Keep yourselves from idols.—1 JOHN v, 21.

MR. and MRS. LATIMER'S nearest neighbors consisted of a family in station, number, and ages similar to their own; and to the youthful claimants on her love and care, Mrs. Denby was as fondly devoted as parent could be. She heard with much satisfaction of Mrs. Latimer's home engagements, and felt sure of sympathy in her own anxious views of maternal duty. But it was possible for two mothers equally affectionate, equally devoted, and equally self-denying, to be in their motives, methods, and hopes thoroughly and essentially opposed.

In Mrs. Denby's household everything gave place to the children; their health, their comfort, their dress, their diet, their education, occupied the whole heart, and mind, and time of the harassed mother, whether waking or sleeping. Her children were her one idea, in reference to whom the very sun shone, and the earth revolved, so far as she appreciated the convenient regulations of nature. The domestic administration, it may be surmised, was not of the most orderly character; for, however the nominal head of the household might stand in the estimation of society, the essence of power was grasped by the hands of juvenile tyrants, whose caprices dictated laws to which for the sake of peace it was usually deemed best to submit.

Mrs. Denby would have been shocked had she been told that her easy, kind-hearted husband was not master of his own house, or that his wishes and comfort were ever sacrificed to the whims of his wayward children. But such was the fact; for, having resigned herself to their service, she exacted the like subjection from all around them. If invited out, he could of course go if he pleased, but Mrs. Denby could not leave the children; and if he wished to receive friends at home, Mrs. Denby thought he should consider the children, for how could she attend to arrangements for company, when she was so much engaged in the nursery? Of course she never trusted a servant; for who, except a mother, could be thoughtful enough of children's numerous wants and ailments?

A mother's work, she remarked, (that is to say, "her" work) was never done; it had no intermission, it had no end. In the morning, she awoke to anxiety. In the evening, she retired in anxiety, for there were terrors by night, as well as arrows by day; and it was one special branch of duty to ward off the danger of epidemics, and to be prepared for all the possible ills to which juvenile flesh is heir.

Sometimes the whole house was raised in the dead of night to assist at a bath for baby, who, by, the pale glimmer of the lamp, looked as if he were intending to have a fit, while Mr. Denby hurried off for the doctor. Then, when the doctor came as quickly as possible, and found the little idol comfortably dozing in his blanket, he could only highly commend the forethought and promptitude of the anxious mother, promise to call and watch further developments of the illness in the morning, and advise the alarmed family to retire to rest.

Morning opened the bright eyes, and dimpled the rosy cheek with smiles enough to prove that all impending mischief was happily averted, and the bath was of course a specific for all disorders imaginary or real.

It is certainly essential that a mother should be acquainted with such little easy and harmless remedies, for whether they benefit the patient or not, it is a safety-valve for her anxiety to be doing something.

One evening Mrs. Denby came in much distress requesting an interview with Mrs. Latimer, from whom she wished, she said, to solicit the greatest possible favor. Mrs. Latimer assured her of sympathy and assistance by any means in her power.

"I am sure you will feel for me, dear Mrs. Latimer," said she, "for I know how devoted you are to your home and family. Do you know I have never left the house for a day or night for years without my children, but now I must do so, I fear. My mother is very ill, and she wished me sent for. What can I do?"

"Go to her immediately, I should think," replied Mrs. Latimer.

"Ah, but my children—it is most distressing to me to leave them; they may be ill and die before I can be at home again. Do you not think they are my first duty?"

"Would you not wish them to come to you if you were ill?"

"Yes, certainly. But then I do not think my mother can be so ill as my sisters in their alarm represent, and probably my journey after all may be unnecessary."

"In what way can I assist you?" asked Mrs. Latimer, grieved at this exhibition of selfish folly.

"In case I do go—and Mr. Denby thinks I ought not to have waited another post, but I thought little Tilly looked so pale, I dared not venture to-day; if I go, I want to ask you, dear madam, to oblige me by visiting my nursery every few hours, just to see that all is well. You will not permit them to go out unless you are sure that the weather is mild, and the wind in a safe quarter. They have not had any of the usual disorders of childhood, and I fear would never get through the measles or hooping-cough without great care. Does not this often distress you for those of your children who have not passed through the ordeal?"

"No," said Mrs. Latimer quietly, "it does not distress me; and perhaps those disorders are not inevitable."

"Not inevitable? I never heard so before. Pray tell me what can prevent them?"

"I do not know; but, dear madam, may I not venture to remind you of a loving and powerful Friend, whose watchful care can guard those so dear to you far more effectually than either you or I can do it?"

"There is no one more likely to feel with me than yourself, Mrs. Latimer, for, like me, you live only for your children—at least so I have been told."

