THE

MOTHERS' TREASURY.

LOVE FOR ETERNITY.

O professing Christian parents we tender this advice, Love your children for eternity. If you are living for eternity yourselves, having been so led to Jesus, and so united to Him, as to set your affections on things above, then manifest it in that important relationship you sustain. You will only really and wisely love your children as you love them for eternity. It is assumed that you really love them; and we want you so to love them that they may, ages and ages hence, have to bless God for your wise and holy love, which regarded first and most their eternal concerns.

Many persons, who are very fond parents, do not even love their children for the future of this life. They pet them, spoil them, and please themselves with them, making them mere playthings and sources of self-gratification, but do not even train them aright for time, with its cares and responsibilities. Their bodies are fed and clothed, but their minds and morals are neglected to a sad extent.

Some love their children for the future of time only. They care for and educate them, making every provision for their getting on in the world, and getting up also as high as possible; but that is all. There is no training for eternity, no rule and discipline as regards God. They grow up irreligious and careless as regards eternal things. They are left very much to their own choice in things in which a parent's judgment and authority should interfere. The professing parent sees them, day after day, devouring trashy novels, and permits it; it may be, does the same thing. The young people want to learn to dance, to go to concerts and various places of amusement, as others do, and they have their wish. It may be there are some misgivings as the wholesome restrictions of their own childhood are called to mind; but the importunity of the loved ones, and the spirit of the age, prevails, and such things are yielded to. Is this loving for eternity?

In this way, seeds are sown which cannot be rooted up; habits are formed which grow stronger every day; cravings are nourished which ought to have been nipped, and which become more and more voracious. There is not much hope for those advancing toward maturity who have been thus dealt with in early life. Most likely

they will finish and perpetuate such an education as this, and crops of mischief will grow for succeeding generations.

We turn to those whose children are yet young, and entreat them to take warning by such sad cases, so common in the present age of prevailing worldliness and easy profession. Parents, with olive plants round your table, as you look at them with fond pleasure, love them for eternity. "Train them in the way they should go." Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Get first a deep and abiding sense of eternity yourself. See to it that you live for eternity, or else you will not honestly and heartily make the attempt to train your children for it. If you live before your children for time, live as professedly worldly people do, and yet talk to them about eternity, they will soon see through all this; and you must not wonder if your words are wholly lost. Education has been defined as "habit derived from example." You know the poet's beautiful illustration of what a true pastor's life should be; and it should be as true of a parent's life:

"E'en as a bird each fond endearment tries

To tempt her new-fledged offspring to the skies;
'He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,

Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way."

You must count upon having to cross your children's wills, and refusing their earnest wishes, especially if you move among worldly families. This may be painful for a time, but it will be profitable in the end. Better do anything of this kind now, than that your conscience should have, in an after day, to thunder out the words of Reuben: "Spake I not unto you, Do not sin against the child, and ye would not hear? Therefore, behold, also his blood is required;" or that your breaking heart should take up the lament of a too fond parent: "O Absalom, my son, my

son!"

If conscience even now says, "I have sinned; I am even now sinning against the child, by worldly conformity, by unwise indulgence, by neglect of persevering instruction," then let confession follow on conviction, and concern, deep and practical, succeed confession. If you have been, as yet, too much like Eli, it may be your children are yet young-stop in time. Carry your failure and their frowardness to God. Call out for wisdom, help, and blessing. Parents, your work for your children's souls cannot be devolved on any one. It is of all work most urgent, most serious, and most prolific in result. If you love God, love truth, love your own souls, then love your children for eternity.

Do you want motives? Think of the possibility of your loved ones being for ever lost. Think of the blessedness of their sharing an eternity of glory along with you, and of your being, through the Almighty Spirit, the instruments used for their salvation.

