meaning by our expression. Be deeply sincere with them. Rev. J. B. Walker, D. D., tells of one, more than ordinarily gifted and cultured, whose career has not realized hope, because it is said his mother was not sincere. "If we are not truthful," he therefore observes "we shall sow the seeds of infidelity, which, long after we are gone, shall spring from our coffined clay and bear fruit unto death. Children may be too strictly reared, but never too deeply impressed with the value of truth. Let us as parents be careful what we promise and threaten; but when we have deliberately spoken, however costly, however painful, let us fulfill. Let no persuasions, no poutings, nor tears, change our well-considered words. If we lie to our children we injure ourselves, we weaken our authority, and we harm the spiritual character of our children, may be forever. In domestic government, perhaps before and beyond all other relations, truth is important, because it lies at the foundation of character, of society, and good government."

"When my mother says 'No,' there is no 'Yes' in it." Here is a sermon in a nutshell. Multitudes of parents say "No" but after a deal of teasing and debate it finally becomes "Yes." Love and kindness are essential elements in the successful management of children; but firmness, decision, inflexibility and uniformity of treatment are no less important.

Teach your children to help themselves. "The thoughtless mother," says Herbert Spencer, "who hourly yields to the requests'Mamma, tie my pinafore,' 'Mamma, button my shoe,' and the like, cannot be persuaded that each of these concessions is detrimental; but the wiser spectator sees that if this policy be long pursued, and be extended to other things, it will end in hopeless dependency. The teacher of the old school who showed his pupil the way out of every difficulty, did not perceive that he was generating an attitude of mind greatly militating against success in life. Taught by Pestalozzi, however, the modern instructor induces his pupil to solve the difficulties himself; believing that in so doing, he is preparing him to meet the difficulties which, when he goes into the world, there will be no one to help him through; and finds confirmation for this belief in the fact that a great portion of the most successful men are self-made. He who helps himself when young

will know how and have the will heartily to help himself when the years of mature life are on him.

Take care of your conversation before your children. See that no unseemly word mar its purity, or breath of unkindness disturb its peacefulness. Talk so as to be instructive. Say things worth hearing and your children will listen to you and respect you. Some one truthfully observes, that children hunger perpetually for new ideas. They will learn with pleasure from the lips of parents what they deem drudgery to study in books; and even if they have the misfortune to be deprived of many educational advantages, they will grow up intelligent if they enjoy in childhood the privilege of listening daily to the conversation of intelligent people. We sometimes see parents who are the life of every company which they enter, dull, silent, and uninteresting at home among their children. If they have not mental activity and mental stores sufficient for both, let them first use what they have for their own household. A silent home is a dull place for young people, a place from which they will escape if they can. How much useful information on the other hand, is often given in pleasant family conversation, and what conscious, but excellent mental training is lively, social argument! Cultivate to the utmost the graces of conversation.

Respect your children's rights in matters of possession. These tender plants are human beings. For their existence, under God, you are responsible, and certain great principles of life are as sacred to them as to you. Let them know the difference between mine and thine. They have a keen native sense of right and wrong, which only needs early direction to become perfectly settled and clear. "If you respect their rights of property, it will be easy to teach them to respect the rights of others. Children have rights as to one another-in their books, pictures, playthings, etc. them to respect each other's rights.

Train

"Never compel a child to give up his rights in any of these things -in whatever is his-to another, because that other wants it, and cries for it. In so doing you violate his sense of justice, and leave a scar on his moral nature that, perhaps, never can be healed. All over our country good men lament the widespread corruption of

morals and dishonesty that prevails. The origin was in the nursery; so the cure, under God, must be found in the nursery. You must make the fountain pure, if you would have the streams wholesome. Principles of expediency, policy, are like cobwebs before the storm of human passions. Right principles must be grounded in the child in the nursery, or he will not be able to stand in the day of trial. Teach him to be honest and truthful, because it is right-God requires it of him—and not because it is the best policy; for this is a thoroughly selfish principle, and is of the devil.

"Teach your child self-control. Those outbursts of passion in a child, if unrestrained, often end in the dungeon or on the scaffold. Hear God's estimate of self-control: He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city."

Allow your children all the freedom consistent with absolute safety. Let home be to them a happy place. Let them play. Let them be gay, and fresh, and joyous. Let them develop in their childish ways originality. By and by it will shine out in the startling genius of manhood or the beautiful characteristics of womanhood. What a pity to rob childhood of its ideal loveliness. Ruskin confesses that he really never enjoyed childhood, and Milton has put it in the mouth of his divine speaker in "Paradise Regained" to say:

"When I was yet a child, no childish play

To me was pleasing; all my mind was set
Serious to learn and know, and thence to do
What might be public good."

Boswell reports of Johnson that he never joined with the other boys at Litchfield school in their ordinary diversions. Perhaps, had he done so, he would not have been the choleric, irascible old man he was. The sickly boy in Scott's Rokeby is one of whom

it is said:

"No touch of childhood's frolic mood

Showed the elastic spring of blood."

And Southey stigmatizes a demi-millionaire in his "Alderman's Funeral" as one who