with mingled emotions of anxiety, fear, delight, and hope, the zeal, the earnestness, the fortitude, which it demands: and when she estimates, still farther, that the little beings committed to her charge, may owe their everlasting happiness to her care and instructions, or may be miserable from the want of them; and at the same time, regards the many occasions on which she must enforce a moral discipline, painful to herself, and obnoxious to her child, she can but lament that this delightful task should be surrounded with a deepening hue of anxious solicitude, she exclaims, who is sufficient for these things? and feeling her own inability, she will look for strength to Him, who alone can impart it, and who giveth liberally to all who ask him. Let her be animated by this consideration; by the promise of the blessing of Heaven upon christian education; by the cheering hope that her efforts may be blessed; and, that having trained up her children in the way in which they should go, she may see them steadily pursuing the path of truth, and finally hail them among the happy throng of those who have "washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.

In the pursuit of these objects, a principle of affection preeminently operates as the motive, and sheds a glowing lustre on the parental character, while it adds a peculiar value to every instance of fondness. In general, it is found necessary, for the maintenance of affection, that it

VOL. I.

C

should be reciprocal; yet, in the present instance, there can be no return of love congenial in its nature and degree. In early infancy, the mother's duty consists in an uninterrupted series of cares and watchful anxieties for the well-being of her helpless and unconscious offspring: alike incapable of estimating the value of the assistance it receives, as of feeling (at least for some months) any degree of love for the kind hand which imparts it. All is given, on the one part, by the unsparing energy of the truest, self-denying beneficence: all is received, on the other, by the helpless arms, the yet undeveloped mind of infancy. Thus, the mother's pleasure is derived from the influence of principled affection; not from the circumstances of its expression, which, in themselves considered, are often abstractedly painful.

As we advance a little onward in the pathway of infantile life, parental pleasures are increased; but with these, an accession of anxieties is closely united. The mother is delighted with the lisping accents of her infant, and with such testimonies of its affection, as it is in the power of the little creature to bestow. Yet how inadequate are these expressions of fondness, when weighed against the increase of her cares; when to the temporal wants of her child, are now added those of the mind; the duty of its development and cultivation; and the extirpation of those evil tempers and dispositions which begin to shew

themselves. Every succeeding year adds to her solicitudes, and requires a larger, and still larger exercise of the principle, which we shall find influencing the performance of every duty; actuating her through life, and even tinging its last expiring rays with the same characteristic impression; and leaving a mother's prayer, and a mother's blessing, as the last breathings of mortality; which, not even the pain and languor of disease; the feebleness of decay; or the immediate prospect of dissolution could supersede:and why? Because this affection rested upon principle.

But, inasmuch as the human mind partakes of imperfection; and as affection retains its double origin, so is its exercise encompassed with dangers, against which it behoves the parent to guard. It may become excessive. Children are blessings from the hand of God; and affection is a talent to be exercised to his glory. They are the immediate boon of our Almighty Father, and should be used and improved to his honour: but they possess so extensive a hold upon the human heart, and the voice of natural fondness is so loud and imperative that there is great danger, lest these very blessings, which ought to increase our gratitude to God, and prove the sources of the manifestation of our love towards him, may of themselves engross that heart, which should be supremely fixed on the Author of our benefits.

Where this is the case, the parent will lose sight of what should ever be her great actuating principle;-viz: that of training up her offspring in the nurture and admonition of the Lord: she will abandon the uniform design of subordinating every feeling, emotion, and desire, to the influence of christian precepts and motives; and she will allow considerations of present comfort and expediency to influence her views and conduct. Self-indulgence and mistaken fondness will usurp the prerogative, and claim the title of principled affection. Nor is this a matter of small moment; for, in addition to its injurious influence upon the young, it will operate insensibly upon the parent's mind; she will not be so deeply sensible of the responsibility of her situation; and she will no longer be acting under the sanction of Him, without whose blessing and assistance every effort will be unavailing.

Affection becomes excessive, whenever its exercise interferes with the performance of any of the commands of Him who is our Father and our Sovereign; when it interrupts, or unfits the mind for attention to any of the duties of religion; when it engrosses too much of our time and thoughts; and when it renders us unnecessarily anxious, or diverts our care from any proper and worthy object. In all these cases it has lost its character of being a principled affection; and nothing short of this essential property will preserve its in

fluence from becoming baneful to those who exercise it, as well as those who receive its expression.

A mother's affection, too, is sometimes irregular in its manifestations; as for instance :-where it is particularly fixed upon one object, and not equally distributed to the whole of her offspring. This will display itself in partiality, in little marks of distinction which are painful to the feelings of other children, and which, though perhaps in some measure accounted for and excused, by the greater amiability of the one, will not only not render the others more what we could wish them to be, but will be calculated to exasperate, and to excite a recklessness of temper and of feeling, which should at all times be most carefully avoided, most anxiously repressed. The evil will not rest here; for it will destroy the harmony of the nursery, repress the growth of the kindlier affections, interfere with the mutual interchange of benevolent expression, and introduce discord, with all its hateful progeny of unhallowed emotions. It is, however, true that one child may be more amiable than others; and therefore be more likely to engage the parent's esteem: and it is also allowed that some testimony of approbation should be distributed to those who do well: but then, such marks of favour should be dispensed with an impartial hand; it should be shewn, that they are conferred upon the exercise of particular and valuable traits of character, and not upon the