in such cases great prudence is necessary on the part of a parent or guardian to present affectionately to the mind. of the child, the author and true character of all lies, who, although for a season may smile, and by deceitful art or dissimulation will obtain full possession of the human heart, still never ceases until he drags his victim down into the lowest shades of moral death, not only shunned and despised by every good and virtuous man, but rejected and condemned by the supreme Judge of all

the earth.

As in those of riper years, so the child as it advances in the career of lying or any other sin, appears not altogether insensible of the stain and blot which it has fixed upon its character, and will, with no small degree of undue pride, deny the charge, following it up by a succession of other lies, as just named.

The pride here alluded to is not that noble emotion which springs from a guiltless conscience, but from a vitiated mind, rendered callous and insensible by the frequent indulgence in the odious sin of lying, or any other vice which corrodes or poisons the beautiful and exhilerating stream flowing from a conscience void of offence.

And where a case occurs like the present, calling on the administrators of justice to inflict the rod, care must be taken not to continue its use too long at any one period, should the child still remain obstinate and unwilling to yield, in which case, after an affectionate assurance that punishment was inflicted from love, and not from caprice, it may not be unadvisable to let one or two hours elapse, in order that reason may have time to resume her office; but as the parent loves its child, never let the rod be wholly withdrawn until the desired cure is effected, notwithstanding perchance it may meet the disapprobation of some neighbor, and cause the outcry of cruelty, remembering Esop's fable of the man and his son, who endeavoring to please every one he met as to the true mode of conveyance, whereby he caused the animal to be drowned.

Speaking here of neighbors, I feel bound to assure my readers that I do not allude to the same characters as prefigured by our Saviour's parable of the Good Samaritan, but that class who take a greater delight in attending to the affairs of their neighbors than those of their own,

whereas, did they strictly attend to the latter, they would not only evince a greater love for their own children, but equally participate in the advantages of a certain downeaster, who in one year, declared he made two thousand dollars by attending to his own business, or rather fifteen hundred dollars by pursuing that course, and five hundred dollars by not meddling with the affairs of others.

One of the biographers of General George Washington, (believed to be Weims,) ascribes the origin and progress of this great patriot, statesman, and philanthropist's mind to his natural abilities constantly guided by religion, and so long as the history of his father's favorite cherry-tree and the little hatchet shall be familiar to the mind of not only present but unborn generations, so long will be discovered the early developments and love for truth by him who is emphatically styled the "Father of his Country."

As from a little matter great fires are often kindled it behooves parents to early check and correct all dispositions and propensities which may evince in their children an unhallowed passion for purloining the property of others, and having several heads yet to touch in the proper training of children, I must here, as to the sin of stealing, be brief, begging leave, however, to narrate the history of an unfortunate interesting English youth, aged nineteen years, who was some years since executed on the gallows for stealing a deer from a gentleman's park, that then being the penalty of violated law for such an offence. He requested permission from the executioner to whisper to his mother, who was standing in the midst of a thronged assembly near the scaffold; the deathwarrant was examined, and found it would not expire under fifty minutes, consequently the humane officer granted the dying request, so qualifying it as not to exceed ten minutes. The mother, overwhelmed in tears, ascended the dreadful and awful platform, and while embracing once more, and for the last time, on the shores of mortality, her ill-fated offspring, with his mouth to her ear, a solemn silence pervaded every rank of the vast assembly, not solely arising from the imposingness of the scene, but in part from a noble and generous desire to give the mother a fair opportunity to distinctly hear, as she supposed, the dying words of her son; but awful to relate, as he disengaged himself from their united em

brace, he brought her ear with him in his mouth, and disgorged it at his feet. The justly indignant assembly for such an unnatural, nay, most brutal act, instantly exclaimed, in vociferous voices, "Villain! villain! villain !"

The youth, after making several unsuccessful attempts, whereby he might obtain permission to speak a few "words by way of self-justification, at last gained his point and the assembled multitude once more relapsed into their former state of profound silence, whereupon the young criminal addressed all the spectators in words nearly as follows:

"Fellow-mortals, I know you look on me as upon a wretch beset with ills and covered with misfortunes; but be it known to you, that woman, whose ear I have just bitten off, has been the procuring cause of nearly all my sins and wicked transgressions, from the day of my accountability up to the present hour.

