THE OLD HOME FACES. formed in the mind of the mind of the child, which may render the particular topic of instruction hateful for life. I could mention if it were proper, a very striking instance of this. When the child is scolded, or boxed, or laughed at, a scar is sometimes left in his memory: and to my mind, this is a very serious thing. We are dealing with a material more precious than the diamond, and more lasting than the sun. We are forming the tablet on which may be one day impressed the image of the glorious God. We are handling that which is as delicate as the rose-leaf, yielding as clay, and yet more mighty, when trained, than all engines of power. We are conversing with those in whom angels do always behold the face of God. Let us treat them with sacred awe. Let no word or tone betray any thing sinful for them to imitate. Remember the words of the Roman: Reverentia magna debutur pueris—great reverence is due to the young. Remember the higher words of Christ: "Take heed lest ye offend (or cause to stumble) one of these little ones. I am persuaded that much of our instruction goes for nothing, just for want of temper. The motto of the teacher should be, LOVE IS POWER. A loving teacher will communicate twice as much as another; and this gentleness is compatible with a 109 There are high measure of authority. some who never rebuke a child, even for a single breach of decorum, but in the language and tone of bitter sneer or sarcasm. This is like burning the tendrils with a red-hot iron. It is an unlovely weapon with any age, but when applied to shrinking, sensitive childhood, it is barbarous and cruel. To make a child angry during his lesson, is to give him his food scalding hot. Let the operation be repeated a number of times, and he will contract a dislike for the teacher and his teachings. Every unkind feeling thus engendered in his little bosom, will go a certain length toward fixing an evil habit upon him. From such causes human character receives its bent. And oh! how much holier a race would grow up around us, if in all our dealings with little ones, we bear in mind that the Christian love of our hearts should be operative, even in our earliest and slightest teachings.— Christian Intelligencer. Education. EDUCATION will not create mind, but it will elicit and bring it out. It will do more-it will refine, correct, enlarge, and invigorate it. Temperance Advocate. The Evils of Drunkenness. IN different countries of the world and at different periods of the world's history, the the vice of drunkenness has been differently regarded by mankind. During the administration of Lycurgus, acts of intoxication were at most unknown among Spartans; and so deep was the disgust with which that people viewed the crime of drunkenness, and so strong their wish to instil the same feeling into their children, that they were wont to intoxicate their slaves and bring their families to witness the offensive spectacle. In many of the Grecian states, habits of drunkenness prevailed to a fearful extent. Among the inhabitants of Thrace, the evil had become so enormous, that for the preservation of the state, the vines of the country were ordered to be destroyed. Extant fragments of ancient poetry furnish a miserable account of the moral habits of ancient society, and it may be regarded as an extraordinary fact, that in those countries which had more advanced in the cultivation of science and art, the vice of drunkenness was less discountenanced by the wise and more fearlessly indulged in by the many. In modern times and in the country which we proudly call our own, the evil is alarmingly prevalent. Every class of society owns among its members the victims of intemperance. The horrid evil is not now confined to the tavern or the tap-room; it stalks unblushingly forth in the light of day, corrupting the morals of the young and debasing the manners of the many. Our streets are disturbed by its brawls-our homes are desolate by its madness—our friendships are impaired by its wantonness, and our churches thinned by its seductions. Accessions are being daily made to the numbers of its victims. The unwary are entrapped-the ambitious and aspiring are seduced-the sacred principles which parental tenderness had established in the mind, are forcibly overcome by the violence of temptations. And what soul is there to sympathise with our degraded brethren? Is there no heart so possessed of the finer sensibilities of humanity, that may weep in active sorrowings over the scene of carnage and cruelty? Is there no one so wrought in by the benevolence of the Gospel, so cheered by the hopes and the promises of christianity, so animated and constrained by the principles of the cross of Christ, that may thrust himself into the gap, and on the corses of the dead contend for the honour of his race and the glory of his religion in staying the progress of the plague? Yes: coldness in so holy a cause were a stigma on the name and profession of Christians. They are alive to the claims of the service; their souls are touched by a feeling of sympathy for their brethren, and it requires but the presence of a master genius to collect their energies and lead them on to battle and to victory. The following are among the evils of drunkenness: 1.-Drunkenness deadens every moral sensibility. Look at the drunkard. By his beastly indulgences he banishes every moral feeling from his bosom. Those things on which he was wont to look with abhorence have to him lost their ugliness and deformity. He hugs that in his bosom which he would once have rejected with disgust. There is almost no action so mean, no deed so dishonourable and base, which he is not ready to commit. His heart is the seat of every bad principleit is the receptacle of every horrid passion he hates virtue, and is only happy when mingling in scenes of iniquity and crime. 