how happy I am to see you, Willie !' mamma ?'

وو

Won't that be nice,

Mrs. Huston never forgot the scene. And, when she was permitted to see not only her dear Willie and Sarah, but the children afterward added to her family circle, each successfully consecrating the dew of their youth to God, she did indeed feel that her pastor's plan was "the more excellent way." So she resolved to recommend it to praying mothers by telling them this touching incident.

FAMILY WORSHIP.

PIOUS tradesman, conversing with a minister on family worship, related the following instructive circumstances respecting himself:

When I first began business for myself, I was determined, through grace, to be particularly conscientious with respect to family prayer. Accordingly, I persevered for many years in the delightful practice of domestic worship. Morning and evening, every individual of my family was ordered always to be present; nor would I allow my apprentices to be absent on any account. In a few years the advantages of these engagements manifestly appeared; the blessings of the upper and nether springs followed me; while health and happiness attended my family, and prosperity my business. At length, such was the rapid increase of my trade, and the importance of devoting every possible moment to my customers, that I began to think whether family prayers did not occupy too much of our time in the morning. Pious scruples arose respecting my intention of relinquishing this part of my duty; but at length worldly interests prevailed so far as to induce me to excuse the attendance of my apprentices; and not long after, it was deemed advisable, for the more eager prosecution of business, to make the prayer with my wife, when we rose in the morning, suffice for the day.

Notwithstanding the repeated checks of conscience that followed this base omission, the calls of a flourishing concern, and the prospect of an increasing family appeared so imperious and commanding, that I found an easy excuse for this fatal evil, especially as I did not omit prayer altogether. My conscience was now almost seared with a hot iron, when it pleased the Lord to awaken me by a singular providence.

One day I received a letter from a young man who had formerly been my apprentice, previous to my omitting family prayer. Not doubting but I continued domestic worship, his letter was chiefly on this subject; it was couched in the most affectionate and respectful terms; but judge of my surprise and confusion when I

read these words: "Oh, my dear master, never, never shall I be able sufficiently to thank you for the precious privilege with which you indulged me in your family devotions! Oh! sir, eternity will be too short to praise my God for what I learned there. It was there I first beheld my lost and wretched state as a sinner; it was there that I first knew the way of salvation; and there that I first experienced the preciousness of Christ in me the hope of glory. Oh! sir, permit me to say, never, never neglect those precious engagements. You have yet a family and more apprentices; may your house be the birthplace of their souls!" I could read no farther; every line flashed condemnation in my face. I trembled, I shuddered, I was alarmed lest the blood of my children and apprentices should be demanded at my soulmurdering hands.

Filled with confusion, and bathed in tears, I fled for refuge in secret. I spread the letter before God. I agonised, and--but you can better conceive than I can describe my feelings; suffice it to say, that light broke in upon my disconsolate soul, and a sense of blood-bought pardon was obtained. I immediately flew to my family, presented them before the Lord, and from that day to the present I have been faithful; and am determined, through grace, that whenever my business becomes so large as to interrupt family prayer, I will give up the superfluous part of my business, and retain my devotion: better to lose a few shillings, than to become the deliberate murderer of my family, and the instrument of ruin to my own soul !

THE PILGRIM'S SONG.

'M journeying through a desert
world

To the home of light and love;
I'm hasting on my pilgrim way
To the golden streets above.

I'm a stranger and a sojourner, As all my fathers were; "They've passed within the gates of pearl,

I may not linger here.

There are gladsome sights around me,
But my heart is far away;
For I've seen the sunlight beaming
In the land of endless day.

There are sights of sin and sadness,
But I'll dry my weeping eye;
For the joyous days are nearing
Of a bright eternity!

There are mingled sounds around me,
But they pass unheeded by;
I'm listening to the distant notes
Of choirs that sing on high.
Oh! hear ye not the music,

As it sweeps from Canaan's shore,
And the mighty Hallelujahs,
Echoing for evermore?

And there amid that chorus

Is a harp prepared for me,
A mansion in my Father's house,
And a palm of victory.
Then ask me not to linger,

For I'm pressing on the road
That leads me to Jesusalem,
The City of my God!

MRS. PENNEFATHER.

፡፡ CONSIDER THE LILIES OF THE FIELD.”

HOU, whose sad and darkling

brow

Seems to tell of care and woe,
Dost thou pore upon the cloud
Which futurity doth shroud,
And thy trembling fancy fill
With anticipated ill?

