As he rose, his eye lighted on the setting sun; and, as he did so, his whole expression changed: a sweet yet half-sad look played on his face-his thoughts were elsewhere-another scene was before his eyes. The dark street had disappeared, and in its stead a neat country cottage had risen. In thought he was there: once more he saw the hills that rose near that cottage home; once more the blue waters of the distant lake glistened before him; once more he sat in the cottage garden with his widowed mother and watched the setting sun.

Once more that mother's words sounded in his ears: "John, don't forget your God, and He'll not forget you. Remember His Sabbath-day, to keep it holy. Though sinners entice thee to break it, consent thou not. Oh, when you're tempted to do wrong, don't forget to pray! Never let the sun go down on a prayerless day. May the God of the fatherless guide you,-may the Lord Jesus be your Saviour!"

Yes; six months had passed since he heard these words, and yet they seemed to sound in his ears. Tears filled his eyes; and, rising, he folded his hands and knelt in prayer; then, taking up his pen, he wrote thus:

Thanks, Brown, for your invitation, but I cannot accept it. My duty to God is to obey His commands; and He has said, 'Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy.' Spending the day in idle pleasure is not doing this; and I wish you would think over the subject, and not go yourself."

How great is the influence of a pious mother's words! How wonderful the answers to her earnest prayers!

THE PILGRIM.

H! tell me not of earthly joys,
Nor seek to chain my spirit
here;
My wealth transcends these gaudy toys,
My home is in a higher sphere.
I cannot stay to cull the flowers,—
The fading flowers of guilty earth;
Nor banquet in the Upas bowers

Of indolence and godless mirth.

The pilgrim's staff, the pilgrim's scrip,
Support and feed me as I go;
In the pure waves I bathe my lip
From yonder smitten rock which
flow.

Then marvel not I cannot stay

To drink of earth's polluted streams; These fountains nerve me for my way, And Bethlehem's Star, my pole-star,

beams.

I go to join the loved, the lost,-
Not lost, not lost, but gone before;
I go to join the heavenly host

Encamped on Jordan's farther shore.
The Father of the faithful there

Waits to embrace His ransomed son, And saints and angels songs prepare To greet me when my race is run.

And One, the loveliest, the best,
Slain for my sin, yet still my Friend,
Points to the scar upon His breast,
To woo me to my journey's end.
No more entreat, no more delay
The way-worn pilgrim from his
home;

My Saviour calls, I must away!
Jesus, my God, I come! I come!
R. W K.

"Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself."-LUKE xiv. 39.

CHRIST IS RISEN!

ALLELUJAH! Hallelujah! Hearts to heaven and voices raise ! Sing to God a hymn of gladness, sing to God a hymn of praise ! He who on the cross a victim for the world's salvation bled! Jesus Christ, the King of glory, now is risen from the dead.

Now the iron bars are broken, Christ from death to life is born,
Glorious life, and life immortal, on this holy Easter morn:
Christ has triumphed, and we conquer by His mighty enterprise,
We with Him to life eternal by His resurrection rise.

Christ is risen, Christ the firstfruits of the holy harvest-field,
Which will all its full abundance at His second coming yield;
Then the golden ears of harvest will their heads before Him wave,
Ripened by His glorious sunshine, from the furrows of the grave.
Christ is risen; we are risen! Shed upon us heavenly grace,
Rain and dew and gleams of glory from the brightness of Thy face;
That we, Lord, with hearts in heaven, here on earth may fruitful be;
And by angel-hands be gathered, and be ever safe with Thee.

Hallelujah Hallelujah! Glory be to God on high;
Hallelujah! to the Saviour, who has gained the victory;
Hallelujah! to the Spirit, Fount of Love and Sanctity;
Hallelujah Hallelujah! to the Triune Majesty!

Bishop Christopher Wordsworth.

one.

FAMILY RELIGION.

BY PROFESSOR DEWAR, LL.D.

