66

ANTEDILUVIAN MOTHERS.

years. If Eve lived nine hundred years, estimating that the inhabitants doubled in numbers once in thirty-three and onethird years certainly a moderate estimate, the longevity of men considered she would at her death have left, of living descendants, more than two hundred and sixty-eight millionsnearly one-third as-many as now compose the various nations of the earth!

Here, then, was probably the living mother of hundreds of millions, while in our day it is matter of remark, if one can gather around her, of children, grand and great-grand-children, some sixty or seventy.

What changes must our first parents have witnessed! Alone of the race on earth-and before their death surrounded by hundreds of millions! The sweets of innocence, and the bitterness of sin; embowered amidst the delights of Paradise, and outcasts seeking their bread by the sweat of the brow. They erected the first rude tent, and lived, perhaps, to see cities as proud and populous as now exist; navies ploughing the ocean, commerce with its active energies; arts, and skill, and learning, and fashion, and pride, and wickedness!

We fancy that the present age surpasses all that have gone before us that steam in its applications that ships in their modern stateliness and beauty-that mind in its cultivation-that science in its deep researches-are of modern date ;—that in the days of Noah before he entered the ark, ignorance, and darkness, and barbarity only were on the earth. And yet the Flood may have blotted out more of splendor and wealth-more of physical improvement and intellectual acquirements-more of skill and art, than have since been known on earth. That nothing of these remain is no argument that they did not exist; if they did, they would naturally become extinct in the family of Noah for want of numbers and motives sufficient to continue them.

But the Mothers of that period-those mothers dwellers on the earth for almost a thousand years-what were they? In their habits, lives and characters, our eye cannot reach them. Yet there were mothers, and those mothers had children and children's children, over whose heads centuries had rolled their

years-mothers dandling on their knees an offspring of the twentieth-probably of the thirtieth generation.

What a power for good must length of days have given those mothers! And yet wickedness reigned triumphant-Noah alone, with his family, of all the inhabitants, numbered perhaps by billions, worthy to be reserved for the re-peopling of the earth! Faithless indeed must have been those antediluvian mothers.

The experience of the first sixteen hundred years of our race has proved that the expectation of so long a life, putting the day of death far out of sight while women were acting the part of mothers, is not calculated to produce thoughtfulness and fidelity in the discharge of duties either to God or man. The mother felt that there was time enough-no need of haste-centuries of life lay before her, and this, it may be, tempted the deferring of instruction, reproof and restraint, till the evil passions of the heart, gaining giant strength, mocked at parental influence. While the mother waited-thoughtless of the distant day which should sever her from her children, and left for a future period their education in right principles, in the fear of God and obedience to his law, the child became a man in years and wickedness, and went forth from a mother's home untamed as a beast of prey. How much the expectation of a life which, compared with its present brief measure, seemed almost endless, had to do with that utter corruption of the inhabitants of the earth, which rendered their destruction necessary, we cannot tell. Yet could it be now announced from Heaven that a thousand or five hundred years should be the allotted days of man on earth, whatever physical and intellectual advantages might result from it, we should have great reason to fear-nay, we should have an assured certainty, unless other means of grace and restraint were exerted by the Almighty, that a prevailing wickedness would in a few centuries demand another sweeping away of the race.

With the seventy years of allotted life, uncertain even during this period, the mother may well feel that what she does, she must do quickly. There is no time to sit down in listless inactivity. The Almighty has unquestionably selected, in mercy to us, the best period of probationary being-that in which moral

influences will act with most power-that which, while it leaves sufficient time for intellectual attainments-for the multiplication of our species, for the improvement of the earth and the advancement of all useful arts, is calculated to make us feel most deeply the necessity of activity and energy in everything connected with our interests as moral beings, looking to a future account and just reward.

This brevity of life is well adapted-is probably essential— in its general influence on the thoughts and feelings, to awaken the anxious care of the mother in the proper training of her child during those very few years of childhood in which alone she can mould its heart and principles. The power of which she is the instrument is resistless, if intelligently and faithfully used at the right period. Where there are no counteracting influences at home, the Christian mother may always so train her child (her health and opportunities being sufficient), as to be certain of his general correctness in after life. And instead of complaining of the shortness of life or wishing its former length restored, she may well rejoice that a kind and wise Providence has so measured her expected days, as most effectually to arouse all her energies to the performance of those duties on which depend her own and children's respectability in this life, and their happiness in that world where duties will not tire, and where years shall be measured by eternity.