2.-Drunkenness impairs every intellectual faculty. 3.-Drunkenness accelerates death. Need we argue the matter? Is any sceptical? Let him observe the drunkard. The emaciated countenance-the ghastly aspect-the parched tongue-the glazed and dreamy eye-the trembling frame-the tremulous hand-the capricious appetitethe whole visible debility may convince of the fact. The limbs are stiffened, the senses become obtuse, and the general energies of the body sensibly decline. And can the skill of the physician or the power of medicine relieve? The disease requires the additional use of stimulants but the remedy is death. The victim lingers on the threshold of eternity, or amid the oaths of profaneness, is summoned into the presence of the eternal judge. "Wo to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower." Is. 28. 4.-Drunkenness entails misery on families. "Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath babblings? Who hath words without cause? Who hath redness of eyes? They that VARIETIES tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine." Prov. xxiii. 29. 5.-Drunkenness terminates in everlasting destruction. "Drunkards shall not inherit the Kingdom of God." 1. Cor. vi. 10. An announcement so awful and impressive, and coming from the lips of an accredited agent of heaven, may well be permitted to affect the heart and awaken the conscience of every victim of intemperance. Be persuaded thou that carriest about with thee a spirit of immorality—that visiteth the gates of hell-that lovest to lounge about the work-shop of the devil-be persuaded, thou aspiring and unexperienced youth, for whom satan has set his snares and licensed his emissaries,-be persuaded every one, whose bosom beats with the sen 111 sibilities of our nature, and whose heart is pre-occupied with the love of the Saviour, be persuaded that "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and he that is deceived thereby is not wise." The Drunkard. THERE are five requisites for the professed drunkard:-a face of brass, nerves of steel, lungs of leather, a heart of stone, and incombustible liver. Temperance has not only health to recommend it, but decency. Varieties. How usefulness is to be estimated. THE usefulness of a man is not to be estimated by the length of time during which he is employed, but by the character of the resources, powers, and qualifications which he combines and puts vigorously in operation while he is engaged in any un dertaking. Some men will be more useful in an hour than others will in a year. A Solemn Thought. "No man liveth to himself." This is impossible. His light must radiate, his example must tell, his conversation must operate, his power must be felt; no man, whatever his situation, or his apparent insignificance, can live to himself. He must do good or harm; prove either a blessing or a curse. CHEERFULNESS SUPERIOR TO MIRTH.Cheerfulness is an act, mirth a habit of the mind. Mirth is short and transient; cheerfulness, fixed and permanent. Those are often raised into the greatest transports of mirth, who are subject to the greatest depressions of melancholy. On the contrary, cheerfulness though it does not give the mind such an exquisite gladness, prevents us from falling into any depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of day-light in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity. FELICITY AND AMBITION.-Poor is that felicity which grows any where without the walls of Paradise; and low is that ambition which stoops to any thing beneath the skies. IDLENESS.-Pisistratus, the Grecian general, was accosted, when walking through his fields, by a company of beggars. "If you want cattle to plough your land," said he, "I will lend you some; if you want land I will give you some; if you want seed to sow, I will find you some; but I will not encourage any of you in idleness." Here was true charity, true philosophy, true knowledge of some influences which mould human character, and determine man's condition. Idleness, unless when occasioned by infirmity of health, and rendered harmless by diligent meditation, is a sluice for the inlet of every temptation, a lure for the attraction of every vice, a nurse for the rearing of every noxious habit Eve, as an old divine has remarked, would not have been tempted had her hands and head been diligently employed when the serpent addressed her; and David would not have been seduced into lust and murder, had he not at the time when Uriah's wife was in his neighbourhood, been idly sauntering on the terraced roof of his palace. HEREDITARY PREJUDICES.-Some persons believe every thing that their kindred, their parents, and their tutors believe. The veneration and the love which they have for their ancestors, inclines them to swallow down all their opinions at once, without examining what truth or falsehood there is in them. Men take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates because they are born heirs to them.-Dr. Watts. TO DEFEAT CALUMNY.-1. Despise it. To seem disturbed at it, is the way to make it believed. And stabbing your defamer will not prove you innocent. 2. Live an exemplary life, and then your general good character will overpower it. 3. Speak tenderly of every one, even of your defamer, and by so doing you will show the world that you are innocent. VENGENCE.-A person happened to complain in the hearing of a pious man of some conduct which had been manifested towards him by his neighbours, and concluded by saying that he had a large portion of vengence in store for them. "You have stolen it, then," was the answer; "For I know it does not belong to you of right; because God says, 'Vengence is mine; I will repay." TRUTH.