Here the voice of the old soldier faltered, his emotion almost choked his utterance; but recovering himself for a moment, he cried, "I am that son!" and burst into a flood of tears. "Yes," he continued. "I am that son! Never, never, did I forget my mother's love. Well might you ask what a heart should mine have been if she had been forgotten by me! Though I never saw her, dear to me is her memory, and my only desire now is, to lay my bones beside hers in the old churchyard among the hills. But, sir, what breaks my heart, and covers me with shame, is this-until now I never saw, with the eyes of the soul, the love of my Saviour in giving Himself for me—a poor, lost, hell-deserving sinner. I confess it! I confess it!" he cried, looking up to heaven, his eyes streaming with tears; and pressing the minister's hand close to his breast, he added, “It was God who made you tell that story. Praise be to His holy name that my dear mother has not died in vain, and that the prayers which, I was told, she used to offer for me, have been at last answered; for the love of my mother has been blessed by the Holy Spirit for making me see, as I never saw before, the love of the Saviour. I see it, I believe it; I have found deliverance where I found it in my childhood-in the cleft of the rock; but it is the Rock of Ages!" and clasping his hands, he repeated with intense fervour, "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? They may forget; yet will I not forget thee !" A MOTHER'S LOVE. "The love of a mother is never exhausted; it never changes; it never tires. A father may turn his back on his child; brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies; husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands; but a mother's love endures through all,-in good repute, in bad repute, in the face of the world's condemnation, a mother still loves on, and still hopes that her child may turn from his evil ways and repent; still she remembers the infant smiles that once filled her bosom with rapture, the merry laugh, the joyful shout of childhood, the opening promise of his youth; and she can never be brought to think him unworthy." WASHINGTON IRVING. A MOTHER'S LOVE. "A Mother's love! If there be one thing pure Where all beside is sullied, When all else pass away; Surpassing human deed, or word, or thought, "There is in all this cold and hollow world no fount Of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within A Mother's heart." MRS. HEMANS. NO. III. The lay made Smooth. AN aged woman was once sitting before the door of her cottage in a lone country place, talking with her grand-daughter, and telling her some story connected with her past life. It was much the same sort of tale as everyone tells who has passed through life,—a tale of sorrow and changes, mingled with seasons of repose and joy. Having spoken for some time, she went on to say, "In all the crosses and sorrows that I have known, there has been One to cheer me, One in whom I could trust. Sometimes, my path was very thorny, and I felt that life had more trials than I could well bear, but by-and-by all my distrust vanished, and Jesus "made the way smooth for me." Whenever |