days for such a
boy,' I said to his mother. How to keep a decent shred of the old
sanctification on the modern Sabbath-day is the anxious inquiry of many
fathers and mothers among us. My friend with her manly-minded boy, and
Mr. Meditation with little Think-well had no trouble in that matter.

'And once I said,
As I remember, looking round upon those rocks
And hills on which we all of us were born,
That God who made the Great Book of the world
Would bless such piety;--
Never did worthier lads break English bread:
The finest Sunday that the autumn saw,
With all its mealy clusters of ripe nuts,
Could never keep those boys away from church,
Or tempt them to an hour of Sabbath breach,
Leonard and James!'

Think-well and that mother's son.

Old Mr. Meditation, the father, was sprung of a poor but honest and
industrious stock in the city. He had not had many talents or
opportunities to begin with, but he had made the very best of the two he
had. And then, when the two estates of Mr. Fritter-day and Mr. Let-good-
slip were sequestered to the crown, the advisers of the crown handed over
those two neglected estates to Mr. Meditation to improve them for the
common good, and after him to his son, whose name we know. The steps of
a good man are ordered of the Lord, and He delighteth in his way. I have
been young and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken,
nor his seed begging bread.

Now, this Think-well old Mr. Meditation had by Mrs. Piety, and she was
the daughter of the old Recorder. 'I am Thy servant,' said Mrs. Piety's
son on occasion all his days--'I am Thy servant and the son of Thine
handmaid.' And at that so dutiful acknowledgment of his a long
procession of the servants of God pass up before our eyes with their
sainted mothers leaning on the arms of their great sons. The Psalmist
and his mother, the Baptist and his mother, our Lord and His mother, the
author of the Fourth Gospel and his mother, Paul's son and successor in
the gospel and his mother and grandmother, the author of _The
Confessions_ and his mother; and, in this noble connection, I always
think of Halyburton and his good mother. And in this ennobling
connection you will all think of your own mother also, and before we go
any further you will all say, I also, O Lord, am Thy servant and the son
of Thine handmaid. 'Fathers and mothers handle children differently,'
says Jeremy Taylor. And