work, it is our satisfaction that it is our aim, and will be our endeavour, to do more. We have good reason to believe that our little spark has enlightened some minds, and consoled some hearts; has helped to promote order, and has imparted peace. The steady increase of the sale of "THE MOTHERS' FRIEND" is very satisfactory. We can only hope to sustain a momentum which has pushed into notice our unpretending effort and given it success. Those whose hearts are with us will be glad to learn that parts of our little work have been translated into the Lessuto language, and are read with "much interest" by mothers in heathen lands. How glorious the work, to help in dissipating the darkness reigning in the habitations of cruelty, by throwing in only one single ray of light! There is one subject to which we wish to draw particular attention, and which we hope to make a point of special notice. It is the case of fallen females. In as far as prevention is better than cure, we hope to awaken a caution and to promote a self-respect which will be essential (with the Divine blessing) to secure purity of heart; which alone can ensure true peace and real happiness. We shall be glad to receive any suggestions which piety and experience may furnish on this subject. Again we commend our humble effort, but earnest purpose, to the blessing of Him "Whose frown can disappoint the proudest strain, Whose approbation prosper-even mine." THE MOTHERS' FRIEND. TIME IS WINGING US AWAY TO OUR ETERNAL HOME. ANOTHER year of our life has fled, and a new era now opens to our view. What events will occur to us or our families, ere this new year closes, we cannot tell. The future is hid from our view, and not even the angel highest in power among the heavenly hosts could reveal the secret to us. But the past is in the treasure-house of memory, and all its works are recorded in a book whose pages can never fade nor wax old. When all the monuments of marble, and tablets of brass and steel, shall have become illegible or wasted away, the record which God has kept of our words and actions will be as fresh as when they were first written there: "For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil." Has your life, your example, your counsel and instruction, your discipline and prayers, all been just what you will like to look upon and hear read at the judgment of the last great day? How many and varied are the mercies which we have to record, and how much gratitude to express, as we bid farewell to the last day of 1850! And how much self-abasement must we feel in the recollection of unfaithfulness or neglect of duties! Who among us can say we have done all we could, or have felt solicitude enough about the momentous work put into our hands, and the dear objects of our love? If we were 2 TIME IS WINGING US TO OUR ETERNAL HOME. but half awake to our children's danger, and did but realise the thought that they may die the second death, surely life would not be to us an idle musing, dreamy, half-asleep life, more dead than alive. Let us resolve to be more diligent in the future, as it regards ourselves and the wellbeing of those entrusted to our care for a brief space. Let us often think, "On what a slender thread hang everlasting things." How many have heard the funeral knell sounding, during the last year, to summon some dear one to the newly-made grave! How many, whose steps we watched with heartthrilling interest, have now run their weary race, and are stretched out in the darkness of the tomb! How many beaming countenances, which used to cheer our hearts, are now fading in the grave! They have winged their way to an eternal home, and will tread life's wilderness by our side no more for ever. Some of us have lost revered parents; their love and care and sympathy we shall enjoy no more. Some have lost precious children,-the smiling infant, the blooming girl, the manly youth, the married son, are sleeping together beneath the clods of the valley, to awake no more until the trump of the archangel shall sound through the caverns of the earth, and the deep places of the sea. Some have lost husbands, and are saying, in bitterness of spirit, "Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness." Not long ago, at a Maternal Association, there sat ten widows who had lost their husbands by one disease. Some are weeping over the desolateness of the homes where the mother was the joy and the comfort, but for whose presence now the motherless look around in vain! Seeing, then, that life is so uncertain and death so sure, shall we not begin the year with more energy and devotedness of heart than ever? It will be too late to mourn over neglected duties when our children have passed off the stage of time. A father was ALL THINGS ARE CHANGING. 3 one day observed weeping; a friend asked the cause, when he replied, "We have lost a lovely son,-his intellect was as bright as the morning, but now he is gone, conscience whispers in my ear, you neglected that son! and this is too true. I talked to others of the necessity of being born again, but I did not make my son believe it! Oh, I fear, I greatly fear, my son is miserable !" Again, there was an only son of his mother, and she was a widow, cut down in a moment, full of bloom and beauty, and flushed with success that mother trained him in the world's deceitful ways, and said, that "youth was the time to dance." The veil is now rent from her eyes and heart; she feels you mock her by saying, "I hope your son is safe." Her conscience will not allow her to believe it; neither prayers nor repentance will now avail for her lost son,-it is too late! Look again at another mother,—she is a poor maniac, she raves, she tears her hair, and wrings her hands, exclaiming, "Oh, my child! my dear lost child! The Sabbath,-the blessed Sabbath, I never taught her to value. My child! my lost child!" And then she weeps tears of despair. If we would avoid such anguish, let us awake to our solemn duties; the characters of our children will soon be formed for happiness or woe. Eternity will soon reveal itself to us, and then there will be no retracing our steps. Therefore, whatsoever our hands find to do, let us do it with our might. Time is short. ALL THINGS ARE CHANGING. ALL things are changing-look on the flowers! They yield their splendour, and die away. 4 GROUPS FOR STUDY. All things are changing--look on the child! All things are changing--look on the friend, All things are changing--yet murmur not; To fix our thoughts on a home in heaven-- GROUPS FOR STUDY. ARE you a mother?-are you?-and is your first-born, bright-eyed boy resting on your lap, and smiling up in your face? How beautiful he looks-does he not? You never saw a baby half so fair and perfect, did you? You never saw so much intelligence beaming in a baby's face before, did you? Are you a pious, consistent, praying mother?— are you? ?—then you shall see more than all this, by-andby, if you train him aright. Yes, you shall see him a youth of promise, a man of God, a companion of angels and archangels, up yonder in the world now hid from thy mortal vision; but be sure you begin your work EARLY, and begin with firmness, asking wisdom from Heaven's treasury. Take him now in your arms to your quiet chamber, and kneel down at a particular chair there, and pray for him—he will very soon understand your business there; and, very much earlier than you imagine, will he feel a holy solemnity overspread his little mind, as you approach |