adapted for children; yet they must sit still through the reading of the same, and frequently are in a deep sleep before the discourse is half through, and then must be awakened, and solemnly told that there will be no sleeping in heaven, that God is angry with them; and that a certain man died while sleeping, under a sermon preached by the Apostle Paul.

In order to render religion lovely, we, ourselves, should cherish a cheerful disposition; and, to make the Bible interesting, we should select for our children, and point out the beauties of various parts of Holy Writ-especially let them study the history of some of the pious youth recorded therein, such as Joseph, Samuel, and others--tell them how wonderfully God has preserved this holy book, and that it is owing to its wise and holy laws that we Americans are more highly-favored than any other nation.

Children, at a very early age, receive impressions about religion, such as the Being and character of God, death, and a future world; and parents should be particularly guarded in their conversation upon such subjects before their children, lest they should imbibe false ideas of the Holy One, and think that He is a tyrant rather than a father; a Being that delights in the miseries, rather than in the happiness of his creatures. The subject of death should be explained, as the reason why men are born to die. The triumphant death of saints, and especially young children, they should be made acquainted with, that they may know, that even little children, by the Gospel, may rise above the fear of this last enemy.

We cannot, too early, begin to interest and instruct the youthful mind. Many of us, when young, as we have gazed upon the sun, when setting behind the mountains that girded the region of country where we were born, have thought that those mountains were the boundaries of the world; and similar opinions we at that time entertained upon all other subjects. How pleasant would be the task to the affectionate mother to correct these erroneous ideas, and lead forward the growing capacity of her children.

Our Sabbath-school, and other institutions for the instruction of our youth, by no means exonerate the mother from being her. child's instructor. Although it is to be lamented, that this idea

influences many, supposing that they have got rid of what they considered a burden, when it ought to be esteemed both a pleasure and a privilege, the effects of which can never be duly appreciated here, nor fully known, until both parent and child shall have entered upon that existence in eternity, the preparation for which can only be made in the present world.

THOSE may hope to be saved at the eleventh hour, who, when called at that hour, can plead that it is their first call; who can say when asked why they stand idle, "Because no man has hired us."

"THE Christian mourner! Is not this a misnomer ?" No, by no means. "But it is the privilege and the duty of the child of God to be happy." So it is. But when the Holy Spirit transforms a human soul into his own image, and gives that soul an earnest of the joys of heaven while here on earth, he does not petrify the sensibilities of that soul. The capacity of suffering remains. The adaptation of many of the circumstances in which God has placed him to produce suffering, is the same as before

the spiritual transformation. Though he has new hopes, new sources of joy, he has old fears and old sources of sorrow. Holiness, in this life, does not ensure unmixed enjoyment, else would our divine Redeemer not have been " a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." More than this: The same causes that in the breast of the unrenewed man produce the keenest anguish, may, when that man is renewed, produce a degree of anguish equally keen.

It is in the light of this truth-so generally misunderstood, as I apprehend, by the Christian philosopher, that we see the benefit of affliction. If the Christian could not feel the rod-if he were not sensible of the pain inflicted by it, or even of a considerable degree of pain—the efficiency of that chastening would be lost. The child of God does feel-he must feel-when the hand of his Father is laid heavily upon him.

He feels, when his worldly possessions are removed from him, and he is reduced, perhaps, from a condition of affluence to one of poverty, and of comparative want. He feels, when he is slandered and abused by his fellow men, and especially when he is slandered and abused by those whom he had learned to regard as his warm friends. He feels, when a victim of severe physical pain. Religion has not made him a boulder of granite, or a block of wood. He feels, when his heavenly Father comes into his domestic sanctuary, and removes from his embrace one whom he loved most tenderly. Aye, his very heart bleeds, when one of his lambs is taken from the fold. The father and mother feel, when the flower they were endeavoring to rear for usefulness and for the garden of God, is cut down by an untimely frost. The husband feels, when the wife of his bosom is removed from his embrace. The wife feels, when the loved one, on whom she had leaned, falls a prey to the shafts of death.

In one sense, religion does not diminish the keeness of their suffering. The child, as he first essays to walk, falls, and is hurt. He cries from the pain of the wound he has received. The nurse gives him some toy, with which he is amused. His tears anon cease to flow. The toy has solaced him, in part. It has not removed the pain. The pain may be as severe as ever. But the toy has opened a new fountain of pleasure.

So with the Christian. heart bleeding to the core crushed around him-religion meets him, and bids him look upward for comfort. It does not bid him dry his tears at once. It does not administer to him spiritual morphine. He is not supposed to be capable of breaking asunder, in a moment, all the fibres of love which bound him to his lost one. He is not required to cast away the affection which he has been garnering for years, and to bury it in that new made grave. No. The religion of Jesus Christ-the blessed gospel of the Son of God, has another mission to the suffering disciple. It allows him to suffer, but, at the same time, opens to him other rills of enjoyment. It speaks words of comfort to the soul, while it aims to make that soul "perfect through suffering."

With his hearth all desolate with his with his fairest hopes prostrate and

It does not rebuke the stricken wife, when in the anguish of premature widowhood, she leads her child to the cherished spot where rests the form of the husband and father. It does not frown, because she "goes to the grave, to weep there." It does not attempt to conceal from her mind the story that Jesus wept over the grave of his friend Lazarus; that he did not hide his tears; that his grief was so marked and affecting, that his disciples exclaimed, "Behold, how he loved him!"

"Ah!" said a dear friend, whom I met the other day, for the first time after the sudden removal from his hearth to heaven of a devoted young wife, "I have learned something of the power of the gospel in the heart made desolate by the angel of death, which I never knew, never dreamed of before, until the dear partner of my bosom was taken from me. I have learned that that gospel does not at once withdraw the arrow from the Christian's soul, but that it yields him a new supply of heaven's gifts, while his wound remains open, and he feels the keenest pain."

Of the same tenor is the language of a venerable servant of God, in a recent letter to a friend, which has just come under my observation. He had been thrown into the furnace of affliction. The wife of his youth had been taken from him; and, like the old oak of the forest, upon which had beaten the storms of many winters, and from which, at last, had been riven the only bough that