ve form, that a mother is both the morning and the evening star of
life. The light of her eye is always the first to rise, and often the last
to set upon man's day of trial. She wields a power more decisive far than
syllogisms in argument or courts of last appeal in authority.

2. HER LOVE.--Mother! ecstatic sound so twined round our hearts that they
must cease to throb ere we forget it; 'tis our first love; 'tis part of
religion. Nature has set the mother upon such a pinnacle that our infant
eyes and arms are first uplifted to it; we cling to it in manhood; we
almost worship it in old age.

3. HER TENDERNESS.--Alas! how little do we appreciate a mother's tenderness
while living. How heedless are we in youth of all her anxieties and
kindness! But when she is dead and gone, when the cares and coldness of the
world come withering to our hearts, when we experience for ourselves how
hard it is to find true sympathy, how few to love us, how few will befriend
us in misfortune, then it is that we think of the mother we have lost.

4. HER CONTROLLING POWER.--The mother can take man's whole nature under her
control. She becomes what she has been called, "The Divinity of Infancy."
Her smile is its sunshine, her word its mildest law, until sin and the
world have steeled the heart.

{22} 5. THE LAST TIE.--The young man who has forsaken the advice and
influence of his mother has broken the last cable and severed the last tie
that binds him to an honorable and upright life. He has forsaken his best
friend, and every hope for his future welfare may be abandoned, for he is
lost forever. If he is faithless to mother, he will have but little respect
for wife and children.

6. HOME TIES.--The young man or young woman who love their home and love
their mother can be safely trusted under almost any and all circumstances,
and their life will not be a blank, for they seek what is good. Their
hearts will be ennobled, and God will bless them.

* * * * *

{23}

Home Power.

"The mill-streams that turn the clappers of the world arise in solitary
places."--HELPS.

"Lord! with what care hast Thou begirt us round!
Parents first season us. Then schoolmasters
Deliver us to laws. They send us bound
To rules of reason."--GEORGE HERBERT.

* * * * *

[Illustration: HOME AMUSEMENT.]

1. SCHOOL OF CHARACTER.--Home is the first and most important school of
charact