lessening the cares of her parents, particularly of her mother, by her kind and almost maternal attentions to the younger children.

There is scarcely a more beautiful sight than to see a gentle and ingenuous-hearted girl standing just upon the line which separates childhood from mature youth, surrounded by a group of blithesome little beings, each deriving its happiness from her, and all attracted by her sweet spirit to looks, and words, and deeds of love. Such a sister, and such there are, exerts an influence second in degree and importance only to that of a mother's. Happy will it be for our land, when every sister feels her responsibilities, and exercises an influence such as this.

I hesitate to sketch the opposite picture, too often seen, alas! where the elder sister, taking advantage of a few additional years to make a show of authority, exercises a control over the younger members of her mother's family, amounting to little less than tyranny. A sister of this disposition will sometimes obtain a reluc tant submission from the half-resisting little creatures within her power, and compel them to subserve her wishes during a mother's absence; but love her they never can. Oh! what sister can feel willing to elicit the fear rather than the love of those little trusting hearts, which she may bind so closely to her own, as to lead them with a thread of gossamer!

Be it yours, my young reader, to cultivate their affections, and teach them how to become happy by being good. Second your parents in all their efforts for this object, and let them see the precepts you inculcate, illustrated and enforced by your daily practice. Never allow an irritability of spirit to betray you into any appearance of unkindness toward them. Try at all times to be patient with their faults. To help you in this difficult attainment, consider with how many and much greater faults of yours, your parents have borne so long. Overcome, as far as possible, their petulance with your own gentleness, their unreasonableness with your condescension. Sympathize with them in all their little trials, remembering that they appear great to them, just as your own difficulties, which seem trifling to those who have encountered the severer ills of life, look formidable to you. Encourage them in making attempts for their own improvement, and aid them by every suitable means; but on no account reproach them for their failures, or expose their faults

needlessly to your parents. In short, convince them by all your conduct that they may ever find a friend in you.

In the commencement of these remarks, I spoke of the happiness of parents being greatly dependent upon the manner in which their children discharge the duties of the fraternal relation. Can any of my young readers think of a pleasanter way by which to render their parents happy than this mutual exercise of kindness and affection among themselves? Next to the favor and blessing of their heavenly Father, which they cannot fail to obtain, can any thing be richer than the threefold reward they thus secure to themselves? Does any one ask for, or can any one have a higher inducement to cultivate, and, at all times exercise, the spirit of that beautiful precept, Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another?'

But I must not any farther enlarge upon a subject, which, although it cannot be exhausted, I fear the youthful reader may think already prolonged. Still, I cannot but hope that many of them will be disposed to carry out in their own minds, and in their practice, too, suggestions which could be but glanced at here. If any thing I have written shall be followed by such a result, on the part of a single daughter and sister, so that herself and her home shall be made better and happier than they otherwise would be, I shall indeed feel that I have received my reward.

In conclusion, then, my young friend, let me say to you most affectionately, cultivate habitually the spirit of filial confidence and love. The first will lead you cheerfully to conform to the wishes of your parents, even when they happen to conflict with individual preferences and plans; the latter will prompt you to relieve them of their cares and minister to their comfort.

And is that too much, think you, for a kind parent to expect from a grateful child? Is it more than your parents have done all your life, and are still doing, for you? Go back to the period of helpless infancy, and reckon up, if you can, the days of care and self-denial, the nights of anxiety and painful watchings, which nothing less than their deep love for you could have enabled them to sustain.

True, you cannot remember those days and nights when you were too young and feeble to know the faithful hand which unremittingly ministered to your wants; but you can learn what they have done for you by observing what they now do for your younger sisters and

brothers still in infancy. And is their love less valued because exercised when you were not only too helpless to repay, but too ignorant even to know, your benefactors? Oh! do not seem ungrateful for a love which you can never fully requite.

But have you contracted no debt since the period of forgetful infancy? How has it been since your remembrance? How is it now? I will not ask you to number their days of incessant, uncomplaining toil, the expenditure of means, health and life, to supply your present necessities, and provide for your future wants; but think, if you can, of their many devices to render you happy from day to day; of their frequent self-denials to gratify your wishes; think of their patience with your inadvertences; their forbearance with your faults.

Upon this last you cannot dwell too long. Can you recall the many instances of waywardness of which you have been guilty, of dissatisfaction with their requirements, of impatience under their reasonable restraints? Can you think of no instances of actual disobedience? Have no feelings of resentment ever been indulged, though you might have felt compelled to suppress their expression? Or, possibly, they may have been expressed, and each word became a thorn in the bosom which cherished for you a love stronger than life.

With all this, and much more than this, their love has borne. Well is it for you if it can still survive. Let me assure you, no human love but that of a parent can thus suffer and thus forgive.

Ah! my young friend, you know not, you can never know, while your parents are still with you, what is the value of a friendship such as theirs.

A parent's love, like all our other blessings, is never fully appreciated while possessed. But let that parent's eye, which ever beamed on you with tenderness, be turned toward you, for the last time, from the pillow of death! Oh! then, how precious will that love appear!

Place yourself, youthful reader, by the side of that dying bed, and imagine, if possible, what would be your reflections. Or if emotion should be at such a time too overwhelming for reflection, go, after a few months, when time has chastened and in a measure subdued the violence of that emotion, and visit the quiet resting-place of that beloved parent. There, you will not only weep over the present,

but review the past. And as faithful memory and more faithful conscience do their duty, say, what is the testimony of your bereaved heart? There you will recall the unkindness of youth, as surely as the perverseness of childhood; the dutiful act omitted, not less than the undutiful act performed. And, believe me, no sorrow in after life can compare with that you will experience, should the pangs of self-reproach mingle with the grief you feel for the loss of those beloved parents, if you are called in early life to weep over their graves.

6

At the grave of an affectionate parent, the most dutiful child will often feel constrained to adopt the language of the heart-broken penitent, and exclaim in his touching lament, Spirit of my departed parent! could I recall the season when it was in my power to honor you, how different should be my conduct! Oh! were not the dead unconscious of the reverence the living pay them, I would disturb the silence of your tomb with nightly orisons, and bedew the urn which contains your ashes with perpetual tears!'

But if you have been undutiful, heedless of their admonitions, and careless of their comfort, if you have done little to make them happy, and, as I fear is true of too many, much to grieve them, oh! be assured, unless your heart has become steeled against every generous impulse, so that you deserve not the filial name, be assured, no tears will be able to obliterate the remembrance of your unkindness, and no agony of feeling furnish an atonement for it.

Oh! did you know how many orphaned hearts are at this moment yearning with unuttered and unutterable longings for the homes and friends of their infancy, for a mother's sympathy and a father's love, which they knew just long enough to feel their worth when lost, could you for one brief hour feel as they feel for years, how would you cherish the love of those whom God has spared to you, with more than a miser's avarice; and how careful would you be to deserve it by doing every thing within your power to honor and to bless them!

Do thus, my beloved young friend, and the kind promise which your heavenly Parent has made to a faithful observance of his fifth commandment will be abundantly fulfilled to you.

Bangor, Me., 1846.