only to break and calm the waves of sin that dash harmlessly at their feet.

Now you are engaged in the blessed work of Sabbath-school instruction. Your office is to bring children to Christ. None of your scholars are too old to be converted -none are too young. Think not, that the little ones of your class can never be made useful Christians. You know not what God may yet make of them, or to what position of usefulness he may call them. Your duty is to labor for their immediate conversion. You are to expect this, as the result of your efforts. Do not cast your bread upon the waters only to find it many days hence. Look for conversion in childhood. It may occur, and it should occur. Your scho

lars may die. Some have died. And you know that ineffable interests are suspended on their conversion in this case. Oh! labor, each Sabbath, under the influence of the truth, that that may be the last time you may ever have an opportunity of directing those precious souls to the Lamb of God that taketh away sin. And should they not die, will you not labor to save them from the vicious practices into which they are in danger of falling? From the contorted perversion of their principles by the doctrines of devils in human shape, that blight and destroy both character and usefulness? Will you not strive earnestly to save them from a life that must end in both the first and second death? Your labor is an arduous one-but remember that if you are faithful, you may meet souls in heaven that may bless you for the agency which God caused you to have in their salvation. If faithful, you may, by effecting a single conversion, set in motion a train of influences, that will continue long after you are in your graves and heaven, and bring up to joy long arrays of ransomed and purified souls. Teach your scholars that they may at once be Christians. Do not, in your efforts to make them feel the truth that they are depraved, discourage them with the belief, that it is no use to try to be good. Teach them that God will help them to be good. Teach them what they are to do, and that in doing it, they will grow up under the influence of a regenerating and

sanctifying power that will make them Christians. Give religious instruction—give Gospel truth to their souls. Teach them the spirit as well as the truths of the Scriptures. Baptize your teaching with the breath of prayer, and you will soon see the fruit of your toils. But whether conversion be immediate or later, be assured that:

"You cannot toil in vain;

Cold, heat, and moist, and dry,
Shall foster and mature the grain,

For garners in the sky."

Sow the seed in faith and love,-and there will ultimately be a blessed gathering

of fruits.

"Then when the glorious end,
The day of God, is come,
The angel reapers shall descend

And Heaven sing Harvest home.'"

ALL SORTS OF MINDS.-There is a strong disposition in men of opposite minds to despise each other. A grave man cannot couceive what is the use of wit in society; a person who takes a strong, common sense view of the subject, is for pushing out, by the head and shoulder, an ingenious theorist, who catches at the slightest and faintest analogies; and another man, who scents the ridiculous from afar, will hold no commerce with him who tests exquisitely the fine feeling of the heart, and is alive to nothing else; whereas talent is talent, and mind is mind, in all its branches! Wit gives to life one of its best flavors; common sense leads to immediate action, and gives society its daily motion; large and comprehensive views its annual rotation; ridicule chastises folly and imprudence, and keeps men in their proper sphere; subtlety seizes hold of the fine threads of truth; analogy darts away in the most sublime discoveries; feeling paints all the exquisite passions of man's soul, and rewards him by a thousand inward visitations, for the sorrows that come from without. God made it all! It is all good! We must despise no sort of talent; they all have their separate duties and uses; all the happiness of man for their object; they all improve, exalt, and gladden life.-Sidney Smith.

GODLINESS, with contentment, is great gain.

THE VINE BY MY FATHER'S DOOR.

BY ANNA M. BATES.

OH, by my fa

H, the vine that grew by my father's door,

How the sunbeams lingered there of yore,
And amid the leaflets played.

And the summer wind, as it wandered by,
Had no sweet sound before

It wakened a wondrous melody

In the vine by my father's door.

White was the cottage, and low the eaves,
And the roof was mossed and gray;
But there an emerald wealth of leaves
In the long blue summer lay.

They shivered against the window pane,

As the nightwind stirred them o'er,

And sweet was the sound of the dropping rain On the vine by my father's door.

Softly the bee rung the pale pink bells,

Where starry dewdrops lay,

And the hum-bird sipped from the honied cells
Till the daylight fled away.

Then the holy light of the evening moon
Silvered the flowers once more,

And a faint perfume came up to my room
From the vine by my father's door.

