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This was too much for a tender parent's heart. He took hold of the pastor's arm, led him to the shade of a tree, and placing him beside his wife, who had now joined them, he sat down and wept. 'My poor ruined boy !" was all he could now utter in his grief. His wife and the pastor also burst into tears. "I now see my error," said the afflicted parent, after a short pause; 66 my eyes are opened to the calamity that has befallen us. But oh! sir," he added, as he grasped the pastor's hand, "how can I retrace my steps? O my God, have mercy, have mercy on my poor spoiled child! You may well ask me, dear Dr. F, why I do not correct him. Could I succeed in detaching him from his companions, then, perhaps, I might do it with some hope; but until that be done, correction may only drive him to a more desperate resistance, or, more probably, to a final abandonment of my roof; and ultimately to the commission of some fearful crime. But I have not yet revealed the secret cause of all this mischief. There is a demon in him, which sets at defiance parental discipline and the rod of correction; yes, in him, young as he is-I mean the lust of strong drink! This, with the influence of vicious companions, has seared his conscience, as with a hot iron, and destroyed natural affection. Oh! I look back on the past, and see fatal errors staring me in the face!" and he proceeded to make confession of his shortcomings.

Towards evening the pastor, previous to his departure, took some pains to find out the youth; and bringing him in, placed him by his father's side, and spoke to him. He was silent but unsubdued.

Having closed his admonition, he kneeled down with the afflicted parents, and offered up a fervent prayer for them, and pleading earnestly for their poor prodigal son.

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The writer of this succeeded that venerable minister in the pastoral charge of the parish of B- -; and when he came into the charge, the pastor, and Mr. C- -, and his wife also, had all departed this life. Mr. C died first, and shortly after him his wife, after closing their often renewed entreaties and admonitions to their only son, to return to the Lord God of his fathers, and flee the miseries of the second death, enforcing these admonitions with many tears, and by all the solemnities of a dying bed!

John C, the son, was the husband of an amiable lady, and the father of several beautiful children, when I first called at his house. He had been for a season reformed, to appearance at least, and had sustained a tolerably decent character for about a year after he had been married to his excellent wife. But now he had added the sin of determined infidelity to the most disgusting habits of intemperance; and having once returned to them, his latter end was worse than the beginning. He was now a miserable

and degraded man, lost to all self-respect, and reckless of character and public opinion; his once happy wife was now broken-hearted, and his own children, to complete his misery and degradation, fled at his approach. His fine estate was involved in debt, and everything around him indicated the condition of one fast sinking into ruin. His person exhibited a revolting spectacle. He had had several attacks of the delirium tremens, or the drunkard's brain fever, and yet he would daily drink incredible quantities of the poisonous liquid which was drowning him in perdition!

I remember as distinctly as if it had been only yesterday, the last visit which I paid him. I was accompanied by an elder of the church, who had for some years filled the place of his venerable father. He received us kindly, and sat down on my left side, the elder on the other; his meek and humble wife, with her three little children, casting anxious and sorrowful looks at their father, were seated by our side. A deep and painful silence prevailed for some minutes. Everything about the house exhibited tokens of desolation and wretchedness. This was the inheritance of a SPOILED CHILD-the house of a drunkard and infidel!.

"Will you bring me your father's Bible?" A smile, not of pleasure, but that of the scorner, played over his face; nevertheless, he rose and brought it, covered with dust. After reading, I spoke to him with all seriousness and earnestness. "By the memory of that dear old man," I said to him; " by the memory of his tears and prayers; by the memory of that dear saint of God, now in heaven, your mother, who bare you, and nursed you in her bosom, and wept and prayed over you, whose last prayer and sigh were breathed from her dying lips for you;-O return to your God, and seek forgiveness and deliverance by repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ!"

He burst into tears, and placing his hands on his face, bowed himself down, and wept aloud. We all kneeled down and prayed. The miserable man kneeled close by me. My heart was utterly overcome: I poured out my soul in almost incoherent words; I implored the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on him, his wife, and his dear little ones. Every one of us wept, the children sobbed aloud. Never shall I forget the scene. The floor where the prodigal son bowed his head was wet with his streaming tears.

The sun was now setting. We took our leave of him with a cordial embrace. He led us to our horses, and on parting besought us to visit him soon again. Alas! it was our last interview with him. I never saw him more. I was called away on church business, and was absent two weeks. The first news I learned, as I alighted at my own door, on my return, was the appalling intelligence that POOR JOHN C was dead and BURIED!

I learned the particulars of his last moments from the elder who had accompanied me on my last visit, and who had seen him when dying. Poor C was attacked with fits, and raved in his

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deliriums. At intervals he recovered his senses, and then he would express deep compunction and sorrow for his evil ways and doings. When he felt himself dying, he became awfully alarmed. The very bed shook under him. With supernatural strength, he tried to raise himself up, and shrieked out for some moments, "O Lord Jesus, have mercy on me! God of my father, have mercy on me! O Christ, have mercy on me! Oh, mercy, mercy, Lord, on me, a poor miserable outcast!" Thus he continued, and frequently uttering fearful imprecations. In a few hours his strength became utterly exhausted; and his spirit, with an agonising struggle, took its flight!

