PARENTAL UNFAITHFULNESS.

BY DR. CHALMERS.

How strange it is that the same parent who is so intent on the preferment of his children in the world, should be so utterly listless of their prospects, nor put forth one endeavor to obtain for them preferment in heaven-that he who would mourn over it as the sorest of his family trials, should one of them be bereft of any of the corporeal senses, yet should take it so easily, although none of them have a right sense of God or a right principle of godliness-that he, who would be so sorely astounded did any of his little ones perish in a conflagration or a storm, should be so unmoved by all the fearful things that are reported of the region on the other side of death, where the fury of an incensed Lawgiver is poured upon all who have fled not to Christ as their refuge from the tempest, and they are made to lie down in the devouring fire and to dwell with everlasting burnings-that to avert from the objects of our tenderness the calamities, or to obtain for them. the good things of this present life, there shall be so much of care and of busy expedient, while not one practical measure is taken either to avert from them that calamity which is the most dreadful, or to secure for them that felicity which is the most glorious. Why there is indeed such obvious demonstration in all this of time being regarded as our all, and eternity being counted by us as nothing-so light an esteem in it of that God, an inheritance in whom we treat as of far less value for those who are dear to us than that they should be made richly to inherit the gifts of his providence such a preference for ourselves, and for the fleeting generations that come after us, of the short-lived creature to the Creator who endureth for ever-as most strikingly to mark, even by the very loves and amiable sensibilities of our hearts, how profoundly immersed we are in the grossest carnality—that after all it is but an earthly horizon that bounds us, and an earthly platform we grovel on-that Nature, even in her best and most graceful exhibitions, gives manifest token of her fall, proving herself an exile from Paradise even in the kindest and honestest

of the sympathies which belong to her-that, retaining though she does many soft and tender affinities for those of her own kind, she has been cast down and degraded beneath the high aims and desires of immortality-accursed even in her moods of greatest generosity, and evil in the very act of giving good gifts unto her children.

The man whose heart is set on the conversion of his children -the man whose house is their school of discipline for eternityhe it is, and we fear he only of all other parents, who lives by faith. If you love your children and at the same time are listless about their eternity, what other explanation can be given than that you believe not what the Bible tells of eternity? You believe not of the wrath and the anguish and the tribulation that are there. Those piercing cries that here from any one of your children would go to your very heart, and drive you frantic with the horror of its sufferings, you do not believe that there is pain there to call them forth. You do not think of the meeting-place that you are to have with them before the judgment-seat of Christ, and of the looks of anguish and the words of reproach that they will cast upon you, for having neglected and so undone their eternity.

The awful sentence of condemnation-the signal of everlasting departure to all who know not God and obey not the gospelthe ceaseless moanings that ever and anon shall ascend from the lake of living agony-the grim and dreary imprisonment whose barriers are closed insuperably, and for ever on the hopeless outcasts of vengeance; these, ye men who wear the form of godliness but show not the power of it in your training of your families these are not the articles of your faith.-To you they are as the imaginations of a legendary fable. Else why this apathy? Why so alert to the rescue of your young from even the most trifling of calamities, and this dead indifference about their exposure to the most tremendous of all? O, the secret will be out. The cause bewrayeth itself. You have not faith; and, compassed about though you be with Sabbath forms and seemly observations and the semblance of a goodly and well-looking profession, yet, if you labor not specifically and in practical

earnest for the souls of your children, your doings short of this are, we fear, but the diseased and lame offerings of hypocrisyyour Christianity, we fear, is a delusion.

Original.

CULTIVATION OF A CORRECT TASTE.

MOTHERS, by reason of their early and intimate intercourse with their children, have peculiar advantages for guiding their primary intellectual habits, regulating their associations, and laying the foundation of correct taste. The modes of thought and of speech then formed are likely to be permanent, and to receive their first moulding from the maternal example. Great therefore is the privilege of those children who, from the lips of those they first loved, received not only right thoughts, but right words, elegance of expression, chaste and beautiful imagery, and melodious sounds. That maternal influence which will be found thus elevated will always be remembered and will be generally rewarded in the graceful manners of her children when they come to years of maturity.

