When we got home it was nearly noon. I asked the lady where her children went to school? She pointed me to a room, and I went in. The room was fitted up in good taste for a school-room. There were a black-board, a book-shelf, a table, and every thing in order. It was here she said she resorted when time would admit. I was urged to stay until noon, when the father came in. As the door was open, I could see into the kitchen. As soon as he sat down, there were two children in his lap; while one was climbing up the back of his chair. As soon as she got high enough on his chair, she was rubbing his ears, and saying, 'do your ears burn, father?' 'Yes,' he said, 'they will do very well.' While at dinner, I asked him how he came to choose so retired a spot as this mountain. 'Several reasons I can give you,' said he. 'I was born on high lands. I was poor and could not buy a plain. Beside, I think this is the best place for my family. We are all healthy. Our cattle and sheep are healthy. We are away from scenes of temptation. We have good wheat, good grass, plenty of wood, and enough to do. Lot chose the way of the plain and pitched his tent toward Sodom; but Abraham chose the hill country. If we want good company, we have them,' pointing to the shelf,-Bunyan, Baxter, Doddridge, Edwards, and others. But above all, we have prophets and apostles, and Jesus, the Son of God, to talk with us, instruct, warn, and invite. Our children are all contented at home, and are not ignorant of the things they ought to know.' I bade them farewell, and have heard that those children are all useful. One of them died in Jesus, and their mother has gone to rest. Topsham, Vt., Feb., 1845. MY MOTHER'S GRAVE. My mother's grave! 'Tis there beneath the trees Mrs. Sigourney. AMID the multitude of infidel writers France has given to the world, how delightful to the Christian is the recognition of one, like La Martine, highly intelligent and sensitive, and yet with a heart deeply imbued with religious sentiments. How grateful, too, to the Christian MOTHER, that he attributes so much of it to the influence of his mother. To the faithful mother the thought is affecting, and should be useful, that, when her voice is hushed in the silence of the tomb, her children will rise up to bless her memory and her influence. MY MOTHER. [Translated from the French of 'La Martine,' for the Mother's Assistant.] Marseilles, May 20, 1832. My mother had received of her mother, on her death-bed, a beautiful royal Bible, in which she taught me to read when I was but a child. This Bible had engravings of sacred subjects to each page. This was Sarah; this was Tobias and his angel; this was Joseph, or Samuel; this was one of those beautiful patriarchal scenes, where the solemn and primitive manner of the East, mingled with all the acts of the simple and wonderful lives of the first of the human family. When I had recited my lesson well, and read correctly the half page of holy history, my mother uncovered the engraving, and, holding the book open upon her knee, allowed me to look at it, and explained it to me for my reward. She was by nature amiable, with a soul as pious as it was tender, and an imagination the most sensitive and ardent; all her thoughts were sentiments, all her sentiments were images; her beautiful, noble, and graceful figure reflected in her glowing face that which burned in her heart, that which painted itself in her thoughts; and the silvery, affectionate, solemn, and tender tones of her voice added to all that she said a force, a charm and an attraction, which are retained in my ear to this moment, alas! after six years of silence! The sight of these engravings, the explanations and poetical commentaries of my mother, inspired me, from the most tender infancy, with a taste and an inclination for the holy Bible. From the things to the desire to see the places where these things occurred, is but a step. I longed, therefore, from the age of eight years, to visit the mountains where God descended; the desert where the angel came to show Agar the concealed source to reanimate her poor child, banished and dying with thirst; the rivers flowing from a terrestrial paradise; the heavens where the angels were seen ascending and descending upon Jacob's ladder. I made, even then, a voyage to the East, the great act of my interior life. I constructed in my thoughts a grand drama, of which these beautiful places should be the principal scenes. It seemed to me, also, that all spiritual doubts, all religious perplexities should there find solution and be made clear. In fine, I found there all the materials for my poem, for to my mind a poem was as delightful as love was to my heart. God, love, and poetry, are the three words I would have engraved on my tomb-stone, should I ever merit a stone. 