LESSON CI.
A MOTHER'S GIFT.

(The Bible.)
REMEMBER, love, who gave thee this,

When other days shall come,
When she who had thine earliest kiss

Sleeps in her narrow home.
Remember! 't was a mother gave
The gift to one she'd die to save !

That mother sought a pledge of love,

The holiest for her son;
And, from the gifts of God above,

She chose a goodly one :
She chose for her beloved boy,
The source of light, and life, and joy;
And bade him keep the gift, that when

The parting hour should come,
They might have hope to meet again,

In an eternal home.
She said his faith in this would be

Sweet incense to her memory.
And should the scoffer in his pride,

Laugh that fond faith to scorn,
And bid him cast the pledge aside,

That he from youth hath borne,
She bade him pause, and ask his breast
If she or he had loved him best.

A parent's blessing on her son

Goes with this holy thing ;
The love that would retain the one,

Must to the other cling.
Remember! 'tis no idle toy:
A mother's gift-remember, boy!

W. FERGUSAN.

LESSON CII.

INCENTIVES TO DEVOTION. Lo! the unlettered hind, who never knew To raise his mind excursive to the hights Of abstract contemplation, as he sits On the green hillock by the hedge-row side, What time the insect swarms are murmuring, And marks, in silent thought, the broken clouds, That fringe, with loveliest hue, the evening sky, Feels in his soul the hand of nature rouse The thrill of gratitude, to him who formed The goodly prospect; he beholds the God Throned in the west; and his reposing ear Hears sounds angelic in the fitful breeze That floats through neighboring copse or fairy brake, Or lingers, playful, on the haunted stream.

Go with the cotter to his winter fire,
When o'er the moors the loud blast whistles shrill,
And the hoarse ban-dog bays the icy moon;
Mark with what awe he lists the wild uproar,
Silent, and big with thought; and hear him bless
The God that rides on the tempestuous cloud,
For his snug hearth, and all his little joys.
Hear him compare his happier lot, with his
Who bends his way across the wintery wolds,
A poor night-traveler, while the dismal snow
Beats in his face, and, dubious of his paths,
He stops, and thinks, in every lengthening blast,
He hears some village mastiff's distant howl,
And sees, far streaming, some lone cottage light;
Then, undeceived, upturns his streaming eyes,
And clasps his shivering hands, or overpowered,
Sinks on the frozen ground, weighed down with sleep,
From which the hapless wretch shall never wake.

Thus the poor rustic warms his heart with praise
And glowing gratitude : he turns to bless
With honest warmth, his Maker and his God.
And shall it e'er be said, that a poor hind,
Nursed in the lap of ignorance, and bred
In want and labor, glows with noble zeal
To laud his Maker's attributes, while he
Whom starry science in her cradle rocked,

And Castaly enchastened with its dews,
Closes his eye upon the holy word;
And, blind to all but arrogance and pride,
Dares to declare his infidelity,
And openly contemn the Lord of Hosts ?

Oh! I would walk
A weary journey to the furthest verge
Of the big world, to kiss that good man's hand,
Who, in the blaze of wisdom and of art,
Preserves a lowly mind; and to his God,
Feeling the sense of his own littleness,
Is as a child of meek simplicity!
What is the pomp of learning ? the parade
Of letters and of tongues? Even as the mists,
Or the gray morn before the rising sun,
That pass away and perish. Earthly things
Are but the transient pageants of an hour ;
And earthly pride is like the passing flower,
That springs to fall, and blossoms but to die.

H. K. WHITE.

LESSON CIII. WOMAN'S INFLUENCE ON CHARACTER. The domestic fireside is the great guardian of society against the excesses of human passions. When man, after his intercourse with the world, where, alas ! he finds so much to inflame him with a feverish anxiety for wealth and distinction-retires, at evening, to the bosom of his family, he finds there a repose for his tormenting cares.

