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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,
The daisy, lily, or the rose,

But doth a sermon preach.

Each blade of grass, each spreading tree,
Has got a voice for you and me,
And may some lesson teach.

See, in the morning, how they stand,
So bright and fair upon the land,
Perfuming all around;

See, in the evening of the day,
Those flowers so sweet, and bright, and gay,
Lie wither'd on the ground.

'Tis thus with all things here below;
Some men and women come and go,
And youth and children too.
How many little babies die;
How many in the grave yard lie,
Not half so old as I!

Poor dying world! and what becomes
Of those within the silent tombs,
Where we so soon must dwell?
The body sleeps among the dead,
But, ah! the spirit-it is fled
To heaven or to hell.

Oh, awful thought! who would delay
To seek salvation, while they may
Salvation yet obtain?

In Christ there's mercy, life, and grace,
And none who seek his blessed face
Shall ever seek in vain.

THE "GOOD SHEPHERD.”

SHEPHERD of thy little flock,
Lead me by the shadowing rock,
Where the richest pasture grows,
Where the living water flows.

By that pure and silent stream,
Shelter'd from the scorching beam,
Shepherd, Saviour, Guardian, Guide,
Keep me ever near thy side.

THE DYING GIRL.

BY ALFRED TENNYSON.

I THOUGHT to pass away before, and yet alive I am;
And in the fields all round I hear the bleating of the lamb.
How sadly, I remember, rose the morning of the year!
To die before the snowdrop came, and now the violet's here.

O sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies,
And sweeter is the young lamb's voice to me that cannot rise,
And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that blow,
But sweeter far is death than life, to me, that longs to go.

It seem'd so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun,
And now it seems as hard to stay, and yet His will be done!
But still it can't be long, mother, before I find release;
And that good man, the minister, he preaches words of peace.

O blessings on his kindly voice, and on his silver hair!
And blessings on his whole life long, until he meet me there!
O blessings on his kindly heart, and on his silver head!
A thousand times I blest him, as he knelt beside my bed.

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,
For my desire is but to pass to Him who died for me.

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;
It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all;
The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll,
And in the wild March-morning, I heard them call my soul.

For, lying broad awake, I thought of you and Effie dear,
I saw you sitting in the house, and I no longer here;
With all my strength I prayed for both, and so I felt resign'd,
And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind.

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
The blessed music went that way my soul will have to go;
And for myself indeed I care not if I go to-day,-
But Effie, you must comfort her when I am past away.

O look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow;
He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know.
And there I move no longer now, and there his light may
shine,-

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,
The voice that now is speaking may be beyond the sun-
For ever and for ever with those just souls and true-
And what is life, that we should moan? why make we such
ado ?

For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home

And there to wait a little while, till you and Effie come-
To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast-
Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are

at rest.

TO MY INFANT SISTER.

ERE the bud reached the opening flower,
Or bloomed in colours bright and fair,
Death marked it in a fatal hour,
And soon performed his office there:
But now, thou dost immortal bloom,
Beyond the confines of the tomb.

G. G.

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