LITTLE FOLKS BUSY? BUSY AS A BEE THAT GATHERS HONEY FROM EVERY

OPENING FLOWER.

KEEP them still? No, you can't. It's work, work, from sunrise to sunset. How much, think you, does a little child daily? can you tell? It is doing this, doing that— tottering here, tottering there-climbing up here, kneeling down there, running to another place, but never still. Twisting and turning, rolling and doubling, as if testing every bone and muscle for their future uses. It is very

curious to watch it. One who does so will understand the deep breathing of the little sleeper, as, with one arm tossed over its curly head, it prepares for the next day's gymnastics. Tireless through the day, till that time comes, as the maternal love that accommodates itself, hour after hour, to its thousand wants and caprices, real and imaginary.

THE heart of a child is easily won. Love begets love. Love children and they will love you. Let children feel that you care for them, that you are interested in all that interests them, that you sympathize with them in all their little sorrows, rejoice with them in all their little joys, that you are their friend, and you have the key to their hearts.

Smile upon a child: have you not won its heart? Does it not smile in return? Do not its eyes follow you? Does not its face sadden as you disappear, and smile when you come again? Does that smile cost you anything?

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It is sweet to have children love us. It is sweet to know that they delight to nestle upon our bosoms, and that their little arms long to clasp about our necks. It is sweet to feel the soft clinging tendrils of their honest hearts intertwining, cosily and trustingly, in among the stouter and chillier tendrils of our own.

Love is the grand secret in domestic education. Give your children a genial, loving atmosphere in which to grow. Love precludes not decision or correction, but is prompt in the execution of both.

Deal with your children as God deals with his. Do not meet their anger with your anger, their petulance with your own, or their obstinacy with wilfulness still greater. Overcome evil with good. When God called himself a father, he chose a name which he designed to be significant of overflowing love, tender mercy, and long-continued forbearance.

Parents, "provoke not your children to wrath."

"A word, a look, has crushed to earth

Full many a budding flower,

Which, had a smile but own'd its birth,

Would bless life's darkest hour."

A heavenly countenance is the highest commendation, the most conclusive argument for the character of him who earns it. One glimpse of an angel's face would probably do more to impress us with the beauty of holiness than many an eloquent sermon an hour long. Stephen's radiant face was a powerful auxiliary to his discourse. The shining face of Moses, when he came down from the Mount, was proof to the Israelites that he had seen the Lord.

If this be true with an audience of adults, how much more with children! Sensitive as they are, and often affected,

they cannot tell why or how, and gazing steadfastly as they do, with no sense of impropriety, into the face of their parent or teacher, it is almost unavoidable that his image should be reproduced in them.

"Then deem it not an idle thing

A pleasant word to speak ;

The face you wear, the thoughts you bring,

A heart may heal or break."

What will not love do? Who can describe its powerful subduing influences? Who ever accomplished anything by reproaches, or violence, or harsh measures? You gratify a private and dark passion in your own heart, and arouse a darker one in another bosom. Oh, try the mighty efficacy of love! One smile of genuine sympathy is worth all your purse to a beggar. "Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God."-1 John iii. 7.

Parents, commend your little ones whenever they do right, perform that which is good and praiseworthy. Whenever they are quick to obey cheerfully, express your grateful approbation; tell them how pleased you are at any improvement in well-doing. Your child has been very pleasing and obedient through the day. Just before putting him to sleep for the night, you take his hand and say: "My son, you have been very good to-day. It makes me very happy to see you so kind and obedient. God loves children who are dutiful to their parents, and he promises to make them happy."

This approbation from his mother is to him a great reward. And when with a more than ordinarily affectionate tone you say, "Good-night, my dear son," he leaves the

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room with his little eyes full of feeling. And when he closes his eyes for sleep he is happy, and resolves that he will always try to do his duty.

Think

Mothers, train your daughters to be mothers! what a mother ought to be in every relation of life—social, domestic, public, at home and abroad, by day and by night. Think of Washington's mother, Samuel's, Timothy's, the mother of our Lord. Mothers cannot be good mothers, unless taught to be good mothers from their infancy. If all mothers were good mothers, would not our world soon be a paradise?

The Bible lays down four great rules, involving four great elements of successful religious training of children : prayer, example, instruction, and restraint. And it is doubted if a solitary case can be found when all these have been united, where the child has not followed in the footsteps of the pious parent.

Disobedience to parents is the beginning of all crime! How infinitely important then that the habits of disobedience should never be formed.

It is only from the Bible we learn that God is love; that his character is spotlessly holy. There we are informed that our first duty, our chief interest, is to acquire a character in righteousness and benevolence like God's.

"Apples of Gold," 303 West Twentieth Street, New York.