Equally tender and loving is the tribute which N. P. Willis pays his mother in the following verses:

MY BIRTHDAY.

"My birthday!-Oh, beloved mother!
My heart is with thee o'er the seas.
I did not think to count another

Before I went upon thy knees—

Before this scroll of absent years

Was blotted with thy streaming tears.

"My own I do not care to check.
I weep,-albeit here alone,-
As if I hung upon thy neck,

As if thy lips were on my own.
As if this full, sad heart of mine,
Were beating closely upon thine.

"Four weary years! How looks she now,
What light is in those tender eyes!
What trace of time has touch'd the brow
Whose look is borrow'd of the skies
That listen to her nightly prayer?

"Oh! when the hour to meet again

Creeps on—and, speeding o'er the sea,
My heart takes up its lengthen'd chain,
And, link by link, draws nearer thee—
When land is hail'd, and, from the shore
Comes off the blessed breath of home,
With fragrance from my mother's door
Of flowers forgotten when I come-
When port is gain'd, and slowly now
The old familiar paths are pass'd,
And entering-unconscious how-
I gaze upon thy face at last,
And run to thee all faint and weak,

"And feel thy tears upon my cheek—
Oh! if my heart break not with joy,
The light of heaven will fairer seem,
And I shall grow once more a boy;
And, mother! 'twill be like a dream

That we were parted thus for years;
And once that we have dried our tears,
How will the days seem long and bright
To meet thee always with the morn,
And hear thy blessing every night-
Thy dearest,' thy first born!'—

And be no more, as now, in a strange land, forlorn ?"

THE FAMILY.

"At length his humble cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;

Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher through,
To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise and glee.
His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnily,

His clean hearthstane, his thrifty wifie's smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,

Does a' his weary, carking cares beguile,

An' makes him quite forget his labor an' his toil."

-BURNS.

HE family is the oldest and most valuable institution on earth. In the Garden of Eden it had its origin, and its founder was no less a being than God Himself, the Author of life, and the Creator of the world. In the beginning God made the first pair male and female, put them together in a common home, and commanded them to be fruitful and multiply. And so the world was gradually filled by the increase of children and the multiplication of families and homes. There is not a single institution of earth, whether sacred or secular, but has had its rise in the family. The Church is simply a large Christian family. The State is nothing more than an aggregation of families. Family government is the original model of State authority, discipline, and punishment.

The father of a family was the first priest and preacher.

There can be no permanent state of human happiness outside of the family relation. The Nomads, or wandering tribes of the desert, although shut out from much of civilized enjoyment by their want of a steady, fixed habitation, still have separate families, and find about all their comfort and peace inside of their temporary home-circles. The disposition to congregate in groups or families is manifested even among the lower order of creatures, although, by the absence of all moral feeling and civil regulations, there is no exclusiveness of affection recognized among them. Whoever or whatever seeks to break down or weaken the force of the family relation, strikes a death-blow at the existence of personal virtue, and opens the flood-gates of evil to the world.

Every one must have remarked that almost the strongest motives to well-doing, to honesty, sobriety, diligence, and good conduct in general, arise, with the bulk of the people, from considerations connected with their families. They exert themselves, they deny themselves, they are impelled to form habits which are of the greatest value and importance, both to themselves and to society, by the strong desire that their children may not want anything that is needful for their bodies or their minds, for their present comfort, or their future welfare. Nations expire, human governments are constantly re-cast; political systems are built up by one generation, to be pulled down by another; false religions, accompanied by the licentious vehemence of human passions, effect the greatest social changes; peace and war, in

fidelity and revolution, shape and re-shape human destiny; but amid the decay and the wreck, the confusion and the crimes, which constantly disfigure the face of the earth, the family circle, like the ark of Noah, survives amid the wasting waters of ruin.

THE BABY.

The family begins properly with the baby. Men and women may love, court, marry, and live together, but there is no family until the husband and wife can say to each other: "Two times one are two, and one to carry, makes three," etc. As some one has beautifully and truthfully said: "Woe to him who smiles not over a cradle. He who has never tried the companionship of a little child, has carelessly passed by one of the greatest pleasures of life, as one passes a rare flower without plucking it, or knowing its value. The gleeful laugh of happy children is the best music, and the graceful figures of childhood are the best statuary. We are all kings and queens in the cradle, and each babe is a new marvel, a new miracle. The size of the nestler is comic, and its tiny, beseeching weakness is compensated perfectly by the one happy, patronizing look of the mother, who is a sort of high-reposing Providence to it. Welcome to parents is the puny struggler, strong in his weakness, his little arms more irresistible than the soldier's, his lips touched with persuasion which Chatham and Pericles in manhood had not. His unaffected lamentations when he lifts up his voice on high, or, more beautiful, the sobbing child-the face all liquid grief, as he tries to swallow his vexation-soften all hearts