The Young Woman at Bome.

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise."-EPHESIANS Vi. 1, 2.

"It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman."-PROVERBS xxi. 19. "Be kindly affectioned one to another."-ROM, xii. 10.

It was the saying of a judicious governess to a pupil just quitting her establishment, “Be assured, my young friend, that the order, comfort, and happiness of a family, very greatly depend upon the temper and conduct of the younger members of it, when they cease to be children. I have seen the declining years of some kind parents completely embittered by the pride, self-will, and inconsiderate conduct of their young people. When a young lady returns home, if she is not so good a daughter as she was before, whatever acquisitions she may have made at school, she had better never have been there."

This advice, so sensible and so appropriate, not only shows how well-qualified was the admirable woman who proffered it for the discharge of her duties, but is well worthy of being written in the

first page of every young woman's album; yea, upon the tablet of her heart, and to be read every day of her residence in her father's house.

It has been said, we are all really what we are relatively. Akin to this, we may add, every one is best known at home. Many people not only dress their person, but their character, when they go into company, till it has become almost a current saying, "Tell me not what they are in company, but what they are in the family circle." Home, as we have already said in a former discourse, is one of the sweetest words in our language; and nowhere better understood than in our own country. But it involves as many duties as it does enjoyments. It is not only a paradise of delights, but a school of virtue. A family is a little world within doors: the miniature resemblance of the great world without. It is in the home of her parents that a young female is trained for the future home of her own; and, generally speaking, what she was in the former, that, in full maturity and expansion, she will be in the latter-the good wife, and judicious mother, looking well to the ways of her household, being the full-blown rose of which the good girl, at home, was the bud of promise and of hope. And it may be depended upon as a principle, suggested by reason, as well as a fact corroborated by observation, that she who contributes nothing to the happiness of her early home, as a daughter, is not likely to find others contributing to her later one as a wife, a mother, and a mistress.

It is, therefore, of immense importance that you should, at once, at the very commencement of this discourse, pause and ponder the momentous truth, that you are preparing your own future home by the manner in which you conduct yourself in that of your father; and because of its importance it is thus dwelt upon with such repetition.

In one aspect, the subject of this sermon is of more consequence, in reference to you, than it is in reference to your brothers; you remain longer at home than they. It is the usual order of things for them to remove early from beneath the parental roof, first to learn, and then to pursue, their avocations in life; so that if their temper be unamiable, and their habits unfriendly to domestic peace, they soon depart, and bear away the annoyance. But you, if not necessitated to go out into a situation for your own support, remain with your parents till you are married, and if not wedded, you are with them continually. In the latter case you are a fixture in the household, and should therefore be a happy one. Of how much comfort or disquiet, according to her character and conduct, may a daughter be to a family through a period of ten or twenty years, dating from the period of her return from school. Hence it is always a source, not of unmixed delight, but of some anxiety, to a considerate mother, what kind of home character her child will prove when she has finished her education, and exchanges the company of her governess and fellow-pupils for that of the family circle.

Here, then, is the first thing, the great thing to be determined upon by the young woman at home, to be a large contributor to the happiness of the domestic circle. You can not be a cipher in the house, nor sustain a negative character. You are a member of the little community, and the other members must be affected by your conduct. You are ever in the midst of them, and your actions, words, and very looks, exert an influence upon them. Behold, then, your starting-point in the career of home duties. Take up this resolution intelligently, deliberately, determinately: "I WILL, BY GOD'S GRACE, DO ALL I CAN TO MAKE MY HOME HAPPY TO OTHERS, AND THUS COMFORTABLE TO MYSELF. Look at this resolution, revolve it, imprint it on your memory, heart, conscience. Is it not wise, virtuous, right? Does not reason, conscience, self-love approve it? Let it be a serious matter of consideration with you, and not merely a thought passing through the mind, and leaving no trace behind, but a deep, abiding, influential consideration. Have not your parents a right to expect it? Is it not the most reasonable thing in the world, that enjoying the protection and comforts of home, you should in return make home happy?

To diffuse happiness anywhere is a blissful employment, but most of all, at home. To light up any countenances with joy is to a benevolent mind a desirable thing, but most of all the countenances of parents, and brothers, and sisters. Set out with the intense ambition to compel from the whole

family circle the testimony that it was a happy era in the domestic history when you came permanently to reside at home. O to hear a mother say, "Thy coming, my daughter, was as the settlement of a ministering angel among us-thy amenities of temper, thy constant efforts to please, thy sweet and gentle self-sacrificing disposition, have been a lamp in our dwelling, in the light of which we have all rejoiced! What a large accession, my beloved child, hast thou brought to our domestic felicity! Receive thy mother's thanks and blessing!" A harder heart than yours, my young friends, might be moved by such a hope as this. Contemplate now the contrast to this, when the conduct of a daughter is such as to extort such a declaration as the following from sorrowing parents: "We looked forward with pleasure and with hope, not altogether unmixed with anxiety, to the time when we should receive her back from school, to be our companion and our comfort. How bitter is our disappointment! Her unamiable disposition, her regardlessness of our happiness, her restlessness in the family circle, her craving for any company but ours, are painfully obvious. It was—we regret to say it—a sad increase of our domestic trouble, when she became a permanent inmate of our house." Sighs and tears follow this sad confession. Which of

these shall be the case with you, my young friends? Can you hesitate?

Having, then, made up your mind to be a comfort at home, you should, and will, of course, inquire