies ;
'Tis we, 'tis we are flying:
It is not Faith that dies ;
'Tis we, 'tis we are dying.
O ever-during faith and truth,
Whose youth is age, whose age is youth !
Twin stars of immortality,
Ye cannot perish from our sky.
It is not Hope that flies ;
'Tis we, 'tis we are flying ;
It is not Love that dies ;
'Tis we, 'tis we are dying.
Twin streams, that have in heaven your birth,
Ye glide in gentle joy through earth,
We fade, like flowers beside yon sown ;
Ye are still flowing, flowing on.
409
WO NIGHT IN HEAVEN.
Yet we do but die to live ;
It is from death we're flying ;
Forever lives our Life ;
For us there is no dying.
We die but as the Spring-bud dies,
In Summer's golden glow to rise.
These be our days of April bloom;
Our Summer is beyond the tomb.
NO NIGHT IN HEAVEN.
O night shall be in heaven ; no gathering gloom
Shall o'er that glorious landscape ever come ;
No tears shall fall in sadness o'er those flowers
That breathe their fragrance through celestial bowers-
No night shall be in heaven ; forbid to sleep,
These eyes no more their mournful vigils keep ;
Their fountains dried, their tears all wiped away,
They gaze undazzled on eternal day.
No night shall be in heaven ; no sorrow reign,
No secret anguish, no corporeal pain,
No shivering limbs, no burning fever there,
No soul's eclipse, no winter of despair.
No night shall be in heaven, but endless noon ;
No fast declining sun, no waning moon ;
But there the Lamb shall yield perpetual light
'Mid pastures green and waters ever bright
410
NO SORROW THERE.
No night shall be in heaven ; no darkened room,
No bed of death, nor silence of the tomb,
But breezes ever fresh with love and truth
Shall brace the frame with an immortal youth.
No night shall be in heaven, but night is here,
The night of sorrow, and the night of fear ;
I mourn the ills that now my steps attend,
And shrink from others that may yet impend.
No night shall be in heaven. Oh, had I faith,
To rest in what the faithful witness saith,
That faith should make these hideous phantoms flee,
And leave no night henceforth on earth to me. Anonymous.
NO SORROW THERE.
Daniel March, D.D.
>HIS earthly life has been fitly characterized as a pilgrimage
through a vale of tears. In the language of poetry, man
himself has been called a pendulum betwixt a smile and a
tear. Everything in this world is characterized by imperfection.
The best people have many faults. The clearest mind only sees
through a glass darkly. The purest heart is not without spot. All
the intercourse of society, all the transactions of business, all our
estimates of human conduct and motive must be based upon the
sad assumption that we cannot wholly trust either ourselves or our
fellow-men. Every heart has its grief, every house has its skeleton,
every character is marred with weakness and imperfection. And all
these aimless conflicts of our minds, and unanswered longings of our
hearts should lead us to rejoice the more in the divine assurance that
a time is coming when night shall melt into noon, and the mystery
fthall be clothed with glory.
411
FAREWELL LIFE, WELCOME LIFE.
ThomatHood,
^AKEWELL, life 1 My senses swiin,
And the world is growing Him ;
Thronging shadows crowd the light,
Like the advent of the night ;
Colder, colder, colder still,
Upward steals a vapor chill ;
Strong the earthly odor grows
I smell the mould above the rose !
Welcome, life ! The spirit strives I
Strength returns, and hope revives I
Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn
Fly like shadows at the morn :
O'er the earth there comes a bloom,
Sunny light for sullen gloom,
Warm perfume for vapor cold
I smell the rose above the mould I
THE END.
[AVE you, my dear reader, thought seriously of the endf the
end of this day, the end of this month, the end of this yea/r,
the end of this Ufe f Indeed, the end of dU earthly things f
The end is surely coming ! It may be near.
412 *
THE END.
The end wiU come soon. This life is short and uncertain at the
best. A few more rising and setting sons, and we shall be gone
numbered with the dead.
The end may come when you a/re not looking for it. Long life,
many days yet, you may be saying, " To-morrow shall be as this day
and much more abundant." But God may say to you, as he did
to the rich man of old, " Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be
required of thee ; then whose shall those things be which thou hast
provided ?"
The end may come suddenly, like the flash of the lightning, or
stealthily as a thief m the night. " For in such an hour as ye think
not the Son of man cometh."
The end may come when you are not prepared for it not pre-
pared at all, or poorly prepared for it. Are you prepared for it
now f What assurance have you that you would be in the future f
" Procrastination is the thief of time."
O, what shall the end of all earthly things be to you to you as
an individual ? Would sudden death be sudden glory ?
" And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly
and the sinner appear ?" " But sin, when it is finished, brmgeth
forth death." " For the wages of sin is death ; but the gift of God
is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
" That awful day will surely come,
The appointed hour makes haste,
When I must stand before my Judge,
And pass the solemn test.
" If now thou standest at the door,
O, let me feel thee near;
And make my peace with God, before
I at thy bar appear."
418
* TV /T AY tne blessings of thy God wait upon thee and
** * the sun of Glory shine around thy head, may
the gates of plenty, honor, and happiness be always open
to thee and thine.
, "May no strife disturb thy days, nor sorrow distress
thy nights, and may the pillow of Peace kiss thy cheek,
and pleasures of imagination attend thy dreams ; and
when length of years makes thee tired of earthly joys,
and the curtains of death gently close round the scene
of thy existence, may the angels of God attend thy bed,
and take care that the expiring lamp of life shall not
receive one rude blast to hasten its extinction ; and, finally,
may the SAVIOUR'S blood wash thee from all impurities
and prepare thee to enter into the land of everlasting
FELICITY."
414
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