into the ways of the transgressor, those impressions grow fainter and fainter, those ties weaker and weaker; but as long as they are not wholly obliterated or broken there is hope. Oh yes! there is hope for the vilest prodigal who has not yet forgotten his father's counsels and his mother's prayers. If the memory of a deserted mother, who prayed for him in infancy, calls a tear unbidden to his eye "unused to weep" there is hope even for him. He is not altogether lost. That thought may be a beacon light in the darkness of his black heart. He may be a wanderer on the broad ocean, tossed by the tempests of heaven, and driven by fiercer tempests in his own soul; but that thought of a mother's prayer and a mother's love,-THAT THOUGHT, that last expiring ray of hope, may be the polar star that shall lead him back to virtue, home, and God. The return would be more natural than the departure. He would follow the guidance of an impression, which, it may be, the Holy Spirit made on his heart when he sat on his father's knee, or bowed by his mother's side to repeat his evening prayer. Parents! your power is next to omnipotent over the children that God has given you. The cords you fasten on their hearts are the strongest that human power can furnish to hold them back from ruin. Follow them with the ceaseless influence of parental love, from infancy onward to the grave. Make home sweet to the child. Throw around his heart a thousand tender associations, that will bind him, as with links of iron, to the home of his childhood,-to the parents that nurtured and sheltered him, and wept and prayed for him long ere he knew the meaning of prayers or tears. Impress on his heart your tenderness, your deep anxieties for his everlasting weal; and when he breaks away from your arms, and rushes on in the ways of sin and death, it may be, that he who would trample on a Saviour's blood, and despise the grace of God, and break his laws, and reject his proffered love, may pause before he tramples beneath his feet his mother's broken heart. OUR LIFE LIKE A FLOWER. "For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."-1 Peter i. 24. 25. THERE'S not a little flower that blows, But doth a sermon preach. Each blade of grass, each spreading tree, See, in the morning, how they stand, See, in the evening of the day, 'Tis thus with all things here below; Poor dying world! and what becomes Oh, awful thought! who would delay In Christ there's mercy, life, and grace, THE "GOOD SHEPHERD.” SHEPHERD of thy little flock, By that pure and silent stream, THE DYING GIRL. BY ALFRED TENNYSON. I THOUGHT to pass away before, and yet alive I am; O sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies, It seem'd so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun, O blessings on his kindly voice, and on his silver hair! He shewed me all the mercy, for he taught me all the sin,Now, though my lamp was lighted late, there's One will let me in ; Nor would I now be well mother, again, if that could be, I did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat, There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet. But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hands in mine, And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign, All in the wild March-morning, I heard the angels call; For, lying broad awake, I thought of you and Effie dear, I thought that it was fancy, and I listen'd in my bed, And then did something speak to me-I know not what was said; For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind, And up the valley came again the music on the wind. But you were sleeping; and I said, "It's not for them; it's mine:" And if it comes three times, I thought, I take it for a sign. And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars, Then seem'd to go right up to heaven, and die among the stars So now I think my time is near. I trust it is. I know O look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow; Wild flowers are in the valley, for other hands than mine. O sweet and strange to me it seems that ere this day is done, For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home And there to wait a little while, till you and Effie come- at rest. TO MY INFANT SISTER. ERE the bud reached the opening flower, G. G. |