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said, “Ah, but I shall soon see the King in His beauty, and the land that is very far off." Speaking once of her lameness, she broke out in a bright sunny smile as she exclaimed," But in heaven I shall follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth." "Often I can't sleep at night for pain," she once said to me, "but the blessed Saviour comes and talks with me, and I am so happy, that I don't feel how long the night is."

It was only about nine months after my acquaintance with poor Charlotte that she grew rapidly worse. During the whole of that time I had carefully observed her; but I never saw or heard anything contrary to cheerful submission to her heavenly Father's will. One day, in reply to my inquiry even as to how she felt, she answered, struggling for breath between every word, "Better— much better-almost home." Then, after a pause, she added,

"Jesus can make a dying bed

Feel soft as downy pillows are,
While on His breast I lean my head,

And breathe my life out sweetly there."

She told me that for eight nights she had not slept because of pain. "But it's no matter now, I'm almost home. O Death! where is thy sting? I'm a poor sinner, but Christ has saved me. I'm happy-oh, so happy!" And so she bore her cross till Christ gave her the crown. One morning they went to wake her, but she was gone home, where "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." "And so He giveth His beloved sleep."

TALENTS OF TRUST.

WOWARDS the end of the last century there dwelt in the imperial city of Frankfort-on-the-Maine a Jewish banker of limited means, named Moses Rothschild. During the revolutionary troubles of that period the banker was one day visited by the Prince of Hesse Cassel, who had been compelled to flee before the republican army. The object of the Prince's visit was to consign to the care of Rothschild a sum in money and jewels amounting in value to many thousands of pounds. It was a dangerous trust, for the French army, bent on spoil, was at the gates of Frankfort; but the honest Jew undertook it, and buried the treasure in his garden. When the republicans arrived, he submitted to be stripped of every coin belonging to himself, but he did not betray the secret of the concealed property. With the sum thus preserved he afterwards traded, daily increasing and extending his business; and when, in 1802, the Prince returned to his dominions and called on the Jew, not expecting to find a farthing left, he was astonished to hear that the treasure committed to Rothschild's keeping had been carefully preserved, and so well

employed, that there remained for him, not only the original deposit, but five per cent. interest since the day on which it had been left under the Jew's care.

This anecdote of the honest Jew of Frankfort-the founder of the Rothschild family-recalls the parable, spoken more than eighteen hundred years ago, about the talents-five, two, one— committed to the safe keeping of certain servants, two of whom doubled their trust, while one, in his indolent negligence, could render nothing on his Lord's return but the unimproved deposit. Very precious are all the talents committed to us by the Great King, but among the treasures there are some more costly than the rest; there are jewels that may yet reflect the radiant glory of heaven in the Redeemer's crown, and specially responsible are we for the care of these priceless gems. "These are my treasures," said a true mother, when she pointed to her children. And yet she was only partially right; those treasures were not her own, they were talents of trust-loans to be rendered back with interest. And just as the Jewish banker was ready to sacrifice all his own property that he might be faithful to the trust imposed upon him, so Christian parents are prepared for much of self-denial in order that their children may be nurtured for the Lord. Behold a child!" A messenger of joy and peace, a resting-place for innocence on earth, a link between angels and men." It is God's child. The hallowed vows and the golden ring of the wedding day never bound the twain together as they are bound by the tears and smiles and lispings of the child that is their own-and God's !

We must never forget that our children are only lent to us. God entrusts them to us with the same sort of instruction that the daughter of Pharaoh gave to the mother of Moses when she sent the boy to her as to one of the Hebrew women, "Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages."

“I don't much mind," said a pious mother, "whether my boy is ever more than a journeyman, but I do mind that he should be honest, truthful, and good. He may live very well on thirty shillings a week, or less than that; but he cannot live well, with a splendid fortune, if his heart is not right in the sight of God."

Nothing can be well with the child till the clean heart and the right spirit are given. And these are God's gifts; but they are given when the ground is prepared, and when they are sought-given just as the yellow corn is given when the farmer has done his best for the crops. Let the Bible be the rule of life; read it with your children, endeavour to sustain their interest in all that relates to it; teach them to look to God for strength and help and guidance; never neglect public worship; and in your home each day let God be honoured at the family altar. Philip Henry used to say, "If the worship of God be not in a house, write 'Lord have mercy upon us, 'on the door;" it was the sentence, which was written on the doors of infected houses

during the plague of 1665. And where God is not recognised, there is worse than the plague or death in the house! Pray with and for your children.