In many ways the mother can contribute to the formation of a correct taste. The first hymns she teaches to the lisper and even the earliest notes which she sings for its lullaby should be chosen with care. The pictures with which the walls of the nursery are adorned should be selected with a studious and cultivated regard for real beauty. Likenesses of excellent men and women, whose names you would choose to have your children love-and whose virtues you would rejoice to see them imitate, are a very desirable ornament. A few elegant historical pictures which might be used as introductions to general history or which are calculated to inspire noble sentiments, would be found of great utility in every family able to have them. A few well finished landscape pieces would also tend to foster a love of nature in its cheerful and its sublime aspects. There is a refining and effectual influence arising from a daily familiarity with the scenery of

nature whether it glow before us in its original loveliness, or in the representations of the genuine artist.

At proper times, as the mind becomes able to receive them, clear and definite instructions should be given, as to the reason of their selection, the nature of their influence, and the general rules which should govern the exercise of the imagination. As the child educated by such a process enters upon scenes and studies away from home, these early instructions, examples, and associations will operate to elevate, restrain and purify the mind, influencing his course of reading, his companionships and his present character.

It is a most happy circumstance that the English Translation of the Sacred Scriptures is so excellent a model of style as well as an infallible standard of faith and practice, so far as it is true to the original. In its history in the Psalms and the Prophets, and in the pure diction of Christ as recorded by the Evangelists, we have the very reading in all respects best fitted for the earliest education. This, moreover, is the book with which the truly Christian mother will be most familiar, and in connection with which her remarks will fall with most impressiveness on the minds of her children.

N.

НОМЕ.

"O HOW sacred is that home where every word is kindness, and every look affection! Where the ills and sorrows of life are borne by mutual effort, and its pleasures are equally divided; and where each esteems the other the more worthy. Where a holy emulation abounds to excel in offices of kindness, and affectionate regard. Where the live-long day, the week, the month, the year, is a scene of cheerful and unwearied effort to swell the tide of domestic comfort, and overflow the heart with home-born enjoyments. That home may be the humblest hovel on earth; there heart meets heart, in all the fondness of a full affection. And wherever that spot is found, there is an exemplification of all that is lovely and of good report among men. It is heaven begun below."

Original

THOUGHTS FOR MATERNAL ASSOCIATIONS.

"a

"THERE is," says an eloquent writer* of our own times, period in which a good book goes down into the soul as a precious seed into a moist furrow of earth in the spring, and germinates. A new growth springs from it. It is different from knowledge. It becomes the mind's own, and is reproduced in a form of originality. Its principles become seeds in a man's being, and by and by blossom and fructify. This is a particular period, but it does not last. A man who has passed it, may read the same book, and know it perfectly; the acquisition of knowledge goes on through life; but knowledge as life-knowledge as the creator of wisdom, not so. I have in my mind some volumes which have excited a refreshing and inspiring power over many young minds, but with older ones the power does not seem to exist. It is like putting a magnet to a lump of clay."

Who can read these sentences without reverting to that impressive period, so clearly within the recollection of every Parent, when the book read, the sentiments uttered, and the scenes witnessed, became incorporated into one's very existence ! And who does not remember the unavailing effort to recall that mysterious power-that pleasurable sympathy and absorbing interest which made knowledge thus obtained, the "mind's own ;" and painfully realized that the power was lost. Happy for those who passed that "germinating" period with some guardian friend who selected with skill and care the mental food which was to nourish the soul and fit it for its future duties. More happy still if the spirit of Truth became the unseen Director, and if in addition to its silent influences on the sacred word, the sentiments of a Baxter, a Doddridge, a Bunyan or Owen, lent their instrumentality in moulding a character which was hereafter to guide other immortals through a world like this. It is a natural inquiry whether the

• Religion of Experience and that of Imitation, by Rev. George B. Chee. ver.-American Biblical Repository.