the eloquent idiom of that peculiar class of persons, he said, "you are the goddess of laughings, of greatest smiles, of smallest smiles; so, I love you, best of all."

I have seldom been more painfully struck, than with the woe-worn countenance of a silent babe, by the side of its miserable mother, in the State'sprison. No conversation was allowed, among the convicts. Smiles, are not the dialect of guilt. So, there it sat, or lay, for it was too young to walk, with its wishful eyes ever turned on her who had borne it in sin, and who had no heart to cheer it, for she was herself wretched. No loving. word, aided it to shape its discordant articulations. The baleful breath of guilt, seared its young perceptions, like a lava-stream. I longed to take it from the bosom of crime, and from those haggard and hateful brows, which were stamping upon it their own lineaments. And I never before so deeply realized the importance, that the little pilgrim of immortality should be taken at the very gate of life, into an atmosphere of innocence, and the radle of love.

LETTER V.

MATERNAL LOVE.

To love children, is the dictate of our nature. Apart from the promptings of kindred blood, it is a spontaneous tribute to their helplessness, their innocence, or their beauty. The total absence of this love induces a suspicion that the heart is not right. "Beware," said Lavater, "of him who hates the laugh of a child." "I love God, and every little child," was the simple, yet sublime sentiment of Richter.

The man of the world pauses in his absorbing career, and claps his hands, to gain an infant's smile. The victim of vice gazes wishfully on the pure, open forehead of childhood, and retraces those blissful years that were free from guile. The man of piety loves that docility and singleness of heart, which drew from his Saviour's lips the blessed words, "of such is the kingdom of heaven."

Elliot, the apostle of the Indians, amid his laborious ministry, and rude companionship, shewed in all places the most marked attention to young children. In extreme age, when his head was

white as the Alpine snows, he felt his heart warm at their approach. Many a pastor, whom he had assisted to consecrate, bore witness to the pathos of his appeal, the solemnity of his intonation, when he inquired, "Brother, lovest thou our Lord Jesus Christ? Then feed these lambs."

The love of children, in man is a virtue: in woman, an element of nature. It is a feature of her constitution, a proof of His wisdom, who, having entrusted to her the burden of the early nurture of a whole race, gave that sustaining power which produces harmony, between her dispositions, and her allotted tasks.

To love children, is a graceful lineament in the character of young ladies. Anxious as they usually are, to acquire the art of pleasing, they are not always aware what an attraction it imparts to their manners. It heightens the influence of beauty, and often produces a strong effect, where beauty is wanting.

"Love children," said Madame de Maintenon, in her advice to the young dauphiness; "whether for a prince or a peasant, it is the most amiable accomplishment." It was this very trait in her own character, that won the heart of Louis the Great. When she was governess of his children, and past the bloom of life, he surprised her one morning, in the royal nursery, sustaining with one arm, the oldest son, then feeble from the ef

fects of a fever, rocking with the other hand a cradle, in which lay the infant princess, while on her lap reposed the sleeping infant. His tenderness as a father, and his susceptibility as a man, accorded that deep admiration which would have been denied to the splendour of dress, the parade of rank, or the blaze of beauty.

But how feeble are all the varieties of love, which childhood elicits, compared to that which exists in a mother's breast. Examine, I pray you, its unique nature, by contrast and comparison. We are wont to place our affections where our virtues are appreciated, or to fix our reliance where some benefit may be conferred. But maternal love is founded on utter helplessness. A wailing cry, a foot too feeble to bear the burdens of the body, an eye unable to distinguish the friend who feeds it, a mind more obtuse than the new-born lamb, which discerns its mother amid the flock, or the duckling that hastens from its shell to the stream, are among the elements of which it is compounded.

It is able also to subsist without aliment. Other love requires the interchange of words or smiles, some beauty, or capability, or moral fitness, either existing, or supposed to exist. It is wont, as it advances in ardour, to exact a vow of preference, above all the world beside, and if need be, to guard this its Magna Charta, with the sting of reproach, or the fang of jealousy. It is scarcely proof against

long absence, without frequent tokens of remembrance, and its most passionate stage of existence may be checked by caprice.

But I have seen a mother's love endure every test unharmed, and come forth from the refiner's furnace, purged from that dross of selfishness, which the heart is wont to find, among its purest gold. A widow expended on her only son, all the fullness of her affection, and the little gains of her industry. She denied herself every superfluity, that he might receive the benefits of education, and the indulgences that boyhood covets. She sat silently by her small fire, and lighted her single candle, and regarded him with intense delight, as he amused himself with his books. or sought out the lessons for the following day. The expenses of his school were discharged by the labour of her hands, and glad and proud was she to bestow on him, privileges, which her own youth had never been permitted to share. She believed him to be diligently acquiring the knowledge which she respected, but was unable to comprehend. His teachers, and his idle companions, knew otherwise. He, indeed, learned to astonish his simple and admiring parent, with high-sounding epithets, and technical terms, and to despise her for not understanding them. When. she saw him discontented, at comparing his situation with that of others, who were above him in rank, she denied