Buoyantly she left the hall, to shed her smiles upon the domestic group, and enjoy once more the blessedness of home.

As

Gentle reader, there are many such sufferers as I have described.

you would that others should do to to you in like circumstances, so do you to them. Go, and interest yourself in their misfortunes. To extract one drop of bitterness from their cup, will afford you more pleasure in the final hour, than to remember the vain recreations of a whole life.

Worcester, Mass., May, 1846.

'Call me by my Christian name,' said she. 'It affords the most touching evidence of your love, and calls up the blest remembrance of childhood.'

MY CHILDHOOD'S NAME.

BY REV. M. TRAFTON.

O, CALL me not by that new name,
Its sound is strange to me,

For, in my childhood's unchanged heart,
It wakes no melody;

I do not start- I do not hear

I cannot feel the tone,

For all around is strange; I sigh

That I am still alone.

Speak to my heart, but speak as those
Who knew me when a child;

When bounding on the fresh, green sward,

Arose our laughter wild;

Then, when each other's names we called,

The echoes richly rolled

Among the sounding, sea-lashed cliffs,

And through the forests old.

O, then the sun-light of our youth
Streamed gloriously through

Life's opening vista, painting there
A most enchanting view;

Then all was bright, immortal youth,
Unsullied by a tear,

And lovely was the beauteous bow

Of promise, arching near.

These visions sweet, still let me see-
Dear heart-lights of my youth;

O, tell me not I was deceived,
O, question not their truth!

Leave me to find them false, myself

If false they prove at last —

But O, not willingly away,
Will I such jewels cast.

Break not the spell, then, by that name,
But call me by the other,
Which from my infancy I've heard,
From father, sister, mother;
It stirs within my leaping heart,
My childhood's whisperings,
Falling as soft as echoes fall
From angels' silver wings.

O, why should not my youthfu! heart
Go with me through life's way?
Why should the heartless forms of earth
Make these first flowers decay?
Then call me Mary; speak in tones
Affectionate as those

Who still are treasured in my heart,
Though in death's deep repose.

Cambridge-port, Mass., May, 1846.

THE LOST CHILD.

A correspondent of the St. Louis Weekly Gazette gives the following account of a hunt for a lost child in one of the thinly peopled neighborhoods of the West:

Little Johnny was about four years old. He had been out in the field, with his father and the black man, who were harvesting corn had filled his little bag with roasting ears, and started for home about two o'clock in the afternoon. On returning at night, they ascertained that the child had never been seen. It was nearly dark, but the alarm was given, and some fifteen or twenty neighbors took their horns and commenced the search. The corn, where he was first seen, was the first object, of course; here they took single rows, and scoured the field in vain. They then scattered through the wood; the father frantic, often calling out in a voice of thunder, 'Ho! John-ho! John-O, John!' Then, fearing the boy might be alarmed and afraid to answer, he would soften down into the gentle, winning tone of the fireside—'Johnny, Johnny my dear, father's

come.'

It was a cloudy evening; and though, perhaps, he had never bowed the knee 'before Jehovah's awful throne,' he prayed - O how earnestly he prayed the Lord it might not rain that night. The air was damp and chilly, so that, if the child were alive, with his bare feet and light jacket, he must be suffering cruelly from cold. But the wolves!-ah, this was the fear, this the terror, which all felt, none dared to breathe. A wolf had been prowling around the premises indeed, they had a common path across the prairie.

The search was continued till midnight, when a part thought it best to relieve their horses, and wait for daylight, to begin afresh. But the father, with three of his hunting friends, who had resolved not to eat or sleep till they had found the boy, still kept on sometimes riding, sometimes walking-calling and shouting, if for no other purpose than to keep the wolves at bay. At length they stationed themselves within hearing distance of each other, and sat down to protect the child, or rush to his rescue, in case they should hear him attacked, to watch until the morning.

At early dawn, about fifty new horsemen arrived, and the search commenced anew. The field was examined for the track, which was pursued with some doubt, as he had been there three successive days. On tracing the path which led towards the wolf woods, the imprints of Johnny's little feet were again discovered, as he appeared to be running, and the mark of his bag dragged along by his side. Here the father's anguish gushed anew, as the fears of the preceding night were justified and corroborated. They now agreed to take a station of about fifteen rods abreast, go up one side of the branch and down the other, till the whole surface of the extensive area farther than he could possibly have travelled, had been explored. They had completed one side, and were returning, when the signal was given — Johnny was found! The noisy shouting, and repeated peals of the hunters' winding horns, soon grouped the solemn cavalcade.

