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Mary's, it contains the infant church of Christ; and oh, like Mary, let her not hesitate to stand at his cross, and crucifying all over-fond affection, firmly discipline her child, in due season, to crucify his also.

Such a mother was mine: and, if you have heard from me on this subject less than you expected, it is because the notions are so inwoven into every portion of my mind, that I feel a difficulty in detaching them, and clothing them in words. Where we think or feel most, there we always speak least.

Her place can never be supplied: none but she can obtain that entire intimacy with our hearts: in her loss, the father feels at once a link broken between him and his children: she forms the softening medium between his masculine control, and their tender years: the father may instruct, but the mother must instil,the father may command our reason, but the mother compels our instinct, the father may finish, but the mother must begin;-in a word, were I to draw a general distinction, without particular attention to accuracy, I should say, that the empire of the father was over the head; of the mother, over the heart.

The Rectory of Valehead.

HINTS FOR COUNTRY GENTLEMEN.

Oн, ye, who wallow on the couch of ease,

Who gorge what meats, and quaff what wines you

please;

Ye who ride smiling o'er your spacious grounds,

Bestride your hunters, and pursue the hounds;

Can banquets, balls, and luxuries from town,
And every gaud that buys a mean renown,
Bestow such bliss, as if the happy poor
Pointed with blessings to your open door?
As if your wealth diffused around the plain,
Health to the sick, and comfort to the swain?
Soften your hearts, ye noble, if ye can,
Let England see her country gentleman;
That patriotic plant of British growth,

Worth all your lordly lumps of vice and sloth:
Instead of fops, raise sons that shall adorn,

While thousands bless the spot where they were born;
Instead of painted drabs to swoon and whine,
And snivel o'er a sentimental line,

Or else to waltz it with unbosomed charms,
In the snug circle of a dandy's arms;
Instead of such a shape of vulgar pride,

Rear modest daughters, who shall well preside,
Where'er domestic life, or duteous art,

Demand the union of the head and heart:

So when the mother's love shall claim a share
Of fond solicitude and tender care,

Duty and love will both alike combine,
And teach them to uprear a useful line.

R. Montgomery.

PICTURE OF DOMESTIC PIETY.

It was my father's custom to read, immediately after prayers, a portion of scripture, upon which he always hung some spiritual exhortation. I need not add,

that in his choice of passages, he was led to the particular occasions which presented themselves. The second week of our mourning happened to be Passionweek; a most happy coincidence, inasmuch as our attention was thus, in the most powerful degree possible, diverted from our own sufferings to those of a crucified Saviour, which were appointed to take away all lasting cause of sorrow. Several applications now occur to me which my father made to our circumstances in the course of this week. The Monday, you know, is the anniversary of our Lord visiting his temple, and purifying it, by turning out those who were carrying on traffic there. On finishing the narrative, as given by St. Mark, he said: "And now my dear children, from this temple of the family of Israel, let us turn to our own; for I trust that we have God's temple among us, though not built with stones, such as our Lord's disciples pointed out to him with fond admiration, but far more glorious, built up with living spirits; yea, and its Lord and Master hath entered this temple,-entered too, with the scourge in his hand. Oh, depend upon it, that we have been giving too much to this transitory life; its unbroken happiness was seducing our hearts from the eternal bliss of the next. Oh yes, he found a barter going on here,— a barter of holiness for indulgence; of soul for body; of eternity for an hour. Thus were we profaning his courts; and therefore he hath entered them with stripes. But shall we dare to be fretful under this presence of our glorious visitant? Rather let us, in tears, and with

all humbleness of heart, thank him, that he hath thus ejected all unmeet intruders, purged it of its pollutions, and by the very act, shown what a regard he has for it. Let us pray him to re-establish his altars, renew the sacrifices of a broken and a contrite heart, and make it, by whatever means he shall deem best, however painful they may seem to us, a fit abode wherein he may delight to dwell, and fill the house with the glory of the illumination of his Holy Spirit."

The next day presented us a still stronger appeal. Its historical fact was the awful prediction of our Lord, uttered against Jerusalem from Mount Olivet. "Behold, my children," said my father, on closing the volume, "a tremendous refutation of an opinion too commonly entertained, that continued prosperity is a sign of God's favour. No! the unchastised son is also the unregarded; and the absence of his intervention for sorrow, is also the absence of his love. What family ever presented a more gorgeous appearance of prosperity than that of Israel, at this moment? Our Lord looked down from Mount Olivet on a magnificent city, crowned with its temple, glowing with clusters of domes, and files of columns, on crowds of merchants, and pilgrims pressing in at the gates, and heard the ceaseless hum and din, which arose from the throng gathered from the four corners of the earth to celebrate the passover, the grand festival of their deliverance. Every thing tended to remind the Jews of God's promises of wealth and power; and in the intoxication of his national festival, his heart leaped at the

review of his strength and numbers, and looked at that moment for the Messiah to descend in the clouds of heaven, and lead him forth to the conquest of the earth. He cast an eye at Mount Olivet, as he gazed in exhultation around, and saw all verdant, calm, and sunny there as usual; yet at that very moment, from that very spot, the curse was pronounced against him. In about forty years, he celebrated his last passover, and God bitterly derided him by slaying his first-born, and delivering him over to the most awful destruction recorded in history. Here then, my children, in this family of Israel, is a lesson for every family under heaven. This family had her prophets sent to her from time to time, while still her term for repentance was unexpired; and every family has had similar warnings by angels from God, in the shape of some visitation; and a long run of high prosperity is indeed ominious. Oh it is often that dreadful period of calm which intervenes between sending his last prophet, and coming himself in accumulated wrath to destroy. It is too often that tremendous interval in which the Almighty Retributer gives up the sinner to take his own ways, and this the miserable and infatuated victim mistakes for prosperity. It is too often that awful time, when Jesus, as then with the Jews, hath ceased to reply and rebuke, and is preparing to root out. Therefore let us rather congratulate ourselves upon this interruption to our long-continued domestic happines. God still watches over us; he has not exhausted his warnings. Let us then entertain this

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