ntle influence he
could not withstand, and it grew more and more powerful with him for
good, till the glance of her loving eye would check his wayward spirit,
and calm him often, when passion struggled for the mastery. Often did
she venture to hope he had indeed given himself to his Savior, and her
conversations with him from time to time, showed so much desire to
conquer every evil passion, and to shun every false way with so much
affectionate reverence for his God and Redeemer, that the mother's heart
was sweetly comforted in her first-born.

* * * * *

Original.

THE TREASURY OF THOUGHTS.

The days of primer, and catechism, and tasks for the memory are gone.
The schoolmaster is no longer to us as he was to our mothers, associated
with all that is puzzling and disagreeable in hard unmeaning rules, with
all that is dull and uninteresting in grave thoughts beyond the reach of
the young idea. He is to us now rather the interpreter of mysteries, the
pleasant companion who shows us the way to science, and beguiles its
tediousness. If there is now no "royal road," certainly its opening
defiles are made easier for the ascent of the little feet of the
youthful scholar. The memory is not the chief faculty which receives a
discipline in the present system of things. The "how," the "why," are
the subjects of interest and attention. This is well; but it may be that
in our anxiety to reach the height of the hill, and to keep up with the
progress of the age, we are neglecting too much the training of the
memory, which should be to us a treasury of beautiful thoughts, to cheer
us in the prose of every-day life, to refine and elevate taste and
feeling. We do not think it was a waste of time to learn, as our
mothers did, long extracts from Milton, the sweet lyrics of Watts, the
Psalms of David. Have we not often been soothed by their recitation of
them in the time of sickness, at the hour of twilight, when even the
mind of the child seems to reach out after the spiritual, and to need
the aliment of high and holy thought? The low, sweet voice, the harmony
of the verse, were conveyancers of ideas which entered the soul to
become a part of it forever.

If we would be rich in thought, we must gather up the treasures of the
past, and make them our own. It is not enough, certainly, for ordinary
minds, simply to read the English classics; they must be studied,
learned, to get from them their worth. An