Ask the lilies of the field
For the lessons they can yield:
Lo! they neither spin nor toil,
Yet how cheerily they smile.
In such beautiful array,
Solomon, in bygone day,
Decked in Ophir's gold and gem,
Could not equal one of them!
Hark! to fancy's listening ear
Thus they whisper, soft and clear:
"Heaven-appointed teachers, we,
Mortal, thus would counsel thee:
Gratefully enjoy to-day,

If the sun vouchsafe his ray;
If the darkling tempest lower,
Meekly bend beneath the shower;
But oh, leave to-morrow's fare
To thy Heavenly Father's care.
Does each day, upon its wing,
Its allotted burden bring?
Load it not, besides, with sorrow
Which belongeth to the morrow.
Strength is promised, strength is
given,

When the heart by God is riven;
But foredate the hour of woe,
And alone thou bear'st the blow.
One thing only claims thy care-
Seek thou first, by faith and prayer,
That all-glorious world above,
Scene of righteousness and love,
And whate'er thou need'st below,
He thou trustest will bestow."

NURSERIES.

T would be curious to inquire what a poor child's idea of a nursery might be. Something very vague and dreamlike, we may be sure,-a strip of fairy-land, peopled with wondrous, unattainable toys, and shaded by forests of Christmas trees. The poor little urchin has never known anything that would help him in his guesses. The very name is an inscrutable mystery, so he is obliged to draw upon his imagination, supplemented by such help as may be derived from pastry-cooks' shops with their Twelfth-day cakes and holiday decorations. A nursery is to him purely a fancy picture. How can it be otherwise? His naked little feet were never heard to patter within the walls of that homely room, and his sole idea of nurses is drawn from a neighbouring hospital, where he was taken to see his father with a broken leg. No nursery for him. The pavement and gutter were the earliest scenes of his earthly joys; while the manycoloured bottles in a chemist's window inspired him with a rapturous kind of reverential awe for the beautiful in art. How should the poor little fellow know better? It is not his fault that he is the youngest of seven, and that his father is only a bricklayer's labourer with fifteen shillings a-week. By the time that a slice of bread and dripping has been served out all round, there is very little left to spend on nursery comforts. A doll without a

head, and a fragmentary Noah's ark-the gift of a kindly district visitor-constitute a treasure of amusement which is as unfailing as it is superb. In company with these accessories of enjoyment, our little friend is allowed by his mother to keep solemn state in the passage on washing-days, where, besides indulging in a little cheerful recreation in an atmosphere of soap-suds, he may also improve his constitution by judicious exposure to a cutting draught. But what are coughs and colds compared with the precious playthings on the clammy floor? Besides, the children of the poo are supposed to be possessed of special capabilities for "roughing it; and it is to be hoped that the popular conception represents a fact. Very likely it does, for common honesty compels an impartial spectator to admit that the process of infantine training does full justice to their reputed powers of endurance. To say that they are dragged up would be much nearer the truth than the more honied phrase of brought up. The fact that a fair proportion of their number survive this favourite mode of infant treatment, may be accepted as a pleasing testimony to the toughness of the national fibre under somewhat unpropitious circumstances, though it can hardly be recommended for general adoption. So far, however, we have reason for congratulation. Our children live through it, and that is something. Look, for example, at the besotted mother standing under the flaring gas-light of a gin-shop, and grasping a tattered bundle that might be anything, but will one day probably be a draggled slattern like herself; or, look at that tramping woman, who is exciting the pity of belated passengers on a rainy night by doubling after them with a wailing infant in her arms. It speaks well for their vitality when children do live out this treatment. But putting aside any possible mischief that may happen to their bodies from exposure and rough handling, it is easy to see that the effect upon their minds must be immediate and decisive. An infancy commenced in this way is pretty sure to ripen into a childhood of infamy and crime; and the absence of all home-feeling turns them into the precocious little Arabs that perplex our philanthropists and fill our prisons.

So much has of late been done for children of larger growth, in the way of refuges, training-ships, industrial and ragged schools, and the like, that the moment seems auspicious for descending to a lower level of our social life, and thinking of what may be contrived for our baby population. A glance at the ragged little urchins that crawl and tumble about the alleys of our larger towns, will be enough to show that, while the infants of the poorer classes are left to shift for themselves, a fruitful harvest of crime and misery is being sown. Listen to that group of babies who are playing in the mud. The oldest of them can scarcely be six, and the tiniest of the number, who can hardly speak plainly, is stringing together imprecations that might make a hoary sinner blush. Of course he does not understand what he is saying. How can