190

FORGIVENESS IMPLORED.

CONFIDE IN YOUR MOTHER.

Found written in a young lady's Album.

"To the youthful female I would say, confide in your mother, for there is not an individual of either sex, who loves you with an affection so disinterested as she. Deceive her, and your feet will slide in due time. How many thoughtless young daughters receive addresses, and receive them clandestinely, and give their hand in marriage, and thus dig their graves for all earthly happiness. He who would persuade you to deceive your parents, proves himself by this very act, unworthy of your affection. Wed him, and you will speedily realize what you have lost. You will find you have exchanged an able and sympathizing friend, a judicious counsellor, a kind and devoted nurse, for an overruling companion, ever seeking his own accommodation, and his own pleasure; deserting you in health and neglecting you when sick. Who has not read the reward of deserted parents, in the pale, and melancholy features of the undutiful daughter?"

FORGIVENESS IMPLORED.

When we are about to part for ever, or realize that we must immediately stand together before God, we are inclined to inquire whom we have injured among our fellow men and to seek their forgiveness. How much better thus to inquire, and thus, to seek, while in health and vigor? In the Constantine Paleologos, of Joanna Baillie, the following questions are uttered by that prince. Similar ones we all might have occasion to ask could we often summon before us all with whom we have intercourse.-N. Y. Evangelist.

"If there be one among you, unto whom,
With dark forbidding brow, in a stern moment,

I've given ungenerous pain; one whose kind service
I have with foolish and capricious humors
More irksome made; one whose frank openness
Of manly love, offered to me as man,

In generous confidence, with heartless pride,
I coldly have repelled; yea, if there be
One of you all, who ever from my presence
I have with saddened heart unkindly sent,
I here in meek repentance, of him crave
A brother's hand, in token of forgiveness.
And be it in true charity stretched forth,
As to a man of much infirmity,
Who has with many trials been beset;
Wounding oft times in littleness of soul,
The love he should have honored."

FEMALE EDUCATION.

191

CHARITY.

BY THOMAS N.

TALFOURD.

The blessings which the weak and poor can scatter,
Have their own season. "Tis a little thing
To give a cup of water; yet its draught
Of cool refreshment, drained by fevered lips,
May give a shock of pleasure to the frame
More exquisite, than when nectarian juice
Renews the life of joy in happiest hours.
It is a little thing to speak a phrase
Of common comfort, which, by daily use
Has almost lost its sense, yet on the ear
Of him who thought to die unmourned, 'twill fall
Like choicest music; fill the glazing eye
With gentle tears; relax the knotted hand
To know the bonds of fellowship again;
And shed on the departing soul a sense
More precious, than the benison of friends
About the honored death-bed of the rich,
To him who else were lonely, that another
Of the great family is near and feels.

FEMALE EDUCATION. - Since, then, there is a season when the youthful must cease to be young and the beautiful to excite admiration, to learn to grow old, gracefully, is, perhaps, one of the rarest and most valuable arts which can be taught to woman. And, it must be confessed, it is a most severe trial for those women to lay down beauty who have nothing else to take up. It is for this sober season of life, that education should lay up its rich resources. However disregarded hitherto they may have been, they will be wanted now. When admirers fall away, and flatterers become mute, the mind will be driven to retire into itself, and if it find no entertainment at home, it will be driven back again upon the world with increased force. Yet forgetting this, do we not seem to educate our daughters exclusively for the transient period of youth, when it is to mature age we ought to advert? Do we not educate them for a crowd, forgetting they are to live at home? For a crowd, and not for themselves? For show, and not for use? For time, and not for eternity?- Hannah More.

DO NOT MARRY A FOP. - There is in such a character nothing of true dignity; nothing which commands respect, or insures even a decent standing in the community. There is a mark upon him, an affected elegance of manner, a studied particularity of dress, and usually a singular inanity of mind, by which he is known in every circle in which he moves. His very attitude and gait tell the stranger who he is, though he only passes him silently in the street. To unite your destiny with such a man, I hardly need say, would be to impress the seal of disgrace upon your character, and the seal of wretchedness upon your doom. Rev. Wm. B. Sprague.

--

"The House of the Living."

WRITTEN FOR THE YOUNG LADY'S FRIEND BY H. W. DAY.

sorrowful pilgrim In life's troubled way, Why mourn'st thou in anguish.

The Jews are now so fully persuaded of the resurrection, that they name their burial place The House of the Living;" thereby implying that it is only the departed who can truly be said to live.

The loved one here resteth

In dreamless repose,

Unmoved by life's tempest,
So wildly that blows.
Why then dost thou linger
With sorrowful tread?
Why call this lone dwelling,
"The House of the Dead"?

The mouldering mantle
The spirit left here,
In glory and brightness
Again will appear;
Mourn not that she fled

In the prime of her years,
From this region of agony,
Sorrow and tears!

How sweet were the accents

Which rose on her breath,
When passing the valley

And shadow of death;
When to God, her Redeemer,
Her hope and her stay,
Her glorified spirit
Passed swiftly away.

More cheerfully pass, then,
Through life's weary way,
Nor mourn thou in anguish
O'er nature's decay;
Nor grieve that the spirit,
Unfettered and free,
From regions of glory

Looks down upon thee!

Great results frequently grow out of small beginnings. The truth of this is often demonstrated in the moral and natural world. Perhaps in no instance is it more strikingly proved and illustrated, than in the effects of maternal influence. This is powerful for good or for evil, as the history of nations and individuals clearly demonstrates. The greatest and best of those whom we delight to number among the good and great of our race, have always, it is believed, derived the elements of their characters from maternal care bestowed on them in childhood. If to this position there be an exception, I am wholly ignorant of it. Look at the testimony of those whose names are embalmed for immortality on the page of history, and the ground I have taken is fully sustained. I will adduce a few examples, both from sacred and profane history, illustrative of this position.

Among the many instances of victorious faith recorded in the eleventh chapter of the Hebrews, that of the parents of Moses is marked with honor and approbation by the apostle. "By faith, Moses when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child, and they were not afraid of the king's commandment." Their faith, which probably rested on some particular promise of Jehovah, was here strikingly exemplified. Instead of listening to the reasonings and persuadings of worldly prudence, they followed what they believed to be the dictates of religion. Their faith led them to cast their lovely and beautiful son upon the broad waves of the Nile, in a little vessel of rushes, or flags. Not because they feared the "King's commandment," which was that all the male children of the Hebrews should be destroyed, but because they believed God. He will take care of my son; for not

194

RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE OF MOTHERS.

one "jot or tittle" of his word shall fail. With what satisfaction do they commit their child to the care of a superintending Providence amid so many perils. Such was their faith.

Let us for a moment contemplate the wonderful workings of this providence. Go, if you please, to the humble cottage of Amram, and mingle in the tender solicitudes of an obscure family in the common stations of life. Then step into the splendid palace, and attend the caprices and pleasures of a princess. Jochebed, the wife of Amram, and Termuthis, the daughter of Pharaoh. How dissimilar every thing, except in what is common to all; and yet Providence brings them together, and gives them a mutual concern, charge, and interest. By how many accidents might this happy coincidence have been prevented! A day, an hour, earlier, or in the active care of the one, and amusement of the other, and the parties concerned had never met. The slightest alteration in the setting of the wind, or tide; the temperature of the fleeting air, or the more variable temperature of the female mind, wheh destitute of piety and placed under the circumstances of the princess; apt to be corrupted by unbounded gratification and indulgence, governed by whim, following no guide but inclination, and occupied only with the object of the moment; the operation of all, or any one of these, might have defeated the design. But all these contingencies, guided by the hand of Omnipotence, acquired the solidity of the rock. The mother could not part with her child a moment sooner, and durst not retain him a moment longer. The princess could betake herself to no other amusement or employment; could fix upon no other hour of the day, could resort to no other part of the river, could direct her attention to no other object; the tide could not run, or the wind blow in any other direction, or with greater or less rapidity. Moses was not safer when king in Jeshurun, encompassed with the thousands of Israel; was not safer in the mount with God, is not safer within the walls of the New Jerusalem, than Moses in the flags, Moses at mercy of the waves, and the monsters of the Nile.

the

Moses was adopted as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and through the instrumentality of Miriam, sister of Amram, he was placed under the care of his own mother, though the princess was entirely ignorant of the relation that subsisted between the child and its nurse. How fit a mother to train up a son who was to be Israel's deliverer, and a law-giver to a nation redeemed! And who cannot see the providence of God in that peculiarly wonderful train of events which preserved the child of such high destination, and secured for him the care and instruction of a mother so peculiarly qualified for her task?