-I once asked a deaf and dumb boy, "What is truth?" He replied by thrusting his finger forward in a straight line. I then asked him, "What is falsehood?" when he made a zigzag with his finger. Try to remember this: let whoever will take a zigzag path, go you on in your course, as straight as an arrow to its mark, and shrink back from falsehood as you would from a viper.-Barnaby on Truth. THE PROGRESS OF LIFE.-Life, with a swift, though insensible course, glides away, and, like a river which undermines its banks, gradually impairs our state. Year after year steals something from us; till the decaying fabric totters of itself, and crumbles at length into dust So that whether we consider life or death, time or eternity, all things appear to concur in giving to man the admonition of the Psalmist-"Rejoice with trembling." The Whole Duty of Man.-Fear God for his power-trust him for his wisdom-love him for his goodness-believe him for his faithfulness-and adore him for his holiness. Eccl. xii. 13, 14. An Important Truth.-Burke says, "The shallowest understanding, the rudest hand, down and destroying. Folly and rage can is more than equal to the task of pulling dilapidate more in half an hour than wisdown, deliberation and forecast, can build up in many years.' ashamed to be instructed-your ears teach So long as you are ignorant, be not you, not your tongue. If you cannot satisfy yourself, seek satisfaction elsewhere. All know not alike, and none all things. You may help another and he you. Ir is pleasing to observe some good qualities of age in a young man, and some traits of youthful character in an old man. IF sincere friends are desirable at any time, it is when we are in prosperity. IT is a noble science to know one's self: and a noble courage to know how to yield. PASSION may not unfitly be called the mob of the man, which commits a riot upon his reason. therefore soonest to be chosen, longer to A GOOD man is the best friend, and be retained, and indeed never to be parted with unless he cease to be that for which he was chosen Printed by JOHN KENNEDY, at his Printing Office, 35, Portman Place, Maida Hill, in the County of Middlesex, London.-July, 1850. --- Theology. UNHAPPY TENDENCY OF ANGER. It THE frequent indulgence of a hasty angry temper, renders a man the sport of every one who chooses to make him unhappy. He that has no rule over his own spirit, is like a city broken down and without walls. He is exposed to the assault of every foe. Any one may break his peace; and the slightest provocation may awaken his wrath, and plunge him into quarrels and endless litigations; so that, instead of employing his anger as a weapon of defence, he turns it upon himself, and pierces himself through with many sorrows. also keeps a man in a state of almost perpetual perturbation. He must be almost a stranger to that delightful calm which pervades the well-disciplined mind. The humours of his frame must be in a perpetual ferment. His blood must be turned through his veins with fearful rapidity. The agitations of his bosom contract his brow, and impart to his eye a restless and horrid glare. His musings are all mingled with resentment. His nights are disturbed with visions, and assassins, and spectres. In every face he sees or thinks he sees, a foe; and in every voice he hears the tone of insult. Frequent bursts of anger likewise weaken a man's authority. Accustomed to the boisterous sallies of wrath, which, through long indulgence have become almost habitual, and arise oftener from caprice and settled ill-humour than from provocation-dependents and domestics cease to regard them. They may tremble while the storm continues, but will smile when it ceases. No pleasure is felt in serving him-no pain when he is disobliged. His presence is always dreaded, and his absence regarded as an alleviation to domestic misery. Further, if a Christian be under the dominion of an angry spirit, he must be wholly unfit for devotional exercises. Devotion requires humility; but anger is mostly associated with pride. Devotion calls for self-abasement; but anger mostly savours of self-exultation. Devotion cannot be sincerely and feelingly practised without a collected mind and a calm thoughtfulness; but anger agitates, inflames, and prevents the thoughts from being fixed on anything spiritual -on anything tranquilizing-on anything except the heart-corroding injury. How can a mind, heated with this impure fire, draw near to God with confidence! How can he crave a blessing-the blessing of forgiveness-while he is secretly breathing threatening and revenge against a fellow-creature, for a trifling offence! How can a soul, full of uncharitableness, asperity and resentment, look up to the once crucified Saviour, who, while he suffered the most cruel indignities, prayed even for his murderers! An angry spirit being at total variance with the spirit of devotion, must exclude its unhappy subject from the delightful and solemn pleasures arising from communion with God and his Son Jesus Christ. The atmosphere of the Cross cannot be inhaled by an angry soul; and it has no principle to sustain it in the pure and elevated region of a throne of grace. No less unhappy are the effects of anger on society. In what a deplorable condition are those families that are governed by parents of fierce and contentious spirits! How do they vex and plague one another by their angry moods and untamed humours! How injudicious in the management of their children, whom they indulge or correct according to the temper or caprice that may be preponderating for the moment, without any regard to justice or propriety! How often are these fiery unhallowed tempers, by the example of parents, communicated to children, so that they too become unkind, contradictious and I |