to diminish sinful inclinations, and at the same time propose the highest moral end that any person can possibly attain to in the present life.

I know there are many who regard the demand of unconditional obedience as cruelly severe. To be thus rigid would break a mother's heart. Her government must yield and accommodate itself to the temperament and disposition, whereas it should mould and determine these. That is a false unchristian tenderness which can neiter use the rod nor a commanding tone of authority in the government of children. "He that spareth his rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes." That is a graceless, godless pity which permits children to govern their parents. How often do we see parents pulling, coaxing and arguing their children into obedience, showing them most glaringly the weakness of their government. A false pity prevents their punishment, though they unkindly insult their parents in the presence of strangers. I have often witnessed this with a bleeding heart, and felt that, though perhaps unintentionally, they did all they could to train them up for hell. Cultivate a peevish disobedience in a little child, though you do it for pity's sake, and you lay the ground-work of a stubborn irreligion, and help to bar and banish the blessed Saviour out of its heart. You may coax it to become pious, and urge upon it the duty of being confirmed, and call in the aid of your pastor, but all in vain; because all your previous influence has been exerted in an opposite direction. A child which is obedient to its parents will also become obedient to God, if the proper means are employed.

A THRILLING INCIDENT,

ILLUSTRATING THE IMPORTANCE OF EARLY INSTRUCTION.

Ir is utterly impossible to fully estimate the importance of impressing upon the minds of our children religious information, even at a very early age. Such truths as are fixed in the memory at this interesting period of our existence generally go with us through life. Not a few of the most distinguished and useful ministers of the gospel, have regarded the religious instructions imparted to them by a pious mother, when they were in the very morning of childhood, as constituting the firm basis of their religious tone of sentiment and character in after life, and the foundation of their usefulness to mankind. A single Bible truth, or an isolated text of Holy Writ, or even a piece of religious poetry, indelibly fixed in the mind of a little playful pratler, may be of more importance to that child (and parents, too,) at some distant day, than thousands of gold and silver. This fact is fully illustrated by the following account, taken from a narrative written by pastor Rone, of Elsineur:

Many years ago several German families left their country and settled in North America. Among these was a man from Wurtemburg, who, with his wife and a large family, established himself in Pennsylvania. There were no churches or schools then in that neighborhood, and he and his wife were obliged to be satisfied with keeping the Sabbath at home with the children, instructing them to read the Bible and pray to God.

In the year 1754 a dreadful war broke out in Canada, between the French and the English. The Indians were induced to take part with the French, and committed great devastations in many of the English settlements. They made excursions as far as Pennsylvania, where they plundered and burnt all the houses they came to, and murdered the people. In 1755 they reached the dwelling of the poor family from Wurtemburg, while the wife and one of the sons were gone to a mill, four miles distant, to get some corn ground. The husband, the eldest son, and two little girls, named Barbara and Regina, were at home. The blood-thirsty savages, as they came up to the dwelling, rushed in and commenced the work of destruction. The father and his son were instantly killed, but they carried the two little girls away into captivity, with a great many other children, who were taken in the same manner. They were led many miles through woods and thorny bushes, that nobody might follow them. In this condition they were brought to the habitations of the Indians, who divided among themselves all the children whom they had taken captives. Barbara was at this time ten years old, and Regina nine. They were now separated,

and what became of Barbara was never known; but Regina, with a little girl of two years old, whom she had never seen before, were given to an old widow woman, who treated them in a very cruel manner. The little girl became the constant companion of Regina, and when she knelt beneath some tree and repeated those prayers and hymns which her parents had taught her, the little girl would kneel with her and repeat the same, and thus soon committed them to memory. They often used to cheer each other in the wild solitudes of that dreary forest, with a hymn which Regina's mother had learned her at home, from the hymn book used at Halle, in Germany:

"Alone, yet not alone am I,

Though in this solitude so drear."

Year after year had come and gone, yet no tidings had reached the ears of that widowed and disconsolate mother respecting the sad fate of her poor captive daughters. A thousand terrible conjectures filled her distracted mind. The mangled remains of her murdered husband and son had been properly interred, and she enjoyed at least the satisfaction of knowing that their bodily sufferings were at an end. But not so in reference to her daughters. A horrible uncertainty that filled her mind with the most appalling apprehensions respecting them oppressed her night and day.

