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MOTHERS have much to do with a subject that is now employing the minds of many of our wisest and best men. Recent examinations have revealed a fearful fact, in reference to the number of children and youth that are growing up in sin, in the streets of the city of New York; and the attention of the good and benevolent has been seriously roused to answer rightly the inquiry, "What shall be done?"

It concerns mothers, not in the city only, but in the country. There is an aspect of this subject which has not been considered, and this periodical is just the place to consider it. It has its bearings on the present and eternal interests of the children of all the parents into whose hands these pages fall, and if they would read and heed, perhaps a thought may be suggested that will be for the salvation of a son or daughter.

You remember the mother who rushed down the street of a city, in pursuit of a horse, that was running away with a child, in a carriage; and when she was wringing her hands in despair, at her inability to save the boy, she was asked "if it was her child." “No,” said she, “but it is somebody's child!" If these wretched and perishing youth are not our children, they are somebody's children, and we have the feelings of common humanity to prompt us in efforts for their rescue. There ought to be a brotherhood and sisterhood of feeling on this subject, that will make the interests of one parent the interests of all; and thus a combined and mighty effort might be made for the promotion of judicious efforts for the salvation of these perishing children. But the question that I wish to meet, and the one that I feel will be asked immediately, is this: "What have we, who are not in the city of New York, to do with this subject? Our children are not there, exposed to the dangers of the streets, and the haunts of vice.

We will keep ours out of the way, and what can we do for yours?"

This is the very point I wish to meet; and I meet it with a thought that should make a deep impression on the heart of every mother who reads it. These wretched children in the city are not the children of the city. Some of them are. Some of them are the children of vice, and are walking in the steps of their parents. But many of them were born in the pure atmosphere of the country, and of parents as pious as those who are reading these lines. There are several thousand of young girls in this city, who are now hopelessly abandoned to the most debasing vice, and over whose ruin we may weep-for it is not likely that anything can be done to save them. They are lost. But they were, almost all of them, born in the country. They have had parents who loved them, and who have shed tears of anguish over their wandering and downfall. They have been tempted to leave the home of their childhood by false hopes. Perhaps some of them were sent here by their parents to learn a trade; or came to service, and here have fallen into the snares that are set for the feet of the unwary, and they are now caught by a monster who never lets go his prey. I met with one of these girls in the Park, a few evenings since, and when she addressed me with the boldness that marks her profligate sisterhood, I said to her, with a gentleness that I hoped would touch her heart, "Where does your mother live?" Her voice trembled, and I doubt not, the tears gathered, but it was too dark for me to see, as she named the sweet village on the Connecticut River-a spot that I knew well—and where virtue reigns, if it lives anywhere in the world. But this poor creature, now an outcast-a despised, polluted, wretched, ruined thing-whom to speak to, even as I was speaking, is a disgrace to a decent man-this miserable girl was once a child, in a pleasant, peaceful, virtuous home, in a sweet village of New England.

To save the children of the city from ruin, and to save the children of the country from becoming the children of the city, I would begin the work of reform at home. Houses of Refuge, and Homes for the Destitute, and Asylums for the Young, are infinitely desirable. There are more subjects for their tender mercies than

their walls can hold. Build more, and larger; but they will not stay the progress of the work of death. They will take the children fashioned for their service; but we want to keep the children from being fitted for these receptacles of the vicious and the poor. Begin at home. The Association that carries the Bible and the Tract into the home of the destitute is helping to save. The Church, that reaches the wretched with its constant ministry of grace, is doing more. The mother, who daily prays and daily labors to impress divine truth upon the heart of her child, is winding around him cords that may, one day, hold him out of hell. If it had not been for them, he would have fallen in. The father who makes home pleasant to his child, and teaches him lessons of virtue, from the pages of God's word, is binding that child to himself and to Christ. I have great faith in that covenant which God has made with faithful parents. Try it, and see if he is not true to his holy word.