SACREDNESS OF MARRIAGE.

"LIFE is never a sunny day throughout. It is subject to clouds, and even to storms; to many and painful vicissitudes, but still they are one, sacredly and inseparably one. And O how tender is that identity of character, interest, and sympathy of flesh and soul, which sets at defiance the rude blasts of misfortune, and remains unchanged amidst the shifting scenes of this inconstant world! Thus understood, this certainly is one of the most beneficent appointments of an indulgent Providence. Here the human heart has its proper point of attraction, and the full tide of human sympathy is taught to ebb and flow, under regulations appointed and approved by heaven."

EDUCATION.

THE NATURE AND END OF PUNISHMENT.

PART I. HISTORY OF EDUCATION, ANCIENT AND MODERN.

PART II. A PLAN OF CULTURE AND INSTRUCTION, BASED ON CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES, AND DESIGNED TO AID IN THE RIGHT EDUCATION OF YOUTH, PHYSICALLY, INTELLECTUALLY, AND MORALLY. By H. L. SMITH, A. M., Professor in the Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Penn. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1842.

(Concluded.)

"Punishments, in the pedagogic sense, are means of discipline; and they differ essentially from the punishment of crime by the civil magistrate in this, that they aim only at the reformation of the person punished. They consist in the endurance of deserved suffering, which the educator inflicts in order to bring his pupil to self-knowledge, and to effect his reformation. They ought to resemble Divine chastisements, in that the person who punishes manifests indignation, virtuous wrath, which, to the heart of the person punished, should be an evidence of love. Through the rigor of severity, the kind intention ought to be discernible; but if, on the other hand, the smallest degree of vindictiveness, of hatred, of injustice on the part of the educator is displayed in the infliction of punishment, its wholesome operation is not only lost, but it becomes a poison. Even if it be unaccompanied by due seriousness, it will operate unfavorably, inasmuch as it will cause the child, or young person punished, to hold in contempt the punishment and him who administers it. It must, therefore, be adapted to the age of the child: smaller children feel only the rod; older ones are more sensible to wounds inflicted on their sense of honor than to bodily pain.

"The end of punishment is best attained if the child can find in it the restoration of its inward peace; a sort of expiation to which it will gladly submit. Children of good dispositions will sometimes, of their own accord, offer themselves for punishment; and, after the pain is over, such are usually more cheerful and more affectionate towards their rigorous guide. This effect should be aimed at; but never should the sufferer be induced to kiss the

hand which has inflicted chastisement, for this makes hypocrites: nor should unnatural punishments be contrived, as Rousseau recommends; for in him who inflicts punishment the child should recognize a sacred authority of will, but not be tempted to act a part.

"Addictedness to lying, which branches out into deceitfulness, dissimulation, exaggeration, hypocrisy, knavery, &c., has already been referred to, in connexion with other depraved manifestations, out of which it is apt to grow. There must be a great deal of mismanagement before a child will lie: for God hath made man upright; and if a child be guilty of this sin, it has certainly been taught to lie; for, at the period of life in which it does not yet distinguish between truth and fiction, it does not as yet consider whether it can accomplish anything by lying; and it does not really design to utter a falsehood, even when it says what is not true. Now, if anything of this kind is magnified into importance; if a purpose is imputed to a child which, as yet, it cannot have; if the child's attention is thus directed to the circumstance, or, if care be not taken to prevent its accomplishing anything by an untrue statement, the child is actually taught to do what otherwise it would not have learned-nay, what its natural instinct would have led it to abhor, i. e., to speak untruth designedly; it is taught to violate its own self-respect by lying. And now, if children do things for which they are censured; if they be subject to several abnormal developments of character; and if the parents do not command their entire confidence, or if they be even subjected to harsh treatment, they will contract a vicious habit of lying, under the auspices of example and of desired success, and stimulated by manifold opportunity.

"There is here no other remedy than that of closing up the sources of the evil in the other corrupt tendencies, and of obtaining the implicit confidence of children. Children should, in no instance, be allowed to get out of a difficulty by a falsehood; never permit yourself to be deceived by them, but give them due credit for a frank confession, and never punish them for a fault