schools, to require the little creatures to tell whether they have whispered during the day; and if they have, make them forfeit a reward. It generally requires moral courage, or some strong motive, to testify against one's self, under such circumstances. But if they do not thus testify, they strengthen the bonds of sin most rapidly.

Giving the head of a class, or a reward, to the one who excels others in intellectual attainments, rather than rewarding each scholar, according to his assiduity, is tempting above what most minds are able to bear. Our heavenly Father deals with us in a different manner. He rewards us abundantly with blessings here, and bright crowns hereafter; but it is for the performance of our own duty without any reference to others.

Ascertain what appeals to make to the constitutional susceptibilities of your children. They are developing their selfishness, and that too, in the presence of others. Shall we never appeal to their love of approbation? Whenever we do, we find their selfish acts suspended. But appeal to their regard for the well-being of others, and you attempt to touch a chord, which is never found in a selfish soul. Appeals to their sympathy will induce them to desist from selfish acts, nearly as soon as appeals to their love of approbation. And if we do not rest satisfied with inducing a lovely exterior by such appeals, I do not see how we can injure them. The love of approbation seems to predominate in most minds, and is likely to gather too much strength, even if no appeals are made directly to this susceptibility.

Teach them to respect the rights of property in others. I have long felt that this had more to do with the question before us, than one would at first suppose. Who is the selfish being, if not he, who exclaims:

'See all things for my use ;'

and who, without reluctance, and often without the least liberty, appropriates to his own use, whatever promotes his individual comfort or convenience? The inquiry of a truly benevolent spirit will be, how can I diffuse blessings with the time,

talents and property entrusted to my care? and a person of such a spirit will sacrifice his own convenience, sooner than use some article perfectly adapted to his wants, lying, too, directly in his pathway; but which, for aught he can tell, may be employed by the owner to more benevolent purposes. Education can do much here. Man is not constituted lord of creation, in such a sense as to deprive the beasts of the field, or the meanest insect, of their rights. Our true characters are unfolded by the manner in which we regard rights inferior, as well as superior, to our own.

Never let them take the smallest article without the owner's leave. Many seem to suppose that the eighth commandment is not violated, if they pick up fruit from the ground, take a pin, &c., without the owner's leave. Admit that it often is not; yet sometimes an important principle is violated. They have disregarded the right of property.

One of the men of '76, who was trained when such spirits as Washington were, often related the fact, of his mother's requiring him to go half a mile to carry back a pin, which he took from a window. I have heard his descendants laugh at the puritanical whims of his mother. But it would have been well for them, and the present generation, if they had performed some act of like character, to impress upon their souls that deep regard to the rights, and the well-being of others, which their ancestor possessed. Another, trained upon the same principles, when a little boy, entered a store, and seeing a raisin lying upon the floor, unconsciously picked it up, and ate it. The impression that it was not his, flashed upon his mind. It seemed as though every eye rested upon him. He left with a heavy load upon his conscience. Where should he go for relief? He could not tell his mother. He could tell no one. As he went to and from school, he ran rapidly past the store, feeling that some one was at his heels. At length the merchant came out of the store with a rope in his hand. Now he felt that his fate was sealed. The merchant, however, passed him, but the agony of the child was so great, that he went home and disclosed his feelings, and the cause, to his mother. She did not

relieve him by saying, it is a little thing, and of no consequence; but she went with him to the merchant and explained the whole affair. I have often heard this gentleman speak with gratitude, and the deepest respect, of the course adopted by his departed mother, to impress upon his mind a regard to the rights of property in others.

Oberlin, Ohio, Feb., 1844.

[Written for the Mother's Assistant.]

SIN.

BY REV. J. N. BROWN.

And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

Gen. iii. 8-24.

[Written for the Mother's Assistant.]

A HINT TO PARENTS.

BY REV. JAMES MUDGE.

THE following incident was related to me, some time since, by the lady concerned in it. George was at that time about ten years old, and under the care of his aunt.

Where we lived, many of the boys often stayed away from school without permission of their parents. George had become, in some degree, corrupted by their company, and had got the truant fever. I warned him, that, if he absented himself from school, I should punish him for it. One morning I saw him at play in the yard, after the school hour. I called him. 'George, are you going to school?' 'No, aunt.' 'Why not?' I received no reply, but found him stubbornly determined not to obey. I directed him to go to his room. He went, and I followed. I required him to go to bed, and then took his clothes from the room. After I had left him, I remembered that there was drawing apparatus in the room, which might amuse him. I went back to get it, and the idea had already occurred to him to while away his time with it. I took it. He looked up most piteously in my face, and exclaimed, Why aunt, aint you going to leave me any thing?' 'No, George, I told you I should punish you if you did not go to school.'

At noon I went to his room. 'O aunt, forgive me this time, and I will always go to school.' He was punished, and humbled. After some conversation with him in relation to his guilt in the sight of God, I prayed with him, and had the satisfaction of believing that the punishment had had the effect designed. He never afterward declined going to school.

How often we hear parents exclaim, 'What shall I do to my child? Whipping does not accomplish the purpose.'

Undoubtedly the main thing to be done with large children, is to cultivate their sense of obligation to God. To make them feel, when they disobey, that it is a sin against God, and that He will punish them. This will have more effect than any thing else.

But beside this they need restraint, and sometimes punishment. If mothers would set their 'woman's wit' at work, which has attained such a name for contriving new expedients, I have no doubt they might find many methods of correction, as judicious, and as successful, as that which produced such effects on George.