Alas! our home is deserted now,

And echoes no mortal tread;
Tall rank weeds in the garden grow,
'Mid the roses white and red.
And my mother's prayer, with holy sound,
Goes up from that hearth no more.
Only the wind goes whispering round
The vine by my father's door.

The harvest moon hangs bright again,
O'er the cornfields and the rye;
But my heart is shadowed o'er with pain,
And the tears are in mine eye.

For the wind's low voice amid the leaves,
Wakes the very sounds of yore;
And I weep over Love's dismantled sheaves,
'Neath the vine by my father's door.

WHEN the veil of death has been drawn between us and the objects of our regard, how quick-sighted we become to their merits, and how bitterly do we then remember words or even looks of unkindness, which may have escaped in our intercourse with them? How careful should such thoughts render us in the fulfilment of those offices of affection which may yet be in our power to perform; for who can tell how soon the moment may arrive when repentance cannot be followed by reparation!-Bishop Heber.

A FEW moments of divine sweetness in secret prayer is an antidote to any sorrow or trouble.

THE

WOMAN-HER SPHERE, AND THE MEANS OF HER ELEVATION. HERE are some parts of Siberia where a traveller is as likely to lose his way as if he were upon the sea; but a guide has been provided for man, when one is required, even amid those pathless wilds. There is a little plant that grows upon the stems and the branches of trees; and as it is always found on the north side, where moisture is most abundant, those who are acquainted with that fact can use it as a chart. The traveller can thus find his way amid difficulties which might baffle the instincts even of an American savage; and He whose goodness and wisdom are alike illimitable, is found to have provided for our safety where our own strength would be only weakness, and our own wisdom folly.

And in the same way has the great Creator planted a guide in the heart of society, such as might largely influence it for good, and prove a preservative amongst many perils, were it properly employed. We refer to the influence of woman,-man's original help and second self. Framed as she was at first to prevent monotony and loneliness even in Eden, she has continued, from the dawn of creation till now, largely to influence the destinies of man. In her proper sphere, she has proved heaven's richest earthly blessing out of it, she has been man's heaviest

woe.

We accordingly find that her position may be viewed as the barometer of society; we can thereby measure its elevation or depression. Is woman degraded below her proper position, and made only the slave or the menial of man ?* Do we see her, as in the domains of paganism, a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water; or the favorite of an hour, to be speedily discarded and despised? Is she the murderer of her little ones, as once in the South Sea Islands; or obliged by a horrid custom, to expire amid the flames of her husband's funeral pile, as

*In the Russian language, the word soul is employed to designate male slaves. Ask a nobleman how much he has a year, and you must put your question in this shape: How many souls have you? But the reply does not include the female slaves. They are regarded as soulless.

sometimes still in India? Is she, in short, treated like the soulless slave in the harem, or a beast of burden in the forest? Then man is there found to be degenerate and corrupt, possessing in some respects, perhaps, certain of the properties which prevail among the lower animals, such as courage, cunning, or strength; but devoid of all that is exalting to an immortal being-at once depraved and depraving. By thus perverting its choicest blessing, man turns it into a curse, and that reacts upon him with a terrible force. In Russia, for instance, where woman has been for centuries degraded to the rank of a chattel, some have arisen to take ample revenge upon man. Monsters of ferocity have there appeared in female form, while the morals of not a few, even among the titled and the courtly, are described by men who are neither prudes nor puritans, as exhibiting "such crimes, such excesses, and so great turpitude, that a reader would shudder at the bare recital."

But, on the other hand, is woman placed where the Father of all designed her to be? Has she a position neither of degrading bondage nor of usurped supremacy, but just where God has placed her; that is, side by side with man, as his meet help? Then society is sound, for influences which both sweeten and hallow it are there at work.

Nor is this wonderful. God has placed the highest influence that is known upon earth in the hands of women. No monarch's sceptre-no human laws-no course of discipline, though stern and severe as that of La Trappe-can accomplish what she can achieve. Among the savage and the civilized alike, she wields a plastic power over man's heart, and therefore over man's destiny, a power which is appalling when exerted on the side of evil, but beneficent as the very dew of heaven when put forth on the side of good. It is not too much to say, that as evil entered the world by woman, she will be found intimately connected with its continuance, in its worst forms and its infinite diversity; but neither is it too much to say, as has been said, that as the Saviour was born of a woman, so that she became the occasion of ten thousand times ten thousand blessings through him, her influ

ence for good, wherever it is exerted aright, is not less than her influence for ill.