VERY one of us must give an account of himself to God. Our responsibility increases in proportion to the magnitude of the task which we undertake to perform; and though the man who has only one talent has to render an account of its use just as much as the man who has ten, the responsibility of the possessor of the ten is, of course, much greater than that of the person who is restricted to the improvement of The consideration should never be absent from our thoughts, that our obligations increase in proportion to the importance of the office which we hold, and the situations in which we are placed, and of the duties which the different relations in life require us to discharge. Now, I cannot think of any situation connected with human life more interesting or more important, and requiring a more enlightened and zealous performance of its duties, than that of parents and heads of families. They are appointed by their Father in heaven the guardians of their helpless offspring, and are led by the instincts which are implanted in their nature to cherish them and to provide for them; and, as Christians, they are bound by ties the most tender and powerful

to train them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. You abuse the great trust reposed in you unless you educate your children in the love and obedience of God. Compassion to them, no less than a sense of your own obligations, should lead you earnestly to care for their salvation. They are born into a world that is subject to sin and exposed to misery; and how anxious should you be that they may have their hearts turned to the love of that Saviour on whom the help of the sinner has been laid, and who is the only sure and abiding refuge in the time of trouble. Oh! remember the many enemies with which through life they shall have to contend, and the temptations through which they shall have to pass, and the difficulties which they shall have to surmount, and that great and final judgment at which both you and they must stand! Think, as you ought to think, of their weakness and proneness to error and to sin, and how easily they may be enticed into the paths into which destroyers go! Seize the precious opportunities afforded you of impressing their heart with the love of the Creator, before sin has hardened it and Satan has secured it as his own. See that ye act towards them with the compassion of Christians as well as of parents. Treasure not up to yourselves the guilt and the misery of undoing, by your negligence and your ungodliness, your children for ever. You justly censure the slothful and the faithless minister who feeds not, or who feeds carelessly, the flock over which the Holy Ghost has made him overseer. And is your conduct less cruel or less sinful if you neglect the few lambs with which the Great Shepherd has connected you by ties so tender, and which He has given you in charge to feed? Oh! disregard them not, but continue to apply to their hearts all the unction of earnest prayer, and all the efficacy of appointed means. The law of nature, as well as the law of revelation, clearly defines it to be the will of God that mankind should subsist in families. It is unnecessary to mention all the purposes intended to be accomplished by this institution; but it is obvious that one great object designed to be attained by it is the religious and spiritual improvement of all the individuals that are thus united under one government. The heads of families are thus peculiarly constituted the servants of God; He rules through them the little community over which they preside; He makes them kings and priests to their own household; and He entrusts them with a charge endeared to themselves by all the ties of nature, and of infinite importance both in relation to this world and the next.

Now these important ends are frustrated by the misrule and the irreligion of parents. How many families are there, ay, and professing Christians families too, who thus frustrate all the great and the gracious designs for which household communities were appointed. How great is the guilt of those who thus pervert an institution which God designed for the spiritual good of its inmates. They are brought into being under its care, but with a cruel

indifference which bespeaks the depth of depravity into which our race has fallen, they only help to set them on the road that issues in destruction and in perdition. Christian parents, of course, act a part very different from this. But let me entreat you who bear this character, to be still more diligent in discharging all the duties of religion in your family. As ye regard the authority of Him who has made you the heads of a household, and as ye wish to be workers together with God in fulfilling His designs of goodness and mercy to you and your offspring, be zealous and conscientious in walking in all the ordinances and commandments of God. Bear constantly on your mind the great object towards which all your family duties should tend. Ever aim at the spiritual and eternal good of those entrusted to your charge. And earnestly pray that by none of your omissions or negligences, any of them should be hardened in sin and come short of holiness and of eternal life.

Your advantages as parents are great and peculiar, and the impressions which you now make on their hearts will influence their future lives. Nature, by implanting the parental affections in your hearts, and the filial affections in theirs, has given you a power over them, and for doing them good, which others do not possess. Employ this affection in conveying religious impressions to their hearts. Never speak to them of God and of the Saviour, and of all that they should feel, and of all that they should do, but in the tones of endearing earnestness and interest. Remember that their unsuspecting confidence in your love, and the filial affection which they entertain towards you, give you a power over them which it is not allowed to others to possess. Use this power with an enlightened judgment, and with a conscientious regard to their spiritual and eternal good.

Recollect that the children over whom God has given you this power, are under your care at that time of life when you have the best opportunities of doing them good. They are subjected to your instruction and your guidance before they have embraced any false opinion, or received any bad impression, or have been hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. They are under your care while they are most teachable and are least disposed to make resistance to your instructions and admonitions. They are not, as persons often are at maturer years, to be untaught the fundamental errors which they have imbibed; they have now only such notions as you give them, and such impressions as you make upon them. They listen with reverence to the oracles of parental wisdom, and they eagerly receive all that parental affection conveys to them. They may afterwards dispute the authority of their teachers and of their rulers, but they are taught by nature to yield a ready submission to yours. This natural and unquestioned authority you have power to enforce by the rod. The foolishness that is bound in the heart of the child, you are allowed