But O'Larry, though foremost in the hunt, fell back at the first note of the summoning horn, nor did he speak a word, or scarcely breathe, till he snatched his own true Johnny from the arms of his delighted bearer, and pressed him with a frantic fondness to his now bursting heart. The dear boy was found, about two miles from home, in a thicket of hazel, picking filberts, with his bag of corn still on his arm. He looked bright and happy; and when asked where he was going, said he was going home, but it was so far. He said he hadn't seen anybody, but he heard some one call him, and that he was afraid; that he ran till he was very tired, and then he laid his head down on his bag, and cried—that while he was crying he saw a big carriage go by with candles in it, (the thunder and lightning,) and then it grew very dark, and he asked God to take care of little Johnny, and went to sleep. He seemed amazed to see so many around him, and all so glad to see him.

BY MRS. ELIZA T. P. SMITH, OF ROXBURY, MASS.

'O DEAR! What shall I do? Next week is vacation. I shall be crazy before the week is over, with these boys!' Upon uttering this, Mrs. James Temple folded her hands and looked the picture of dismay.

William and James Temple were brothers. They were men who, at the period of which we write, were actively engaged in business, and obtained a comfortable maintenance. Both had a family of children. William married a young lady from the city; James, a lady from an interior town. Having visited both families, and been present during a vacation in each, I thought an account of the different manner in which the vacation was spent in the two families, with a few inferences on family government, might be interesting and profitable to the many mothers who exclaim, 'O dear! what shall I do? Next week is vacation.'

Mrs. James Temple was what everybody called a smart woman. Her house was a little better kept, and her children a little better dressed than any of her neighbors'; and, as she was a member of the church, the sewing, and other societies often met there, and were a little better entertained than at any other place. She was, also, an active member of a Maternal Association, and took great inter

est in stimulating the members to the discharge of their maternal duties. She was very fond of her children. No mother's eyes glistened more than hers, when all her children went before her up the aisle of the church, dressed so nicely and looking so pretty. Nobody felt prouder then she, when her daughter played finely on the piano, or was praised for diligence in her studies.

The first day of vacation at length arrived. As Mr. Temple was rising from the breakfast-table, his wife said, 'Now, father, do give these boys a charge. It is vacation week, and I dread it shockingly.'

'Boys,' said Mr. T., mind what your mother says, and behave yourselves, or I will give you a flogging;' and off he went to his business. Having so often heard complaints and grievances, he had become quite hardened to them. Fathers are mortal; and when they return from their daily toil, it is for relaxation and rest, and not to be burdened with petty troubles, and to listen to complaints and trials; also, when they leave their family in the morning, they like to do it with a pleasant remembrance. A thought of smiling faces and a happy home, is a delightful stimulant to a father at his daily toil. Mr. T. loved his family; they were all in all to him of earthly enjoyment; and yet often, as on the morning we have cited, he went from them with a shade on his brow, and a pang at his heart, looking to his business to enable him to dissipate it. Ah! if wives did but realize how much the happiness of their husbands depends upon little sayings and little occurrences, they would pay more attention to these little sayings and doings. It is not that a wife is beautiful, or graceful, or accomplished, that makes a man happy, neither is it the absence of these that will make a man unhappy; if the temper and disposition be, to make the best of every thing, to make her home a pleasant one at any rate, and be always contented and pleasant herself, the husband of such a woman cannot but be a happy man and love his home.*

*NOTE BY THE EDITOR.- We entirely concur in Mrs. Smith's excellent remarks on this point. But will she permit us to say, that, in our opinion, the duties here prescribed do not exclusively, or even specially, devolve upon the mother? Is it not a father's duty to control his children, to direct in their recreations and pastimes, to improve their manners, and to instruct them faithfully in every moral and religious duty? Does not a responsibility in relation to these matters rest upon him, which he cannot, by any plea for want of time, throw off? And when he returns