In the year 1764, however, in the providence of God, the English Colonel Bonguet, was brought to the place where they were in captivity. He conquered the Indians, and forced them to ask for peace. The first condition he made was that they should restore all the prisoners they had taken. More than 400 captives were brought to Colonel Bonguet. It was a woful sight to see so many young people so wretched and distressed. The colonel gave them food and clothes, and brought them all to a town called Carlisle, and published in the Pennsylvania newspapers that all parents who had lost their children might come to this place, and in case of their finding them they should be restored to them. Poor Regina's sorrowing mother came, among many other bereaved parents, alternately transported with hope and oppressed with fear; but alas! her child had become a stranger to her. She had now reached her nineteenth year. Besides, Regina had acquired the appearance and manner, as well as the language of the natives. The poor mother went up and down among the released captives, but by no efforts could she discover her daughter. She wept in bitter grief and disappointment. At length Colonel Bonguet said, "Do you remember nothing by which your child might know you?" After a pause, she said she remembered nothing but a hymn which she used to sing with them, which was as follows:

"Alone, yet not alone am I,
Though in this solitude so drear,
I feel my Saviour always nigh,

He comes the weary hours to cheer;

I am with Him and He with me,

E'en here alone I cannot be."

The colonel advised her to sing this hymn, as it might lead to her recovery. The distressed mother encouraged in some measure by this advice, wiped the falling tears from her eyes, and with a faltering voice commenced. Scarcely had she sung two lines, when Regina, recognizing the well known voice and tune to this cherished poem, rushed from the crowd, began to sing also, and threw herself into her mother's arms. They both wept for joy. The lost was found.

Such was the reward of that mother for instructing her daughter when a child. Those very instructions were the honored means of her discovery. How little that mother thought when teaching her little prattler these favorite lines, that such important results would be traced back in after years to a circumstance apparently so unimportant as the recital of a hymn. But this is in perfect keeping with a long catalogue of causes and effects which might be produced. Thousands in eternity will be astonished to find what tremendous consequences of weal or woe have resulted from the instruction and impression imparted to their children in very early life. How should this consideration stimulate parents (and especially mothers who have almost their entire supervision when they are first capable of receiving moral instruction,) to impress upon their minds the fear of God, and a knowledge of his ways. the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand."

THE OLD WOMAN.

GRAY haired and very old was she,
With many a wrinkle where
The rose and lily once had bloomed,
When life's young morn was there.
And often from her dim old eyes
Methought there fell a tear
Upon her knitting work, that told
Of memories fond and dear.

And oft her bosom beaved a sigh,

As from the open door

She watched the little ones at play,

As she had played for yore.

She know that cankering cares would come

To spoil the castles fair,

Their little hearts were building high,

For they were built in air.

She had been young; and children dear,
She called her own, had crept

Behind her chair to hide and seek,"

No wonder that she wept!

For they were dead; and these brought back

The memory of their tone,

And drew those tears to bathe the flowers

In memory's garden sown.

In

BLACK TONGUES!

BY THE EDITOR.

An old divine calls profane swearer's "black tongues!" What an appropriate name. Reader, is your tongue black? If so permit us to have a few words with you on the subject of profane swearing and, peradventure, we may persuade you to seek for a

cure.

There is no particular temptation to it. It affords no pleasure, no profit. It effects nothing but the dishonor of God, and the damnation of the soul; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. The swearer is not the sooner believed because he swears to what he says, but rather there is less confidence placed in his words by persons of sense; for he that does not hesitate to swear, will not hesitate also to lie, since there are far stronger temptations to lying than there are to swearing. It has been well said, "The man who swears seems to doubt his own veracity; and well may others suspect it; for how can we believe that he will be true to man who is false to God."

It is not an evidence of bravery and courage to swear; for it has passed into a proverb, that he who swears is a coward. The very fact of his swearing shows his desire to avoid a nearer inquiry; just as he who casts clubs shows that he sees danger and does not wish come nearer to it. Swearers lack even wicked bravery. It is a cowardly sin. You can stop and reprove a swearer in the midst of his swearing, and he will crouch in a moment. They have no word of self-vindication to offer. A sense of guilt and shame at once unmans them and makes them mute.

Sometimes, it is true, men do try to apologize for their profanity by excuses. But these excuses themselves are their deeper condemnation.

"They mean no evil." What! mean no evil in habitually insulting God to his face?-and this, too, against light and knowledge. It only shows how desperately depraved the heart is, when it can spontaneously belch forth such abuse against God, without even an effort of the will-without meaning it. This only shows that evil has already become a habit, which is like a second nature, and sins without a direct effort of the will! An awful case to be in!

"They were angry." So much the worse. Then the sin of profaneness is added to that of anger; there are two sins instead of one. Anger also is calculated to make the oaths which it begets more rash, daring, and insulting to God. "What a madness is this, when men anger thee, to strike at God, and to provoke him far more than others can provoke thee! If thou art never so highly incensed, why shouldest thou throw thy poisonous foam in God's