"More things are wrought by prayer Than the world dreams of."

Augustine in his youth was a source of constant anxiety to his mother, Monica; she laid her sorrow before God and redoubled her supplications as her son's excesses increased. Urging her pitiful case one day on the learned Ambrose, she received an answer full of comfort to every praying mother, "Depart in peace; it is not possible that the son of these tears and prayers should perish!" and soon she had the joy of seeing her child humbled and penitent at the foot of the cross.

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There is a story told of a child to whom a beautiful geranium was given. "You see," said the donor, "there are many buds on it, and if you are careful, they will soon open out into large crimson and white blossoms." The child promised to be careful, and the wind was not allowed to blow upon the plant, nor the sun to scorch it with its beams; it was watered, shaded, dusted, watched with a tenderness that few geraniums ever knew. But yet it did not flourish. The green leaves turned yellow, 'and the crimson buds fell off one by one. At last, one day the child's mother came to look at it, and putting her hand on her boy's shoulder, said, "You have nearly killed your plant, my dear child; but I hope it may yet revive." Oh, mamma, how could I kill it, and take such care of it too?" "You have given it everything it needs but the sunshine; for want of the sun's beams it will die; but let us put it in the window, and see if that will do any good." They did so, and for several days there was no difference; then the leaves grew stiffer, one or two new ones peeped out, the drooping buds lifted their crimson heads, and all was well,-the sun unfolded the beauty of the flower.

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The story teaches a useful lesson. God has given us a charge to take care of the children, and parental love is generally careful in providing for its offspring; but all the care we can bestow will only make our choice plants languish and decay, if we do not put them into the sunshine of God's smile, into the light of God's love, and the bright beams of the Sun of righteousness.

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M

BY MRS. J. HAMILTON.

Y life's first flower, my early budding rose,
That flourished by my side,-soon to disclose
Her tender beauties in life's sunny morn,
The home parterre to gladden and adorn!

But ah! while gazing, with a mother's pride,
Upon the opening rosebud by my side,
The mildew of disease fell on my flower;

She withered, drooped, and fell beneath its power.

Take comfort, Christian mother, she is gone

Where sickness, pain, and death are words unknown,

What joy awaits thee on that blissful shore,

Where she, thy loved, not lost, is gone before!

VANITY IN DRESS.

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FI were called," says Dr. Crosby, "to point out the most alarming sins in this city to-day-those which are most wide-spread in their ravages, most deceitful in their influence, and most soul-destroying in their ultimate effects-I would mention the love of money on the part of men, and the love of display on the part of women. While open vice sends its thousands, these fashionable and favoured indulgences send their ten thousands, to perdition. They sear the conscience, encrust the soul with an impenetrable shell of worldliness, debauch the affections from every high and heavenly object, and make man or woman the worshipper of self."

The love of outward adornment gives greatest prominence to the body, which is but vanity, to the neglect of the soul, in which the graces of the Spirit should shine forth to God's glory. It is the empty mind that loves most to adorn the body. And, besides the injury to the person who indulges in it, she lends herself to turn the heads of fools into a false course of emulation, and to reduce women to rivalry with peacocks.

This folly involves a wretched waste of time and money. The diary of a fashionable woman would be a record of hours spent before the looking-glass, and the rest of the day for which such preparation is made is devoted to frivolity. As with time, so with money. By actual computation, the sum expended by a fashionable lady in dress and ornament would suitably clothe twenty of the most refined of her sex. The waste is fearful where it can be afforded. But, alas! where in one case it can be afforded, in a thousand it leads to debt, domestic jars, and even bankruptcy.

But, beyond all other considerations, God's reiterated command prohibits the folly, as ill becoming the dignity of Christian character, and hostile to all the dispositions and affections of the new nature. The three glories of a woman, her triple crownmodesty, truth, and sympathy-are sacrificed to this passion. For modesty, we have the brazen stare which challenges notice, if not admiration; for truth, we have the perpetual lie of fashionable society; and for sympathy, the headlong plunge after selfish indulgences.

"I see the Christian Church invaded by this fatal iniquity; I see Christian mothers justifying it on every hand, and Christian daughters dragged into the vortex by the very hands that ought to have been thrown around them for protection; I see the influence of this self-decoration extending itself over all classes and conditions of society, like a subtle poison eating out the life of Christianity, and leaving the mere name. And seeing this, I cannot, as a minister of Jesus Christ, keep silent."

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