children, too, love and

their cue from him. This when the mother is a true one, a far more usual case than the cheap wits whose cue it is to laugh at commonplace virtues will allow. When the father shows he respects and loves his wife, the respect her. People may talk as much as they like about new forms of female industry, and new branches of trade, to give them an equal chance with man; but the universal desire and instinct shown by woman towards marriage— much more so than by man-indicates that the true province of woman is to be at home, the queen of the home. The throne may be a poor one; blankest poverty may surround it, long struggles may have made it sad, fortune may never have smiled upon it; but when a woman has a husband's love, when her children can and do arise and call her blessed, then it is a throne indeed.

And for children. It will be an apocalypse to some to insist that, under any faith or philosophy, to have, bring up, and well educate children, is the chief end of life, which, look you, is not man-ruling, teaching, preaching, governing ; still less is it man-killing, drilling, and marching; nor is it skating, dancing, billiard-playing, and bird-shooting wholly; nor is it only a trading, cheating, and money-getting affair, but to produce fine, well-limbed, well-minded, sound-hearted boys and girls, and thence men and women. Well, as far as we can judge, the great Creator desires souls purified by earthly trials, and we opine that those who present a long list of

such jewels to the King of kings, will have done notable. work.

Now-a-days people tell us that their children are held to be impoverishing, and somewhat of a bore. "We push them," say they, a great deal too much off to school masters;" and we think that what they say is true. "What

is the cause of this?" asks a friend. "I am afraid that, if we visit our neighbours, and ask the reason, we shall find that the parents do not consider it their duty to attend to their own children." They fancy that if they send their children to the Sunday school, and there let them be instructed in some way as to their religion by the parson, and by the schoolmaster as to manners and letters, all will be well; and this lapse of duty on the parent's part makes the widening rent. between parent and child still wider. The people in the United States and Australia are worse off than we are here. Young men of forty in America and the English colonies are called by their own lanky sons of fifteen "darned old forriners." The young men soon feel themselves to be of value there, and throw off parental authority. But here, also, where the parents toil far into middle life for the benefit of their children, the case is no better. Every day the boys and girls are increasing in forwardness, boldness, rudeness and impudence. We don't say this merely to find fault with the children themselves; they know no better. Boys and girls will ape and imitate men and women, if they are not

taught to be children. The manners of men and women, and the older fashions of speaking and acting which are well enough in a man, look impudent, and are impudent, in a boy, where bashfulness and modesty should be conspicuous. In all our great towns there are to be seen troops of young boys and girls walking out, the boys following the girls, chaffing, courting, quizzing, and indulging in worse courses, at an age whereat their fathers and mothers were, and their contemporaries and age-fellows of the better classes are, scarcely out from the nursery.

Over fondness, insufficient authority, a fear of slapping a child, or of using the rod early in life, whereby parents are prevented from using it late, and a spendthrift anticipation by the children of the pleasures of youth before they are youths, have produced these results :

(1.) After some years of boredom, the father and mother are so bothered with their children that they want to get rid of them. (2.) The children, not feeling the proper respect for their parents, do not show it. (3.) A division exists in the home, and universally, children, instead of being held to be one of God's greatest blessings, are considered a misfortune. "Ah, poor man! he has so many children to bring up," &c. The home then becomes not a home, but merely a dull, cheerless place to sleep in, to rest at night in-no

more.

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I wish," says one of the victims to a rather different

but analogous state of things to that above described, "that Preachers and Teachers generally would imbue parents with a sense of the duty of making home more cheerful." Our friend then gives an account of his own experience, to show us what kind of reform is necessary for parents to make their homes "more lively and encouraging, so as to keep their children from seeking pleasure and excitement elsewhere." He draws a picture of a severe religious man of fifty, a good firm man, no doubt, but one in whom the principle of love is left out; a Dissenter and a teetotaller, severely so as to both; no argument is started but the father overbearingly puts it down; the very mention of drink rouses his arguing power, and he becomes offensive."

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He

hates little indulgences. Any novels, any dramatic readings or entertainments are bad; to enter a theatre or a music-hall would be perdition. If bagatelle or cards were introduced they would be thrown out of the window; a draught, chess, or domino board is equally hated, and of course banished. In fact, this "powerful" example of ours has just rubbed the bloom off the plums, and plucked up the flowers of life. The children are good and industrious, but feel home to be a prison. To get to the City at nine, to leave at seven, to have tea, then to read a religious book, for the most part stupidly written, seems to be the fate of the young men of such families. Music is a frivolity, and although there are two withdrawing-rooms and a piano, the rooms are empty

during the week days, and none of the graces of life are allowed to flourish. On Sundays, of course, there is harder work, hearing sermons and reading tracts; and on Monday the dull, sad week begins again.

This picture is from life: what shall we say of it? Why, that our severe man of fifty goes the right way to bring up hypocrites. "On the sly," the young men smoke; on the sly, they run into music-halls; on the sly, they do worse things. 'Tis no new thing. The old proverb says that "Clergymen's sons always turn out badly." Why? Because the children are brought up surfeited with severe religion— not with the gentle, true religion of Christ, who was himself reproved by the prototypes of such severe men. In one of Crabbe's tales, wherein he begins quaintly—

"Grave Jonas Kindred, Sybil Kindred's sire,

Was six feet high, and look'd six inches higher,"

that great painter of Nature shows how the sternness of the father nearly spoils the child. 'Tis an old, old story; not bad nature, but bad taste made it severe. Not always do such foolish severities end with the tragedies of crime or death. Bitter the reflection then, if the father has reflection. Over the dead Absalom-a fair, beautiful body whence the soul has fled, a casket whence the precious jewel is stolenyou may cry for ever, "Oh Absalom, my son, my son !"—to this earth he never can come back. But say the son does