There are thousands of children, in the various families which this Magazine visits; and from these thousands there are some who may help to swell the tide of immortal souls, who are now crowding the Broadway of death! They might be saved. They ought to be saved. The father, the mother, who feels the power of parental responsibility, will awake to duty, in view of the danger, and strive to train up the child in the way he should go. It is a great work. God has not given a greater work to any of his creatures. He will hold them to an account for the manner of doing it.

These are somewhat incoherent thoughts. They are not in the track of the usual remark respecting the youth of our city, whose case is exciting so much attention. The most of good men are devising ways and means to save these now perishing in the midst of us. Save them by all means. Open your hands and hearts, yes, and your doors, to them. Give them bread, and work, and wages, and give them religious instruction. But I speak for the other thousands that are coming to fill their places. Keep them out of the way. Keep them at home. Teach them there; train them as they should be trained, and we have the promise, that when they grow up they shall walk in the way of peace.

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"In early days the conscience has, in most,
A quickness, which in latter life is lost:
Preserved from guilt by salutary fears,
Or guilty, soon relenting into tears.

Too careless often, as our years proceed,

What friends we sort with, or what books we read,

Our parents yet exert a prudent care,

To feed our infant minds with proper fare;

And wisely store the nursery, by degrees,

With wholesome learning, yet acquired with ease.".

Ir is taken for granted that every artist is acquainted with the nature of the object on which he proposes to bestow his skill, and understands the materials with which he is to work. If not, he incurs the penalty of failure. Now all parents are, to the extent of their family circle, workers in mind. Whether the number of children to be trained for immortality be two or twenty, makes little difference in the absolute importance of the work, however the idea of numbers may enhance its relative importance. Every parent ought to recollect that a single father has a thousand millions of children, of one generation' alone, now living on the earth, and that the character of each one of these has been affected by the perverse exercise of the will of a common mother. "Children unto the third and fourth generation" are spoken of, as involved in the obedience or disobedience of their progenitors. The relation of a parent, then, to future mind is momentous, not to say tremendous. The influence is not the less certain and powerful, because intermediate and remote. The direct, present action of your mind upon your child is but the first link in a long, unbroken chain of moral causes, that will be perpetually active, while you slumber in the unconscious tomb. Hence, it is scarcely possible to over-estimate the power of maternal influences, or to exaggerate the importance of the maternal relation, and the extent

of parental obligation. Hence the duty of studying the nature of children, that we may know how to treat them; of investigating the traits of childhood, that we may seek their right development.

That the Redeemer of souls contemplated the traits of children, nay, the very prerogatives of childhood, with peculiar interest, is evident, from Mark x. 15, Mat. xviii. 5, 10. One of these traits is inquisitiveness. The nascent activity of the undying mind is strikingly seen in their propensity to ask questions. These questions concern not only the visible objects of art and nature around us, but they attempt to penetrate even the existence of God himself. Never is the impotence of our minds to transcend their assigned limits more sensibly felt, than when they are pressed with such inquiries. While we are thus incited to adore the infinite and incomprehensible God, we feel there is a responsibility upon us to meet these questions, and turn to advantage the spirit of investigation they indicate, by instructing the young mind in whatever is intelligible and useful. The flower that blooms in beauty to the eye; the rose that sparkles with the dew-drops of the morning; the softened glow of a summer sunset; the bright array of the host of heaven, "forever singing as they shine;" even the 66 adoring silence of the night," as Mrs. Hemans beautifully expresses it-all, all, are fitted to convey lessons of instruction, as well as to minister to the sense of the beautiful within us. Children are essentially imaginative. While reason and judgment are in them quite imperfect, the imagination is creative, vagrant, many-colored. It is a very kaleidoscope in its versatility of hues and shapes, and unless watched, restrained, and rectified, as aimless and useless as that beautiful instrument. It is on that faculty the evil influence of temptation begins early to work. Oh, fond and anxious mother! be it your incessant labor to supply it with images of purity and love.

Children are UNPREJUDICED. I do not mean that the youthful mind is incapable of contracting prejudice. So far from this, it is quick to participate in the prejudices and prepossessions of the parental mind, ready to catch and to copy a harsh sentiment or opinion that may chance to fall from the parental lips. But I

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