"The first theft I ever committed was at school, when only five years old, in stealing a little horn-book from one of my play-mates. I took it home and informed her by what ways and means 'I had obtained it. She applauded me for my dexterity, and thus encouraged me step by step to steal pen-knives, balls and tops, to plunder orchards on the Sabbath-day, rob hen-roosts, &c., &c., which so increased my appetite for theft, as to grow with my age, stealing and pilfering every article on which I could lay my hands, whether convertible to use or not, until at last I was emboldened to steal the deer, for which I am now brought to this ignominious end; whereas, had my mother, instead of secreting and encouraging my first theft, punished me, I might now not only have been enjoying the blessings of English liberty, but free from the stains and wounds of a guilty conscience, which accompanies my exit from time to eternity."

Fathers and mothers have you a son or daughter who occasionally steals or takes, without liberty, that which does not belong to it? If you have, and see the article, however insignificant as to value, in the possession of your child, or when by a neighbor or stranger kindly informed of the fact, never give slumber to your eyes until you cause the child to return the stolen property to the owner and humbly ask forgiveness; and should this course

prove insufficient to produce reformation, let not a false notion of parental love dissuade you from the use of the rod, and also be careful that your wounded pride does not prevent an immediate and cheerful investigation of any charge preferred against your child by a third person or in its presence insult your informer by declaring the complaint is unfounded, as your child was at home, at or near the very time the alleged theft was committed. Parents are not only bound to provide for the bodies. of their offspring, but also to protect and defend an unsullied character against the foul tongue of slanderers or calumniators, but by an unqualified denial on the part of a parent, or an attempt to screen the guilt on any charge of a misdemeanor preferred against its child, without first manifesting a desire to ascertain the truth or fallacy, can never fail in poisoning and corrupting the moral character of the child ere it reaches to the meridian of life, and like the English youth just named, if not for theft, for some more heinous crime, on a gallows, bring down the grey hairs of its parents with sorrow to the grave.

Although I have, in former pages of this work, hinted at some of the recreations of the Sabbath, still not sufficient to satisfy my own feelings, or meet a reasonable anticipation on the part of my reader.

Parents too often blinded by a false love for their children, and apparently ignorant of the first principles regulating a virtuous recreation, suffer their children on the Sabbath-day to pass through without a single word of pious instruction, or the reading of the Holy Bible, to say nothing of their invariable absence from God's house on the day which was made above all other days, or if any of these first two means of grace are observed, in a populous city too often not practised until after breakfast. The perusal of a newspaper in connection with almost an inanimate or snail-like course in washing, cleaning, and dressing their bodies before the church-bell rings.

Or if in the country, not until after the garden and fields have been explored, hog-holes stopped, and displaced rails of fences replaced; the day thus far spent, I will charitably grant to the heads of the family with the younger children, (one a babe, capable of making more noise than the minister and choir together,) the attendance on public worship, and after returning home again supply

the wants of their bodies, then lounge about the house, or on their respective couches sleep away the time, until it becomes necessary to feed their horses, cattle, or swine, while the elder daughters are gossiping from neighbor to neighbor, and their brothers either plundering fruit or nut-orchards, or else in the woods with a gun, searching for wild game, if not angling on the margin of some neighboring stream, near which may be heard the voices of many other young men engaged in the feats of ballplaying, or quoit-pitching; and all these desecrations are not unfrequently justified by parents, saying, "After the hard labor of six days, recreation was necessary for both body and mind."

And so bold have they become by violating the fourth commandment, that they will endeavor to justify their conduct by a perversion of that passage of holy writ which says: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." True, the Sabbath was made for man, because it was for him to enjoy and rest above all other days, and for his working beasts, such as horses and oxen, to have one day out of seven to rest as well as their mas-* ters. True, the Sabbath was bestowed upon man as a blessing, and by denying or forbidding all worldly employment, save acts of mercy and necessity-a blessing, because free from the great burden of worldly care, he becomes not only privileged to read the holy chart, but in public to listen to the voice of exposition, admonition, and instruction, as well as to meditate on the solemn scene which must close his earthly career.

Parents be careful; have you examined any passages of God's Word where your views are solely fixed to license a violation of God's great Ten Commandments? and that parent who neglects to train up his child to keep the Sabbath holy, has not only no claims to natural affection, but is unworthy the confidence of his fellow

man.