Think of the happy influence you may exert on others around you, by showing that you are really seeking to train your children for God; and think how your neglect may strengthen others in a wrong course. Ah! it is so easy to let children drift on with the stream; but it is a noble though arduous thing, to say, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

Do you ask for encouragement? You have promises to cheer you, and examples to animate you, in God's word. Search out these promises, and plead them. Ask for strength to act out the precepts. Study the examples of success, and study also the examples of failure. The character of God, and His conduct towards godly parents, in all ages, are full of encouragement. He who loves His children with "an everlasting love," regarding their profit rather than their ease, the wise, the holy, the loving Father of our spirits, will surely bless those parents who truly ove their offspring FOR ETERNITY.

GLEANINGS.

J. C.

RELIGIOUS DIVISIONS.-There are sore divisions at this day in the world among and between the professors of the Christian religion, both about the doctrine and worship of the gospel, as also the discipline thereof. That these divisions are evil in themselves, and the cause of great evils, hindrances of the gospel, and all the effects thereof in the world, is acknowledged by all; and it is doubtless a thing to be greatly lamented that the generality of those who are called Christians are departed from the great rule of "keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. He who doth not pray always, who is not ready with his utmost endeavour to remedy this evil, to remove this great obstruction of the benefit of the gospel, is scarcely worthy of the name of Christian.John Owen.

"THE CLASP OF HIS MOTHER'S HAND.'

-A Christian mother died

with the hand of her little son clasped in her own. Years passed, and the boy grew to manhood, reckless and abandoned in character. The memory of his mother's prayers, and of the lessons he had learned at her side, seemed to have faded away. From one excess of wickedness into another he plunged, until his cup of iniquity seemed full. Then, by the abounding mercy of God, he was snatched as a brand from the burning, and became a new creature in Christ.

Speaking of his life of sin, he said that, hardened as he seemed, and indifferent to all things sacred, there was never a time when tempted to sin, that he did not feel the clasp of his dying mother's hand, drawing him from the paths of sin to the ways of holiness, with a force which he found it hard to resist. That mother, though dead, yet spoke.

God is well pleased."-HEB. xiii. 16.

THE LUXURY OF DOING GOOD.

HE great delight of life is to be kind and to do good, especially to the sick and suffering. No earthly reward is sweeter than their thanks. For the enjoyment of this luxury, I cannot be too thankful that an office is assigned me, which gives full employment to all my powers of body and mind in this service. If there be a hobby which I should be inclined to ride to excess, it is this: and whenever I hear of any one more kind and sympathising, or more successful than others in cheering, enlightening, and blessing the drooping sons and daughters of affliction, the wish instantly arises, "Oh that I might sit at his feet and learn my lesson more perfectly!"

Need I add that there is One such, the records of whose life of love and words of love it is my delight to read, and to whom I look up in humble prayer and trust that some faint reflection of His spirit of love may shine through me upon a sin-blighted and sorrow-stricken world? A Hospital Chaplain.

I'LL WAIT AWHILE LONGER."

'LL wait awhile longer
Before I despair;
Before I sink under
My burden of care.
Night cannot last always-

There must be a morn;
So I'll wait for the daylight,
And watch for the dawn.

I'll wait awhile longer;
To-morrow may be
The brightest and fairest

Of morrows to me.

The birds may be singing,
The blossoms may start
In bloom and in beauty:
Be patient, O heart!
I'll wait awhile longer
Before I give up;
I'll drink, if it may be,

The dregs from the cup.
Still watching, still hoping,
Still longing for day,
I'll wait awhile longer,
And waiting, I'll pray.

THE END OF THE PILGRIMAGE.-Fear not, thou that longest to be at home. A few steps more and thou art there. Death to God's people is but a ferry-boat. Every day and every hour the boat pushes off with some of the saints, and returns for more. Soon, O believer, it will be said to thee, as it was to her in the Gospel, "The Master is come, and calleth for thee." When you are got to the boundary of your race below, and stand on the verge of heaven and the confines of immortality, then there will be nothing but the short valley of death between you and the promised land; the labours of your pilgrimage will then be on the point of conclusion, and you will have nothing to do but to entreat God, as Moses did, "I pray Thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon."— Topiady.