'With faithfulness to thee and thine, My gracious covenant I fulfil; Though the whole world shall perish, mine New Hampton, N. H., Feb., 1845. Original. THE SILENT MINISTRY OF EXAMPLE. BY MES. M. A. R. SARGENT. WHAT is said to mothers in one number of the 'Mother's Assistant,' will apply to both father and mother. Says the writer, 'Mothers, strive to exhibit, in your lives and conversation, whatever you wish your children to become. Do not send them into an unexplored country without a guide. Put yourself at their head. Lead the way, like Moses, through the wilderness to Pisgah. The most certain way for you to fix habits, is the silent ministry of example. Thus impressed on the young mind, amid the genial atmosphere of a happy fireside, they become incorporated with established trains of thought, and with the elements of being. They have their hand upon the soul, till, through the grave of death, it goes forth to judg ment.' I have always thought that universal respect between parents, under all circumstances, is as conducive as any one thing to produce happiness in the domestic circle. If parents treat each other with that respect which their holy relation and high station demand, it will add immensely to their own happiness, and produce the most salutary effect on the minds of their children. This cannot be accomplished without care and effort. The mother, amid a thousand anxious thoughts for her family, the toils of the day, the perplexities which meet her at every step, the depression resulting from ill health, or any of those things which tend to perplex the mind, or sink the spirits, must not, for one moment, lose sight of the position she holds and the object before her, namely, the good and happiness of her family. An inconsistent word, a sullen look, a contention with her husband, or her servants, petulance from an error, or an unhappy lot, will dash in pieces the lessons of months. The mother must be all she wishes to see in her children. She must embody the whole in her own person. It must dwell on her lips, and in her heart, and radiate from her soul. She must speak it, and exhibit it, all fresh from a mother's heart, baptized in the fountain of love. It must come forth from whatever she does, as the unadulterated coin from the mint. The mother is the child's oracle in life, language, and action. To the child she is a perfect model of all excellence. God has ordained this; and an undeviating, respectful course of conduct to all, will souls of her children, as deathless as the stamp her image on the soul itself. And this is not all,- - a thousand excellences follow in the train of this grace, and shed their radiance on the character. Such a mother will always be supreme in the little world which moves around her. She lives in the region of love. But this paradise becomes confusion when precept is not followed by example. The father, too, must aid in this work. His companion must not be left single-handed in a labor on which depends the happiness of a family. It is true, there is not so much depending on every look, word, and action of the father; yet a father's looks, words, and actions may change a paradise to a pandemonium. He is more in the world, and necessarily more from home; but if it must be so, and he must contend on the world's grand stage of political glory, literary preeminence, or wealth, let the strife cease and the contest be over, before he approaches the hearth of his family. Let him not bring the dust and rubbish of the battle-field to this sacred shrine. The father's life, from necessity, is in many cases a stormy one, and if it must be one of storm, let him put on his armor elsewhere, and throw it off before he approaches his home. Let the cloud disperse from the brow, the hands be clean, the mind calm and composed, and the sun of peace will dawn on the soul and fill the heart, the fountain of the affections, and pure streams will gush forth. Let him, then, quench the fire on the altar of mammon, wipe off the blood of the victim, - cease bowing to the altar of fame, and lay aside the rigid features of the philosopher, before he goes to worship in the temple of the heart's pure affection. The depression of incessant toil and poverty, has an influence on the mind of many fathers, similar in its nature to the rush for wealth; it clouds the brow, makes bitter the springs of the soul, and corrodes the mind; but, for the sake of the family, a battle must be fought, and a victory won, even if it costs many an effort, many severe struggles. Mr. A. was a man of a strong, well cultivated mind, of a good moral, religious character, and of consistent deportment. To be respectful to all was the law of his lips, and every word was the fruit of this law. He was a man of business, and had experienced the reverses of fortune, as well as its smiles; sickness and death as well as health had visited his abode. He had placed in the silent tomb |