He finds something to bring him back to human sympathies. The tenderness of his wife, and the caresses of his children, introduce a new train of softer thoughts and gentler feelings. He is reminded of what constitutes the real felicity of man; and, while his heart expands itself to the influence of the simple and intimate delights of the domestic circle, the demons of avarice and ambition, if not exorcised from his breast, at least, for a time, relax their grasp. How deplorable would be the consequence, if all these were reversed; and woman, instead of checking the violence of these passions, were to employ her blandishments and charms to add fuel to their rage! How much wider would become the empire of guilt! What a portentous and intolerable amount would be added to the sum of the crimes and miseries of the human race !

But the influence of the female character on the virtue of man, is not seen merely in restraining and softening the violence of human passions. To her is mainly committed the task of pouring into the opening mind of infancy its first impressions of duty, and of stamping on its susceptible heart the first image of its God. Who will not confess the influence of a mother in forming the heart of a child ? What man is there, who cannot trace the origin of many of the best maxims of his life to the lips of her who gave him birth ? How wide, how lasting, how sacred, is that part of woman's influence! Who that thinks of it, who that ascribes any moral effect to education, who that believes that any good may be produced, or any evil prevented by it, can need any arguments to prove the importance of the character and capacity of her, who gives its earliest bias to the infant mind?

There is yet another mode by which woman may exert a powerful influence on the virtue of a community. It rests with her, in a pre-eminent degree, to give tone and elevation to the moral character of the age, by deciding the degree of virtue that shall be necessary to afford a passport to her society. If all the favor of woman were given only to the good; if it were known that the charms and attractions of beauty, and wisdom, and wit, were reserved only for the pure; how much would be done to re-enforce the motives to moral purity among us, and impress on the minds of all, a reverence for the sanctity and obligations of virtue!

The influence of woman on the moral sentiments of society, is intimately connected with her influence on its religious character; for religion, and a pure and elevated morality, must ever stand in the relation to each other of effect and cause. The heart of woman is formed for the abode of Christian truth; and for reasons alike honorable to her character, and to that of the gospel. From the nature of Christianity this must be so. The foundation of evangelical religion is laid in a deep and constant sense of the presence, providence, and influence of an invisible Spirit, who claims the adoration, reverence, gratitude, and love of his creatures. By man, busied as he is in the cares, and absorbed in the pursuits, of the world, this great truth is, alas! too often, and too easily forgotten and disregarded; while woman, less engrossed by occupation, more “at leisure to be good,” led often, by her duties, to retirement, at a distance from many temptations, and endowed with an imagination more easily excited and raised than man's, is better prepared to admit and cherish, and be affected by, this solemn and glorious acknowledgment of a God.

Again: the gospel reveals to us a Savior, invested with little of that brilliant and dazzling glory, with which conquest and success would array him in the eyes of proud and aspiring man; but rather as a meek and magnanimous sufferer, clothed in all the mild and passive graces, all the sympathy with human woe, all the compassion for human frailty, all the benevolent interest in human welfare, which the heart of woman is formed to love; together with all that solemn and supernatural dignity, which the heart of woman is formed peculiarly to feel and to reverence. To obey the commands, and aspire to imitate the peculiar virtues, of such a being, must always be more natural and easy for her than for man.

So, too, it is with that future life which the gospel unvails. where all that is dark and doubtful in this shall be explained; where penitence, and faith, and virtue shall be accepted ; where the tear of sorrow shall be dried, the wounded bosom of bereavement be healed; where love and joy shall be unclouded and immortal. To these high and holy visions of faith, I trust that man is not always insensible; but the superior sensibility of woman, as it makes her feel more deeply the emptiness and wants of human existence here, so it makes her welcome, with more deep and ardent emotions, the glad tidings of salvation, the thought of communion with God, the hope of the purity, happiness, and peace of another and a better world.

In this peculiar susceptibility of religion in the female character, who does not discern a proof of Heaven's benignant care of the best interest of man? How wise it is, that she, whose instructions and example must have so powerful an influence on the infant mind, should be formed to own and cherish the most sublime and important of truths! The vestal flame of piety, lighted up by Heaven in the breast of woman,