"And when the winter is over,

The boughs will get new leaves,
The quail come back to the clover,

And the swallow back to the eaves.

WOMAN AT HOME.

HOME is the throne of empires on which woman sits, the sceptre with which she wields the destiny of nations. All that is dear and holy, noble and divine, in society or the nation, centres back to home, where woman presides as the angel of love.

If she would seek the honor of exerting an influence which shall last after the present order of the universe is changed, a philanthropist whose name, though not lauded. by the fickle multitude, shall be remembered by the good and pure in the ages of eternity, let her not, for any social interest or cause, neglect the hallowed duties of home, but watch over them with jealous trust, with devotional constancy, with unruffled vigilance, to keep that home the nursery of all the virtues, the sanctuary of the heart's deepest loves, the "holy of holies," where the divine presence may shine forth in her looks, and be manifest in her actions.

Home is woman's true sphere. There is nothing in this wide world that will confer greater honor upon her than for her to make that home a type of what society should be, and of what heaven is in the graces of exalted character. As a wife, she should be to her husband a guardian angel; as a mother, charged with the high trust of directing the child, she should see that, like the work of the skilful artist, she moulds it "true to nature," beautiful and pure.

"Nor steel nor fire itself hath power,

Like woman in her prayerful hour!"

The poet has disclosed the whole secret of woman's conquering power. Fair in her virtue, smiling in her goodness, she wields an influence which a mailed warrior never could.

HIS FINGERS ARE COLD, AIN'T THEY? TERRIBLE!

POOR boy without mittens, don't you pity him, little folks? Winter? Certainly it is. See the snowflakes falling.

SNOW, EMBLEM OF PURITY.

"THERE is something so pure in the falling snow,
As it comes on its wings so light,

And mantles the valleys and plains below

In a robe of spotless white;

That I love to gaze thro' the misty air,

Where the broad flakes are at play,

And offer a silent, earnest prayer,

That my heart was as pure as they;
That every thought and wish might be
The emblem of such purity."

ATTEMPTS TO POISON CHILDREN.

"It is now a well-known fact, that in most of our large cities-probably, also, in most of our large towns and villages there are well-laid plans, systematically and persistently followed, for poisoning children-of both sexes, and of all social conditions-not indeed with arsenic, or strychnine, or Paris green, but with obscene books. To such an extent have these endeavors gone, that there are publishing firms with large capital invested, with many agents and dealers, constantly employed in producing and circulating the most abominably corrupting publications. These are of different sizes, and skilfully adapted to attract attention, being designed mostly for children and youth from ten to eighteen years of age. They are put into the hands of hundreds and thousands of school children going to and from school, with the injunction to tell no one about them, and especially not to let their parents see them, and the place where they can get more is carefully told. Children receive the books with their gaudy pictures, wholly ignorant of their nature and purpose; and by the time they actually learn their vileness, their minds are corrupted. What a horrible crime is this! And yet, for the sake of gain, there are found men enough who will engage in the publication and distribution of these polluting and destroying works. Many of the social vices and misfortunes of maturer years are the direct fruits, grown and ripened, from the reading of obscene books in childhood."

We clip the foregoing from a daily issue. Religious

writers, and puffers of religious novels or white lies! see what you have done-are still doing.

"How can ye! While the cause ye nurse,

Which madness, crime, and misery brings;

How can ye dry the river's course,

Unless you stop its rising springs?"

The thought is painful in the extreme that pure and innocent childhood should be corrupted with the vices of maturer years, and of more experienced depravity. What monsters of evil are they that do the work!

Look again.

The Traffic in Obscene Literature.

"A meeting took place last evening at No. 107 East Twenty-eighth street, for the purpose of inaugurating a society for the suppression of the trade in and circulation of obscene literature. Alderman Wilder pointed out the necessity of having an amendment to the act of 1868 passed, so that the evil complained of could be remedied. This was agreed to, and the meeting adjourned till Friday, March 1st."

Why not begin where Satan begins-with religious novelwriters and puffers ?

A lack of reverence for the Word of God is the one great sin of Christendom. A certain tyrant of Rome used to wish the Roman people had but one neck, that he might dispatch them at a blow. You, friend, whether in the pulpit or out of it, continuing to traffic in religious fiction, have but one neck; namely, disrespect for God's Word. If a man have just reverence for his Word, he will commit none of the sins you are committing.

"He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."