the very tears of such helpmates may tend at last to gladden and invigorate the soul of the believer. Many a stricken mother, in such a case, has been enabled to lift her heart from earth to heaven-from the fleeting shadow to the enduring reality. The Son of God has filled up the blank, and more; and the hope has grown bright, that though dissevered here, the mother and her child will be united hereafter. She has one tie less to earth, and one tie more to heaven, and trusts through grace to mingle her hymns with her child's before the throne for ever.

EXAMPLES.

We might gather illustrations of these views from many sources.—Adoniram Judson, and Anne Hasseltine, his wife, were the first Christian missionaries to Burmah; and in laying the foundations of truth in that dark land, they encountered difficulties and hardships such as few, even among Christian missionaries, have endured in modern times. For the sake of the Saviour, for whom they lived and died, their lives and their liberty were often put in jeopardy, that they might point the dying to hope. Atheism walked hand in hand with debasing superstition among the Burmese. Despotism on the throne, aided by all that is tyrannical in subordinate rulers, obliged the Judsons to hold their lives in their hands, ready to surrender them, or else to abandon the work which they believed God had given them to do. And the day of dreaded oppression came. Their works of faith began to be crowned with success. Superstition took alarm, for souls were saved. Despotism was offended, for freedom was asserted at least for the soul, and vengeance fell on the offending teachers of the truth. Under

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various pretexts Dr Judson was imprisoned, and in his cell was treated with a cruelty such as nothing but Eastern despotism could inflict. Chain was added to chain. Prison after prison became his abode,—each in succession more offensive than its predecessor. Indignity rapidly followed indignity, and such was the dire calamity which befell that man of God that suicide was thought of, at least it once flashed across his mind, as an outlet from his sufferings.

But in these circumstances all that is implied in a helpmate was fully realised. The wife of the sufferer sought his release along every open channel. She penetrated into the palace, and pled there as only a woman could plead. She appealed to cruel officials and ruthless jailers, and made some even of them weep before her. Night and day, amid throbbing agony and crowding insults, she persevered in that labour of love, till her example shews how truly God may be glorified by the very weakness of his servants. Yet all was vain, and Dr Judson was removed to a distant prison, in order to be burned alive. Thither, however, his helpmate followed, but only to be herself prostrated by disease-and now began the duties of the other helpmate in his turn. By a signal providence, or chain of providences, Judson's life was spared, and though fettered still, and not permitted to move without a clanking chain, he carried his wailing little child to heathen mothers to beg from them a portion of nature's nourishment for his dying starveling. The mother was at times delirious, and amid his growing woes, that father had to do what perhaps no mortal but himself was ever forced to face. Oh, how potent is the love of Christ! See that fettered father enduring all this for Him, and then understand His power.

Here, then, we find an illustration of the divine institution of home-helpmates, such as the world's history can scarcely parallel. These two literally bore each other's burdens. Their lives were sometimes lent to each other in the battle of life, and both triumphed amid their trials, because each had the other for a support.

And it is ever thus when the divine institutions are the guides of men. Sorrow is soothed. A prison may become a place for hymns. Fetters may cease to chafe, or they may be lightly borne, when man or woman has just learned to lean-to lean upon the strength of God. How sunny and serene our homes, how full of joy our hearts, were man only so wise as to make the will of God paramount! Judson was a man of strong will, of indomitable zeal, of unflinching resolution when he was confronted with perils; but even his strength would have proved his weakness had it not been for his helpmate.

We might find another illustration of the topic now before us in the life of Rowland Hill. For many years he and his helpmate were to each other all that God designed them to be. When affliction came upon the one, the other suffered not less, and yet had strength and calmness to aid the tried one. What that remarkable man had in excess, she had in great moderation, and they were thus the complements of each other. In his plans she judiciously aided, but there was that in her views which his sometimes wanted, so that the two together presented a symmetrical combination. Hill had to watch against sallies of humour which often degenerated into irrepressible fun. His helpmate was calmer and more self-governing. She consequently acted like a refrain upon him, and often regulated without repress

ing her husband's mirth. An union of sixty years only made their mutual adaptation more and more manifest, as it tended to render their life as believers more completely “the gladsome fellowship of hearts."

Or were it needful to introduce a contrast here, to give greater prominence to the truth, we might refer to the married life of Mrs Hemans. It is well known that she and her helpmate were so unequally yoked that they soon separated for ever. Though their union at first promised a happiness of the highest order, it was speedily clouded by some cause which has never yet been fully divulged. But though a veil of mystery hangs over the whole proceedings of the ill-sorted pair, enough is known to shew that, though married, the parties were not helpmates. They were to each other the occasion of pain or of repulsion, not of increased happiness; and their separation deepened, if it did not originate, that tone of melancholy which characterised the mind of Mrs Hemans. She could weep with ready emotion amid impressive scenes of loveliness, as she once did at the beauty of moonlight among the environs of Edinburgh; and it is easy to fancy the laceration endured by a nature so sensitive and tender, amid disruptions so touching as she was compelled to endure.

INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD.

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CHAPTER IX

INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD.

Savage Life-The Model of Beauty-A Birth-Baptism-The impressibility of Infancy-Its Curiosity-Its Happiness-The Duration of its Pleasures--The Brevity of its Grief-Selfishness-Julius Cæsar-Napoleon Bonaparte-Luther -Reflex influence of Infancy on Parents-Precocity-Obedience-An Infant's Death-Examples-"The Holy Child"-Joseph-Isaac-Moses-SamuelJeremiah-John the Baptist.

AMONG the North American Indians different tribes train

their young in very different ways. By some clans, flat heads are deemed beautiful, and the infant's skull is carefully compressed and flattened to the proper standard of beauty. Other tribes shape and mould the head upon a different ideal, so that infancy begins life amid tortures such as some Europeans endure to fashion the body to a capricious configuration. It is well known, moreover, that, among the Chinese, the feet of female infants are curtailed and compressed by artificial means till it becomes a marvel how they can either walk or stand. From all this we learn what pains are taken at once by the savage and the civilised regarding the body and its training.

But the same thing is true, to a far wider extent, regarding the mind. The expansive or the compressible power is there much greater in its range. By the force of circumstances, it may be depressed to the verge of idiotcy, or enlarged till it seems to walk among the stars.