And weeps to see his share unclaimed
Of that which is for all-

"The right to do, the right to be
A nobler thing than toy or slave;
A something great, and good, and free,
Whose rest is not the grave.

"E'en so we yearn—ah me, you smile!

And I have shown my heart in vain;
But then, I've learnt this truth the while,
You care not for our pain.

"Tis wiser far by stern control-
By bitter, rigid discipline,
To tutor woman's loving soul

To hopes and thoughts divine.

"Tis better, nobler, to forego

A bride's delight, that sweet, vague dream,
Than waken up to married woe,

Which has no Lethean stream."

"I stretched to her my loving arms-
I gave a pleading look and said,
Here is your home!' She sank therein,

Her false ambition dead!"

No man or woman, with mature mind and heart, having had any considerable experience in the ways and trials of life, but will agree that this maiden's final decision, as depicted in the last verse, was a wise and proper one. It is right and truly noble for all. women to long to be something more "than toy or slave," but it does not follow that to be this, she must needs "forego a bride's delight," or step down from her home throne. On the contrary, "The right to do, the right to be, something great and good and

free," is a right (or rather a privilege) which can be exercised and enjoyed nowhere on earth so fully and advantageously as in the home circle.

To leave that sacred, holy, happy spot, and rush out blindly and wildly after some imaginary good which "shines afar on dizzy heights," is to throw down the scepter of her power, and deliberately trample under foot all the leverage of influence which God and her own feminine nature have placed at her disposal.

The home, to any true woman, need never be "a prison," unless she herself makes it thus by an unwise choice of a life-partner, or by a "vague unrest,' after the home duties and pleasures are once entered upon. But on the other hand, home is just the place above all others where "hopes and thoughts divine" are born, nurtured, matured, and carried into practical realization. And so the lines of Young are verified anew, that

"The first sure symptoms of a mind in health,
Is rest of heart and pleasure felt at home."

THE MOTHER.

"My mother! Manhood's anxious brow
And sterner cares have long been mine,
Yet turn I to thee fondly now,

As when upon thy bosom's shrine

My infant griefs were gently hushed to rest,

And thy low-whispered prayers my slumber blessed."
-GEO. W. BETHUNE.

ISHOP THOMSON expressed the feeling of universal human nature when he wrote: There is no velvet so soft as a mother's lap, no rose so lovely as her smile, no path so flowery as that imprinted with her footsteps." Men and women frequently forget each other, but everybody remembers mother. The very name is so entwined round our hearts that they must cease to throb ere we forget it! 'Tis our first love; 'tis part of religion! Nature has set the mother upon such a pinnacle, that our infant eyes and arms are first uplifted to it; we cling to it in manhood; we almost worship it in old age. He who can enter an apartment and behold the tender babe feeding on its mother's beauty, nourished by the tide of life which flows through her generous veins, without a panting bosom and a grateful eye, is no man, but a

monster.

love;

upon are f

unfted to it; we chg to tha

we al costospi, it in old age

an ap etme 1 and behold the tend

other