And, we believe, almost all duties might be inculcated in this manner.  Thus, humility by the lily, patience by the spider, affection by the dove, love to parents by the stork,—­all might be rendered teachers, and in a way never to be forgotten.  And that this mode of teaching is the best, we have the example of Christ himself, who almost invariably enforced his instructions by an allusion to some created thing.  What, for instance, was so likely to teach men dependence upon God as a reference to the ‘ravens and the lilies,’ which without the aid of reason had their wants cared for?  And in the same way with children—­what is so likely to teach them their duties, as a reference to the varied things in nature with whose uses and habits they are well acquainted?

God should be the object upon which the child’s thoughts are taught to dwell—­for the minds even of children turn to the beautiful, and the beautiful is the Divine.  All thoughts and actions should be raised to this standard; and the child would raise above the feelings of self-gratification and vanity, and the panting for applause, to the favor and love of God.  Thus should religion be the great and the first thing taught; and a mother should be careful that neither in her own actions, nor in the motives she holds out to her children, should there be any thing inimical or contrary to religion.

And by this course the best and happiest results may be expected to follow.  The perverse and headstrong passions of the human heart are so many, that numerous instructions may seem to be useless, and a mother may have often to sigh over her child as she sees him allowing evil habits to obtain the mastery, or unholy dispositions to reign in his heart; but, as we have before said, we do not think that the instruction will be lost, but that a time will come when she will reap the fruits of her toil, care and anxiety.

Such then is the duty of woman as a mother—­to tend and watch over the wants of her child, to guard it in health, to nurse it in sickness, to be solicitous for it in all the changes of life, and to prevent, as much as possible, those many ills to which flesh is heir from assailing her fondly cherished offspring.

It is also her province to instruct her children in those duties which will fall to their lot both as reasonable and as immortal creatures; and by so doing she will make her own life happy—­leave to her children a happy heritage on earth, and a prospect of a higher one in heaven.  But if a mother neglect her duty, she will reap the fruits of her own negligence in the ingratitude of her children—­an ingratitude which will bring a double pain to her, from the thought that her own neglect was the cause of its growth, as an eagle with an arrow in his heart might be supposed to feel an agony above that of pain on seeing the shaft now draining its life’s blood feathered from its own wing.

Mrs. Child, in her excellent “Mother’s Book,” a volume that should be in the hands of every woman who has assumed the responsibilities of a parent, gives some valuable (sic) sugestions on the subject of governing children.  I make a single extract and with it close my present rambling work.  She says: