procure help-and not only this, but there was no maternal association, nor Sunday school-no help-meets to come to her aid. Now, where was the nursery, the separate apartmentwhere the place of retirement for instruction and prayerwhere the time and means for the improvement of mind and heart of those young immortals? Wont you pray for such? She does what she can. When the weather is pleasant, she often retires to the grove with her children, and there implores a Father's blessing upon the objects of her love, solicitude, and care. And could you, dear reader, listen to her prayer at evening twilight, as, after the unremitting toils of the day, she retires alone with her God in that little thicket, you would not forget to sympathize with the less privileged class of mothers in the West. But you say, this is an extreme case. True, all are not thus situated, yet, there are hundreds in circumstances similar in the most important respects. Most parents who feel an interest in the salvation of their children, are new settlers in the West;-for the most part, they are in moderate circumstances, if not poor. The most they have is invested in land, and a few necessary things to commence living. If they do not (as most do) begin with a log cabin, it will generally be but a small frame, containing one room, hoping at some time to build larger in addition. The labor of mothers is necessarily harder-they have less helphave to do with fewer conveniences, and much to great disadvantage; and during this struggle to obtain a comfortable earthly home, very many destroy their health completely undermine their constitution. Healthy mothers in this country who removed from the cast are few-at least, those who If health is not ruined, they are so dragged down appear so. with incessant toil, in things which seem (at least to them) to be necessary, that they are to a great extent unfitted for the high, solemn, and spiritual duties of a mother; even should they have a few leisure moments. All, who know anything of the laws of our being, and have noted their own experience, are aware, that body and soul deeply sympathize together-and when the former becomes wearied and ex

hausted, the latter suffers by becoming stupid and inactive. And, again, the mind under the influence of poor health and constant toil is greatly in danger of impatience and fretfulness, the effect of which, upon the mother and the child, I need not dwell upon.

The Sunday school and suitable reading for the young, are not within the reach of very many, and a still less number enjoy the rich blessing and means of grace found in the maternal association; and with these privations, there is another. The children, to an alarming extent, are growing up without the ordinary restraints of the Gospel and Gospel institutions. These helps can be better prized by those who have once enjoyed them, and now suffer the loss. Such, in brief, is the situation of mothers at the West. There are exceptions. There are settlements, colonies, &c., where most of the advantages of the older States are enjoyed, but these are few when compared with the multitude. But in all these things there is a change gradually coming over the fair portion of our natural world; yes, nature is fair and lovely, but there is much moral deformity. Yet, a better day is dawning-these privations, we trust, will soon give way for greater blessings. Pray for mothers at the West. One other reason for this, and I close. The West is becoming, and is destined emphatically to be, the great moral battle-field of our wide land. It has its peculiarities; and none can be so well qualified for the conflict as those reared up, educated, and trained upon the soil. We want native helpers-we want the sons of these mothers, qualified and set apart by Jesus Christ to blow the silver trumpet of the Gospel over these wide-spread prairies, and beseech men to be reconciled to God, when you and I shall have gone to our long home. Again, we ask, if, when you meet together in your Associa tions or circles of prayer, and when alone with your God, you will not bear up before a mercy-seat, the mothers and children too, of the West, and ask that the means of Grace and the salvation of God may come to them as water to a thirsty soul, to the grace and glory of Redeeming Love.

L. SPENCER.

Original.

THE WIDOW AND HER MITE.

THE scrap of evangelical history respecting the poor widow and her humble offering to the treasury of the temple, conveys in a sweet and impressive manner a much needed and valuable lesson, especially to Christians of limited means and obscure station in the world. There are Christians in humble life, who, though conscious of some desires, seem to themselves and others not to have the means of usefulness; and their lives are spent in comparative inefficiency and despondency. They admire, and perhaps almost envy the opportunities and successes of the great, the wise, the rich, the men of influence in the kingdom of Christ; and are ready to believe that could they but enjoy the same advantages, they would shine as lights of the first magnitude in the moral firmament. With what liberality would they give were they rich; with what zeal would they preach were they gifted with eloquence!

There is no more common or successful device of the great adversary, than this of making a man dissatisfied and useless in the sphere which Providence has actually assigned him. On the other hand, nothing can more clearly settle it. than the Bible and all experience, that the great secret of usefulness lies in doing the best we can in our actual circumstances, and nothing can be more distinct or satisfactory than the divine assurance, that doing thus, our labor shall not be in vain in the Lord.

It may be imagined as a probable case, that the poor widow in the Gospel often had similar feelings, with the

obscure and desponding Christian. She was poor. She was a lonely widow. Perhaps a family depended upon her daily labor for subsistence. What good could she do in the world? She could lift her prayer to heaven after tasting her hard-carried bread, and she could hold personal intercourse with the Father of her Spirit, and commit her dependent

ones to his keeping, but what more could she do or how extend her influence? She directed her steps to the temple, the place where God had recorded his name,-the place where he reveals himself to the lowly in heart. As she passed the sacred treasury, she remembered that God had said, "Honor me with thy substance." But what could she do? She had but two mites, and the two made but a farthing, and how contemptible an offering was that compared with the gifts which certain rich men were just then casting in! She silently dropped her mites, and hastened forward to the place of prayer. But there was one present at this scene who knew the secret workings of the heart. He had been leisurely contemplating the rich men who had been bestowing of their abundance; but as this widow passed, he called to his disciples and said, "Verily I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast more in than all they which have cast into the treasury; for all they did cast in of their abundance, but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living." And thus the poor widow who seemed to have no means of doing any good in the world, preached to the Apostles, and through them, to multitudes of others, and is now preaching through this Mother's Magazine to every reader of this article; and her contemptible two mites have drawn, for aught we know, thousands of silver to the treasury of the Lord. Little as she thought of benefiting others, her unpretending act was thought worthy of a place in the sacred record; and this her memorial will yet be read throughout the world.

There is no Christian, however obscure, who may not take encouragement from this incident. Only let such Christians resolve to do, with a right spirit, what they can, and they have no reason to fear that they will be less useful than they might be in other circumstances. Nothing can be more idle than to wish to be in any other circumstances than those in which a wise Providence has actually placed us, since all that is necessary either to our acceptance, or happiness, or usefulness, is a right spirit, and a right improvement

of what we have. There are innumerable methods in which God can use our instrumentality to produce incalculable good; and if we but do our duty, long after we are dead, and in ways entirely unanticipated by us, our influence may be producing as great and as good results as the poor widow's at this day. Let us abandon the illusory and false idea, that we must be or do some great thing in order to serve God and bless mankind. The Saviour adopted no such method of computation. The rich men's gifts he did not stay to count, but the widow's he did count. There were two mites, amounting to just one farthing, but she put in her heart along with them. This we can all do.

"This is an offering we may bring,

However mean our store;

The meanest child, the greatest king,
Can give him nothing more."

PAGE.

Original

THE CONSECRATION.

A FEW Weeks since, as I was passing a Sabbath in a quiet village embosomed among the hills of our fair New England, I joined the concourse of people that were seen issuing from their white cottages, and entered with them the house of prayer. In the pulpit I observed an aged clergyman, whose lofty brow and benignant face at once awakened respect and love. Presently he rose, and the voice of prayer ascended for blessing on the youthful pair who were now to dedicate their first born to God. As he descended the stairs, the choir chanted the memorable words, "Suffer little children to come unto me," accompanied by the low full tones of the organ. As the parents approached the baptismal font, the smiling babe fixed its gaze on the face of the venerable man, and while he laid his hand on the fair brow, the tear glistened in