to do another. "Just before I left home," said she, "mother told me to stay up stairs and study my lesson, and father told me to come down and play." "A house divided against itself cannot stand!”

Deception, in its most unexceptionable forms, is a serious obstacle to successful family government. It is the embryo form of downright dishonesty. To give a child an article of luxury, and instruct him to conceal it from his brothers and sisters, is no other than a lesson in the incipient steps of iniquity. It may prove the rudimental instruction of loathed chicanery and rascality. It is teaching the child to say in actions, which "speak louder than words," I have received no gift, when he has. This form of deception appears in numerous lessons that fall from the lips of parents. It also appears in the manners of parents themselves. When they are exceedingly pleasant in company, but fretful and morose at home; when they address their children in the language of tenderness in the presence of visitors, and at other times in the language of impatience and anger; when they express much delight to company at their coming, and when they are gone still more at their going; it is a kind of hypocrisy which a child must observe to his injury, if he possesses an ordinary share of perception.

Falschood is not altogether excluded from parental gov ernment. How many parents have made a fair promise to their children, which they never designed to fulfil, in order to hush their cries, or silence their importunities! How many have as plainly threatened to punish them for misdemeanors, without paying the least regard to their word when the offence was repeated! I have heard a father fairly promise a pleading son a ride the next time his horse was harnessed, if he would be contented to remain at home “this once." But the same promise was repeated the next time his carriage stood at the door; and the little son's reply was a just and withering rebuke, " you told me so before !" As

much as to say, "your word is worthless: I cannot depend upon your fairest promises; you do not talk as you mean, and my confidence is shaken." If his veracity were as clearly impeached in his dealings with a merchant, he would be an object of general distrust in the mercantile community.

How important is parental example! We have seen that children are generally like their parents- gentle or boister ous, lovely or fretful, moral or immoral, according as their parents are. You have seen the artist follow every line of the copy before him with the utmost care. First his pencil and then his brush, with graceful touches, delineates every point and mingles light and shadow in richest blendings till the whole appears in fairest proportion and exquisite beauty. And so complete is the imitation that the two, suspended upon opposite walls, seem the reflection of each other. The child is an artist of equal skill. He copics example. Hour after hour and day after day the unseen pecilings progress. Trait after trait, virtue after virtue, defect after defect are mingled as light and shade, until the last touch of the brush. And though the original be laid away in the dust, the child may have a perfect copy hung up on the walls of his mem

ory.

Parents! By example you may live in the child. Tho clods of the valley may close over your lifeless remains, your sons and daughters be scattered over a continent, and your name stricken from the roll of memory, but your example may live in the decus of your surviving offspring, as the lincaments of your face live in nature's fashioning upon their brows. Time's corroding finger may efface the epitaph that is inscribed upon your tombstones; flourishing villages and proud cities may rise upon the sequestered spots where your children were reared, and other sights and scenes darker or brighter than those of the present may dishearten or cheer the way-farer of future ages, but your example may

go down in the lineal descent to mingle with the mighty elements with which a remote posterity shall constitute a virtuous or depraved society!

How important is precept! It is the seed silently germinating in the soil of the youthful mind, shooting out its fibres on every side, and sending down its thrifty roots into the unknown depths of the heart. It is the life-clixir or insidious poison that purifies or taints the thoughts cre they appear in the embodiment of living acts. It is the saving influence that can bridle and direct the young imagination before it learns to grovel in the dust, or plumes its wings for "castles in the air." It is the material of enduring texture which runs through the tissue of life, and is incorporated into the whole warp and woof of character.

Even the isolated word or sentence, undesigned for the car of childhood, has often the determining force of precept. It is caught by the car, and held by the heart, and showed in the life. How quick is the prattling child, three years old, to catch and lisp an unguarded phrase! "Old Tom Jones," said a heedless mother to the inquiry, who such a caller was. And the little child, playing about the room, continued repeating, "Old Tom Jones." She called her playthings "old Tom Jones." Last of all she called her elder sister, "old Tom Jones." Whether "old Tom Jones" inflicted a last ing injury upon her mind, we have not learned; but we are confident that Mr. Thomas Jones would not have periled her character at all. It is not unusual for the smallest lads in the street to employ epithets, nicknames, and low phrases, which they learn in the household. Where is the community in which the children are not familiar with at least onc “old L—,” or some aged" Jerry," before whose gray hairs they ought to bow with reverence and not sound his name in mimicry, or some "crazy Bet" whose misfortune awakens no emotions of pity in their hearts because of the merry use they make of the appellation.

If, then, a single passing word may be seized upon by the young, and wrought into the essential acts of life, how forcible must be positive PRECEPT! Why may not the faithful moral lessons of the household be inscribed as with a diamond's point upon the heart? Why may we not expect that the child reared in "wisdom's ways" will not depart therefrom in age? Parents, value PRECEPT. Its price is far above rubies. Study to wield it with power. Handle choice words. They are like "apples of gold in pictures of silver." Impart ennobling thoughts. Counsel wisely, intelligentlyfor virtue, usefulness, and God.

It is vain to expect well developed moral and religious characters in children, unless example is thus closely followed by precept. An eminent illustration is on record. Montaigne, a distinguished French Essayist, was the son of wealthy and honored parents, who spared no pains or expense in his training. Every precaution was taken to develop his genius into fair and symmetrical proportions, and no less watchfulness to preserve him from the contamnating influence of corrupt associations. No positive lessons of a moral and religious character, except those which taught the distinction between right and wrong, were impressed upon his mind. His personal duties to God were untouched, in their relations to human accountability, and a future Judg ment. But every precaution was taken to furnish him with pure companionships, and keep him apart from the vicious and dissolute. He was not permitted, as other lads, to company with every boy in the street, nor mingle in every scene of worldly pleasure. His associates, his books, his sports were carefully selected with reference to morality. And in order to sweeten his temper, refine his genius, and soften his heart, a band of richest music was employed to awake him from his slumbers at every morning's dawn. Its soft and charming melody filled his chamber with its rapturous cadences, and, as his eyes opened to every rising

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sun, his car caught these harmonics, suited to captivate and inspire his heart. Yet, he grew up to be a boasting infidel. All the studied efforts to preserve his social and moral virtue did not avail to complete his character, so long as there was wanting positive counsel concerning his duties to God. It were not sufficient to select his companions, his books, his pleasures, nor instruct him in regard to his obligations to his fellow-men; there were needed the lessons found alone in the word of God to establish him in religious principle, and make him a fond lover of the truth. He needed to know more of his own heart, more of God and His claims, more of the Judgment and eternity.

In the view we have taken of the parental relation not a word has been uttered which may not have a bearing upon the injunction, "Train up a child in the way he should go." We have spoken of physical, intellectual, and secular discipline, all of which may become an aid, or a hinderance, to the moral and religious culture of the child. The more unexceptionable the training is in these particulars, the more confidently may we hope that he will be persuaded to walk in the path of morality and religion. Many of the incidentals usually regarded unimportant, have much to do with the perceptions of the mind, and the tendencies of the heart. There is more hope of the polite and respectful child, who addresses his parents with becoming reverence, than there is of him who employs the rough "yes" and "no," "I will" and "I wont." Even these little words are indicative of prospective insubordination. They are as ominous of ill in the history of the child, as bulling and horse-racing in the history of adults. Hence, we insist that the entire discipline of a child, corporcal, intellectual and secular, has to do with the issues of that religious obligation which God has imposed upon every parent. In this regard parental responsibility should be pondered.

What motives urge the parent to study, and faithfully