for a long time. Now, if any of you wish it I will call you an hour before breakfast, that you may try this plan, but do not ask me to call you unless you are really determined to rise and engage in the work. Do you think you can learn your lessons perfectly in an hour ?"

The children thought they could.

"It may, perhaps, be best," said the mother, "for you to review them carefully just before going to school, and perhaps fifteen minutes spent in a review, together with the hour in the morning, will be enough severe study for the day. But then, there is reading. I will give you something to read, after breakfast, before meeting. Now, there is a right way and a wrong way of reading on the Sabbath. Do you know what the wrong way is ?"

"Yes, mother, one wrong way is to read improper books."

“True; but I referred chiefly to the mode of reading. Suppose you take a proper book and sit down by a window to read merely for amusement, or to occupy the tedious hours, as children often do upon the Sabbath, it will do you but little good. For, if you see anything out of doors which seems more entertaining than the book, your eyes will leave the book to watch the object, and so your mind will be in a listless state, and not occupied seriously with anything. I have known a boy sit at a window with a book in his hand, sometimes reading a little, skipping over the serious looking part, and finding out the dialogue and incident,-sometimes looking at a picture in his book, sometimes gazing at the objects without, and sometimes watching a fly upon the glass,-in this way, wasting his time and receiving no benefit or enjoyment."

The children looked at one another and smiled while their mother said this. They felt that it was

true.

Now, when you sit down to read," continued the mother, "it is best to devote yourself to it. Play while you play, and read while you read. Consider how much time you are going to have and select a portion to be read, of a suitable length. Then give your attention to it. That is the only way to secure either the pleasure or profit of reading. You have all enjoyed pleasure in reading, have you not?" "Oh! yes;" replied the children.

"Well, if you think of the times when you were enjoying reading, you will remember, I think, that you were all absorbed in it,-your whole attention was occupied with it."

"Yes, mother."

"Then to-morrow, when you sit down to your reading, ascertain before you begin, that you are going to have some time uninterrupted, and then give yourself to the work; try to get deeply interested in your book, and to remove from your mind every thing which can draw off your attention. I know this will be hard. It is a great deal easier to take some little picture book and sit down with the kitten playing before you, or the window to look out of, first to read a little and then to look out, and then to read a little more, and then to stop and play with the pussy. This is easier, but is not so pleasant in the end. It is not the way to spend a happy hour.

"I advise you too, not to have your reading books about all day, but select two or three times for reading, when you can have half or three quarters of an hour without interruption; then choose your book

judiciously, and read carefully and thoroughly, and without allowing your thoughts to wander to any thing else whatever. In this way, you will soon become deeply interested in your book, and your hour will be spent not only in a profitable, but in a very pleasant, happy manner.

"So much for study and reading. I now come to the second thing which I was going to speak to you about; MEDITATION and PRAYER. This is another duty which is hard, but at the same time very pleasant, if you will only do it. Arthur, do you think you have done any thing wrong during the last week?"

Arthur had begun to look a little sleepy, but this question aroused him; he looked up into his mother's face, hesitated a little, and then said, "I struck George, because he took away my boat."

"I did not mean to have you tell me now what you done, but only whether you think you have done wrong. Now, do you not suppose that you have done a good many other things which are wrong?" "Yes, mother."

"You could not think of them all in a moment; sometimes you have done what is wrong, and you have said what is wrong, and often, perhaps, you have felt wrong, in your heart. Now, suppose that to-morrow, you should go away by yourself and look back upon the whole week, and call to mind every thing wrong in your conduct or feelings ;-that would be meditation; and then, suppose you should describe all this sin to God, and ask him to forgive you for Christ's sake ;-that would be prayer. To do this faithfully would take some time. You see

it would be necessary to think of what you did every day, and examine the whole history of the

week,-first perhaps you would think of school, all the faults you committed there, then of home, all your ill-humour, and impatience, and disobedience, and unkindness and unfaithfulness, here. Then you would think of your plays, and endeavor to recollect all you had done that was wrong while with the other boys at recess, or after school; and thus, you would go over the whole ground; you would examine all your conduct for the purpose of finding out every thing that was wrong in it. This, as I said before, would take some time, but it would be time well spent.

There are other subjects for meditation besides your own past faults; but I will not mention any more now, as this one will be enough for you tomorrow; you will see at once, all of you how much influence it will have upon you all next week if you would thus faithfully examine your past conduct and confess your sins to God. This is the reason why meditation is so often spoken of in the Bible, and in other good books, as a christian duty. It is as much a duty for children, as for grown persons. I advise you all, therefore, to set apart a half an hour sometime to-morrow, for this purpose. Go where you can be alone, and uninterrupted, and spend the time in honest, faithful, and systematic self-examination, and be sure that you confess fully to God, all the sins you find. If you do this, I will give you next Sabbath some other subject for meditation.

Now, I come to the third duty. But perhaps you are tired. I suppose, in fact, that you are, but I think I had better go through and finish what I had to say. It will give you a useful lesson in mental discipline to make an effort to listen. Indeed, the duty you have to do now is exactly that which I was

going to describe to you next,-that of attending carefully to what is said by the minister at church even if you are tired, or if you do not understand all that is said. Children think they are excusable for being inattentive at church because they cannot understand the minister. Now how do you think a little child learns to talk ?”

The children said they did not know.

"Why, he learns to talk by listening to what he cannot understand, until he at length learns to understand it. That is the way he learns. There are very few words explained to him, and he never looks any out in a dictionary. He hears his father and mother talk, and at first, he understands a little, then a little more, and at last, almost all. Suppose he should, at the beginning, pay no attention to what is said in his hearing, because he cannot understand it; why he would never learn to talk. So with you; if you want ever to learn to understand the language and sentiments of men, you must go where they are speaking and hear them, and attend to them. You ought to go to meeting prepared to make an effort to understand the minister. If you cannot understand all, understand as much as you can. If you go to meeting, determining to bring all your powers into exercise while the minister is addressing you, you will find that you will understand more than you have supposed possible, and you will make progress every sabbath, so that in a short time you can follow the minister in what he says, as well as any of the congregation. It will be hard work to do this, I know, but though hard, it will be pleasant work, and it will be a source of satisfaction and happiness, when it is done.

"Be especially careful also to join sincerely, in the