THE BIRTH-DAY.

How happy are those families where both parents are truly religious; and how unhappy is the case where even one is not such a character, but especially if that one be the mother! Next to the Heavenly Father himself, the mother is perhaps the most potent to mould the mind of her offspring; and the pious mother seizes every opportunity to teach the immortal spirit committed to her charge, to reflect on its own origin; as it tastes the sweets of life, to recognize the Giver of them all. The recurrence of the birth-day is one such opportunity; it may be turned to great advantage: the power of reflection once attained, and the birth-day may become as it were the beginning of existence, such as the poet has imagined for our first father.

Thou sun, said I, fair light,

And thou enlightened earth, so fresh and gay,
Ye hills and dales, ye rivers, woods and plains,
And ye that live and move, fair creatures, tell,
Tell, if ye saw, how came I thus, how here?
Not of myself; by some great maker then
In goodness and in power preeminent;
Tell me how may I know him, how adore
From whom I have that thus I move and live,
And feel that I am happier than I know.

The birth-day lesson by degrees may grow into a little sermon, but a mother's still. "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth; that is the great souvenir, my child, on which may depend all our perfection and happiness for ever. Yes, this very spring

time of youth which is gone, how soon! is commonly our seed-time for eternity itself, whether for weal or for woe! And say not, my child, "Shew us the Father." "He that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father." Behold, therefore, in the New Testament His glory, such as became the only-begotten of the Father. And oh if a mother's prayer was ever heard, dearest, mayest thou both see Him and be like Him. Samuel was yet a child when the Lord called him audibly ; but, though inaudibly, by the interior solicitations of His grace, thine own Eternal Father himself calls thee: "Remember now thy Creator." Think what would be the indignity, the ingratitude, the insolence of stopping the ear to a call so condescending! Enter immediately a path bestrewn with flowers; be guided by the Divine presence; and O, my God, with all thy fulness let this heart of youth be filled."

Where the birthday happens to be a day illustrious in history, this circumstance may sometimes be turned to the greatest advantage. The writer, for instance, knows, and is interested in the case of a birthday, which fell on the 16th of October, and in such a case he would affectionately advise such a mother. On the 16th day of October, your own boy's birthday, those two fireproof godly bishops and martyrs of the Lord, Latimer and Ridley, were born into eternity; a true red-letter and real saint's-day: then every day let the names of Ridley and Latimer be among the foremost, and ever the most familiar sounds to his ear: let their martyrdom, no old wives' tale, be amongst the earliest tales even of his nursery. But ever on his birthday (such a birthday, well applied, shall be for a birthright) sɔlemnly relate to him the whole history. By degrees, you would make him feel those touching incidents :

As they were led out (this was at Oxford) they looked up to Cranmer's window, but he was not in it. When they came to the stake they embraced and encouraged each other; Cheer up, Master Ridley; such a candle we shall light up this day in England!' Then they both prayed and undressed. And then, O pious and bestlearned, and thou most primitive bishop of the land, good night! Lift up your heads, ye gates of light, and ring out all the heavenly harmonies to welcome such

new comers.

They are gone; and the earth goes on as no such murder had been done on it. There were the fruit and flowers of the season, all of them; the shepherd's purse, wall rue, and yarrow; there the young ivy clinging to the old oak; the blackberries, hips and haws, were plucked by schoolboy and by linnet, all with as much glee as There was the gossamer floating in the air, emblem of earthly toys,

ever.

As light and thin as cobwebs that do fly

In the blue air.

But the singing-bird was almost hushed, and the cawing of the rooks made melancholy discord; the rough. winds were up, and busily sowing the earth with toil; all the trees in the forest were changing colour; the viper and the snake burrowed and hid their heads; and Gardiner and Bonner went to dinner!

I deny not, but confess, that at the self-same time other names of men there were upon earth, as high and conspicuous, some, as the mountain heights of our own Britannic system; be it Plinlimmon, Carran Tual, or Ben More himself. Copernicus indeed was gone, but Michael Angelo remained; to say nothing of Hans Sach and Camoens: Sidney and Spenser indeed were

but babes, and Cervantes a boy-but all such were, in comparison, of the earth, earthy. And many sounding titles of regal names there were; Mary of England, Henry of France, ; in Germany, Charles the Fifth ; in Sweden, Gustavus Vasa, and Solyman the Magnificent in Constantinople! But all

"Ye meaner beauties of the night
That poorly satisfy our eyes;

More by your number than your light

Ye common people of the skies,

What are ye when the sun shall rise?"

In that morning of the resurrection and of judgment, at which, sooner or later, Gardiner and Bonner shall appear, then shall it also appear that these names of Latimer and Ridley are of the royalty of heaven. Yes, and others, whom then they left behind; Melancthon, and Calvin, and Beza, our own Knox and Jewell, our Parker, and Rainolds, and Hooker,-aye and neither last nor least, our dear old Cranmer left behind, though he was to quench almost all those illustrious flames with his tears, and still repeating, "Thou unworthy hand," to prove nevertheless, if his hand had erred, yet his heart remained whole.

How is it, that in those days the revival of letters and the progress of discovery opened the eyes and expanded the faculties of almost all men ; and yet some men in ours appear to be obscured and cramped by a descending process, the division of labour, and the progress of invention? Who could have thought that after a space of three centuries, that bloody cloud of Rome could ever again have overshadowed the intellect of any British Christian? But so, as I have heard, sometimes a mass of clouds, carried by the wind over an arm of the sea, (as over the breakwater at Plymouth) is there dis

solved by the warmer air from below; but still, the particles though dissolved, borne onward to a colder atmosphere, are again condensed on some eminence beyond the water, and behold the cloud re-appears! A man may have no disposition to refer the ordinary changes of the weather to the influence of the moon; but, in this modern change of the faith into a fashion, there is something so decidedly lunatic, that he may be excused, though he should be disposed to question, whether we may not be destined to hear the old arguments against the motion of the earth revived once more.

H. G.