This was the end of the SPOILED CHILD. In these solemn facts we set up a beacon to warn parents of the fatal rock on which they also may strike. "Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away! Let us labour for the conversion of our dear children, like those who feel that they are labouring to pluck brands from the devouring fire!

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WHERE ARE MY MOTHER'S PRAYERS?

HEY that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. For He commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to heayen, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble." Such was the situation of the crew of a merchant vessel, tossing about in the German Ocean, during a terrific storm. Skilled in nautical observations, and well acquainted with that part of the coast, the master of the vessel knew full well that, humanly speaking, there was no hope of rescue, not the slightest ground to expect timely deliverance from impending danger.

But it has been beautifully observed, that "no cloud can overshadow a real Christian, but his faith will discern a rainbow in it." The captain of this vessel was a truly pious man; and amid the dense darkness of his sorrow, his faith failed not to discover bright gleams of light. And from the bosom of the stormy deep, surrounded by numbers involved with him in one common and extreme peril, he cried earnestly unto his God; and the Lord brought him out of his distresses, not by calming the storm and stilling the tempest, but by taking him at once from the raging ocean to the sea of glass which is before the throne. Amid the howlings of the storm, and the agonizing cries of those who felt that there was but a step between them and death, the Lord kept His servant in perfect peace, because he trusted in Him.

Like the intrepid Howard, who observed to a friend, "Heaven

is as near from Grand-Cairo as from London," so this pious captain felt, that his emancipated spirit could as easily ascend to the house of his Father above, from the shivered plank in the midst of the raging waters, as from his own quiet but distant home, surrounded by watchful friends who

"Hushed their very breath,

Before the solemn sanctity of thoughts o'ers weeping death."

With yearning affection, he thought of those who, during that terrific night, would be kept awake by sympathy and prayer for him; and tenderly commended them to that God who is the Father of the fatherless, and the Judge of the widow. Anxious to afford them every possible alleviation of their deep and bitter sorrow, he retired to the cabin, and wrote a dying adieu,-a last farewell to his beloved friends; reminding them that, if his race had been short his rest would be long. He felt that

"Death could not come

To him too early who was fit to die.

The less of this cold world, the more of heaven ;
The sooner death, the earlier immortality."

Then, as if anxious to die a witness for the Lord Christ, he testified of the peace and joy and hope which sustained and cheered his spirit, even when death presented itself in one of its most terrific aspects; and that by faith, he could already discern the lights in his "Father's house," in the haven of eternal rest. This precious document he subscribed and dated; then, taking all things out of his trunk, deposited the paper therein, locked the box, and threw it into the sea, hoping, and, we doubt not, praying, that by some means it might reach his friends. He had now done with earthly concerns: in a few minutes the voyage of life was ended.

Next morning his trunk was found by some sailors, who were greatly disappointed to find that it contained nothing but a small paper they, however, conveyed it to his widow, and to her its value was priceless.

From the wreck of this vessel but one person escaped. He was taken to a farmer's house, near the place to which he had been drifted by the waves, and lay a long time in a sleep so profound, that it was thought to be the sleep of death. At length, however, he awoke his first question was, "Where am I?" the next, "How came I here?" the third, "Where are my shipmates?" and when told that he only had been rescued, he exclaimed with irrepressible emotion, "Where are my mother's prayers ?"

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Where are thy mother's prayers? O sailor, they have been heard in heaven, they are registered above! Where are they? They have prevailed with God for thy rescue from destruction, when all thy companions were drowned. Where are they? They have entered the ears of the Lord Most High. Where are thy

mother's prayers? Are they not about to be most blessedly answered? Shall not the long-suffering of God lead thee to repentance? Often has the Saviour knocked at the door of thy heart. He is knocking now more loudly than ever: wilt thou admit Him?

The Holy Spirit began to strive most powerfully with this rescued seaman. He saw his guilt in all its enormity, and his danger in all its gloom. Rising from his bed, he began with anxious solicitude to groan the sinner's only plea," God be merciful to me."

"Maternal prayer, through Jesu's blood,
Had pleaded long for him with God."

And now that he began most earnestly to pray for himself, it scarcely seemed as though he were a stranger at the throne of grace, so often had his mother mentioned him there. He awoke from the sleep of sin; he arose from the dead, and Christ gave him life. Acknowledging his transgressions, and urging nothing in excuse for them, he pleaded the atonement of Christ; and with a humble, lowly, penitent, yet believing heart, appropriated to himself the purchased and the offered salvation.

As speedily as he could, he journeyed to his mother's house. He arrived on the Saturday. How did that mother rejoice to behold her rescued and converted son! God had given him to her prayers. They wept together, and magnified the name of the Lord. The mother had asked for the conversion of her son,-the Lord exceeded her request, and gave her also the souls of some of her neighbours: the recital of the mercy he had obtained having led others to seek like precious salvation.

Praying mothers, continue to plead the promise is to you and to your children. "The Lord showeth mercy unto thousands of them that love Him and keep His commandments." Live and pray for the conversion of your children, and hereafter it shall be yours to stand with them before the throne of God.

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