The history of the world contains proofs enough of this. The sleepless vigils, the self-sacrifices and devotion of woman at the bidding of affection, are such as to elevate our conceptions of the grandeur of our race. She lives mainly to comfort, and feels her mission only half accomplished unless she be so employed. "My mother's kiss made me a painter," said Benjamin West, when referring to an incident in his early youth, and the remark manifested his fine appre ciation of the truthful, while it also illustrates the ascendency of woman. It proves how true it is that

"Mightier far

Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the sway
Of magic, potent over sun and star,

Is Love, though oft to agony distrest,
And though his favorite seat be feeble woman's
breast."

But all other illustrations might be superseded by a glance at the origin of woman. Man then had a garden to enjoy, but that was not enough. He had all creation, in the flush and bloom of its innocence, to gladden him; but even that could not suffice. He had all that lived for his subjects, and all that flourished to admire; but his soul still needed something more. Above all, the first man in innocence had God for his Companion, his Father, his Friend, and far more than even these names can convey; yet one thing was wanting. The half of his nature was without an object. He felt even Eden to be insufficient: even there it was "not good for him to be alone." There was at least negative evil, and a meet help was the antidote. Man's want, before Eve was created, foreshadowed the future evils to which he might be subjected. Her heart became the echo of Adam's, and human nature was complete-he in her, and she in him; as twin beings summoned into existence to glorify their God.

In this way, from the first, woman has held the key of the heart, and been able to shut it up in hardness, or open it to all the impulses of affection. Little as he who boasts himself the lord of creation is disposed to concede it, she wields a mightier influence over him than he does over her.

That influence is most signally visible-it is at least brought to a focus-in the control of a mother over a son. Let us think, for example, of some of those who have exercised the greatest influence upon the destinies of their fellow-men. They have dared the scowl or the dungeon of a tyrant, in defence of liberty; or they have gone to the stake in defence of God's truth. Neither a despot's vengeance nor a people's fickleness could daunt them. They rose superior to every opposition, and seemed, like the halcyon, quietly masters of themselves, even on the crest of some angry wave. And to what was all that owing? To the power and the pains of a mother. Borne up by affection, and directed by instinct, she persevered in her labor of love, and a benefactor to his race was the result. It is a Washington, prepared to give freedom to a people, and to do it in the fear of his God. It is a minister of Christ, turning many to righteousness, and preparing to shine as the stars forever and ever. It is a missionary of the Cross, denying himself to father and mother, to kindred and home, and hastening to the heathen, to hazard his life for the name of Jesus." Not many years have elapsed since a certain conference of American pastors was held, where one of the objects was to discover what or who had been the instrument of their conversion to God. About one hundred and twenty-one were present, and more than a hundred of these ascribed their all-decisive change instrumentally to their mother. Is it not true, then, that

"Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood?" Cannot the heart and the hand of a mother achieve what neither coroneted splendor nor ancient lineage need attempt ?

It is not to be concealed, however, that many women, in every sphere, have forfeited their ascendency and influence by attempting what they were never meant to accomplish. For what is woman's sphere? It is pre-eminently HOME. If she be either enticed or banished thence, her proper power is paralyzed. In that sanctuary her adornings are what an apostle wished them to be, "the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price."

Abandoning that, she loses her second Eden; but acting there in the fear of God, she is at once blessed and made a blessing. One of those women of our day, who have helped to shed additional attraction round the female character-Mrs. Sigourney-has said, "Are not our rights sufficiently comprehensive: the sanctuary of home-the throne of the heart-the moulding of the whole mass of mind in its first formation? Have we not power enough in all the realms of sorrow and of suffering-over all forms of want and ignorance-amid all ministries of love, from the cradle-dream to the sealing of the sepulchre ?" Now were these sentiments common, the power which God over all has placed so largely in female hands would be yet more beneficently felt, and all this seems indicated where we read of such a woman as the Word of God approves,"Her children rise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her." All this points to home.

It is not our purpose to enter into the controversy, so long but so needlessly agi "tated, as to whether woman be inferior in mental powers to man. It is not the purpose of the Most High that they should ever be pitted in antagonism. They stand side by side, harmoniously co-operating for the common good. In truth, each nature is superior in its own sphere, and inferior out of it. The more feeble frame of womanthe greater sensibility of her nervous systemher delicacy and disposition to lean on some extraneous help,—all indicate what sphere she should fill, or where she may claim superiority. And her mental peculiarities all point in the same direction. Let her intrude into man's province, and her inferiority becomes apparent: let her retain her own, and man must bow before her. There are exceptions, women born for great emergencies, and trained for great achieve. ments. Heroines they have proved at the head of armies; profoundly penetrating in the cabinet, or able to cope even with the heavings of the" fierce democracy." In another point of view, some have fathomed the depths or soared to the heights of science, and carried away the palm in some departments, even where man was the competitor.

But with all that conceded, we recur to the conviction that womanhood has a sphere assigned to it by God, out of which, as a general rule, it cannot safely wander. There, woman is "monarch of all she surveys;" elsewhere she is a subject, and may become a slave. Her superiority in enduring,-in calm, patient submission under wrong, in loneliness, in disease, in widowhood and poverty, cannot be questioned-all that has been ten thousand times made manifest. For a single demonstration, we are pointed to the dungeons of the Inquisition, where man has faltered amid agony, or sunk into premature dotage during long confinement, while woman has borne the worst of woes, and retained at once the elasticity and the integrity of her soul, amid the fiendish efforts of superstition to crush her faith. More impressible by religious truth-with a heart more open, a conscience more quick-little addicted to the subtleties of reasoning, but more prompt in intuitive perception-woman receives through the medium of the heart what man regards too often only through the cold understanding; and she therefore holds more tenaciously than man that heavenly truth which is revealed in a medium of love, as it is designed to "purify the heart," and "work by love" among the children of men.

To that extent, then, woman is superior; and to deny it appears like a denial of what constitutes her real and peculiar nature, Count Leopold Ferri, of Padua, had a li brary, consisting of thirty-two thousand volumes, all of them composed by female authors; and in literature, at least, that fact betokens no remarkable inferiority. But we stand upon ground even less questionable than that. It is not by volumes of books, but by living souls, that we judge of the sphere and the ascendency of woman; and in her proper sphere, her works are counted not by thousands, but by millions. Wherever she discharges her duty, she in effect asserts her power, and as a rainbow has been seen spanning a battle-field, that is an emblem of her power amid the troubles of life. By nature she may resemble Eve, who brought sin and death into the world, but by grace

And in beautiful accordance with all this is the place which woman holds in the Scriptures. In the case of Jezebel and others, we see the effects of her own sphere forsaken, and man's usurped. Paths are then pursued which end in oppression and murder, till the dogs lick the blood of the murderer. But, on the other hand, it is not less clear that the noblest offices ever performed by human hands were performed by woman of old; for follow the Saviour where you will, you find her ministering to him. Not even the agonies of His closing scene could scare her from that labor of love, nay, one, and another, and another, gazed through their tears to his cross. The wrath of man might rage, but that did not daunt them. The earthquake and the eclipse might combine to add their terrors, but even these could not repel. As the dying One had thoughts to spare amid his agonies for Mary, his mother, she, and others, her companions, clung to him when all beside had fled. The last at the cross, and the first at the sepul chre, sorrow and suffering, neglect and persecution, in the case of the Saviour, just drew their hearts more closely to His cause; and as they at last found hope in his cross, they sought from day to day to smooth the thorny path which led to that scene of mingled ignominy and glory--ignominy at the hands of men, but glory from God over all.

But in contrast with all this, we may glance at woman's condition, when the truth of God has ceased to be her guide. All exquisite as her temperament may be, or beautiful her endowments from God, the abuse of the best things turns them into the worst. It happens then, according to the words of Malachi, "I will curse your blessings."

There is, first, the useless woman. She never realizes the purpose of her mission, and, by consequence, she does not fulfil it. Nay, she is a burden at once to herself and the earth on which she walks. Like a weed upon the waters, she floats valueless through life, absorbed by trifles, or tossed without an aim, from wave to wave. Paul has put