"Then I fear I have been misrepresented to you," said Mrs. Latimer, smiling. "I desire to live in the faithful discharge of all the duties devolving on me, but I trust that my children have a far wiser and better Friend, under whose authority I act, and on whose continual care I rely."

"I know, of course, that God rules everything," said Mrs. Denby, despondingly.

"And rules for good to them that love him. O let us not forget that if we have given ourselves to Christ, he has taken into his sacred keeping every interest by which we can be affected during our short absence from our heavenly home, and nothing can happen to us or ours by accident or chance."

"Ah! Mrs. Latimer, I know that you are religious, but I had no idea you carried it so far as this."

"Dear Mrs. Denby, true religion was made for every-day life, and for every experience of hearts like yours and mine. And those who appreciate most the redemption Christ wrought out, and the future glory to which it leads, are just those who realize most the daily appoint merits of his providence, and the comfort of his sustaining grace."

"But suppose you were situated just as I am now, would you not be oppressed by the same anxiety, and suffer the same distress when called away from your home and children?"

"Do not condemn me hastily, if I venture to say that, by the grace of God, I think I should not. You are called to fulfill a solemn duty to a perhaps dying parent; it is only in the wise will of God that such a claim can arise, and confiding for the time my other duties to his guardianship, I would take as my own portion, under any circumstances so ordained, those happy, holy words,—

"'Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me. My peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth give I unto you.'"

"Ah! Mrs. Latimer, I would give anything I possess at this moment for such calmness and peace as that, but I am naturally so anxious, so nervous, so apprehensive. If one of my children were to be ill and die in my absence, I should never, never forgive myself for going away."

"Because you do not distinguish between doing the will of God and acting upon the suggestions of your own, in which case there cannot be peace; there must always be fear, irresolution, perhaps great unhappiness."

"You are quite right, it is just so. I love my children so fondly that I have scarcely a thought but for their interests, and whatever would withdraw me from my charge makes me anxious and unhappy. But I cannot believe that this is wrong."

"My dear friend," said Mrs. Latimer, "forgive me for asking the question your words suggest—is it not idolatrous affection, and will not God have cause to reprove it? O! Do be warned in time, for your dear children were not given to you to fill your heart so that there is no room for him."

"Surely I am pleasing God when trying to discharge a mother's duty?"

"Not if you cannot trust him; not if you allow your own absorbed feelings rather than his word and providence to dictate the form of your duty. To be a happy parent, really blessed of God, you must be a Christian too."

"I hope I am a Christian. Mrs. Latimer, you mistake me greatly if you doubt it."

"But does the word imply the same thing to both our minds! I mean a believer living by faith in the Son of God. I mean one of God's own children pardoned and accepted in Christ, and loving him with personal, practical affection, and who feels and obeys the influence of the Holy Spirit, without whom we can know nothing to any saving purpose of the things that make a Christian."

"It is not exactly thus that I am conscious of being one; but then it is an extreme view, and extremes, you know, are both extravagant and dangerous."

"In all earthly things, even including parental affection, it is written,—

"'Let your moderation be known unto all men; be careful for nothing.'

"But in heavenly things, the word of God sets no bound to the demand for, or the value of Christian attainments and desires; it enjoins unlimited confidence in God's love, the purest holiness in life and practice, the fullest enjoyment of spiritual privilege, and the most perfect repose of heart concerning all the arrangements of Divine Providence. Only read how beautifully the Lord Jesus provided for his people against anxiety and doubt. See how his apostles reiterate his meaning, and how the Spirit anticipates the loving warmth of perpetual remembrance, when he says,—

"'Pray without ceasing;'

"'Rejoice evermore;'

"'In everything give thanks.'"

"May I ask," said Mrs. Denby, thoughtfully, "if it be not true that you devote your time and energies to the welfare of your children, and that you make everything bend to their interests?"

"I should be glad to reply in the affirmative with some qualifications," said Mrs. Latimer, smiling. "I do devote a large portion of my time to my children, but it is because such a charge has been delegated to me by my heavenly Father, and not because I could enjoy no peace elsewhere. I instruct them for the present, not because I love them so that I cannot trust them to another, but because I believe a mother to be the right teacher during the early years of childhood, and that it should be her precious privilege to use the period of her influence in sowing that good seed which God in time will bless. And I do try, and by God's help am resolved, that every earthly consideration for my children's welfare and advancement shall bend to the higher and more important interests of their souls' salvation. I am among them so much, not to twine their thoughts around myself, nor to absorb their affections, for I may be removed from them at any moment, but to lead them to the Guide of their youth, the everlasting Father from whose arms, if once clasped there, no power of Satan or man can snatch them."

"And have you no anxieties about their health?"

"O yes, sometimes, but that is when my own infirmities are unhappily escaping the control of faith and reason. But when I can again trust God with my ailing child, again I am at peace. I know that many a planted flower is taken away from evil to come, and that some given back to the wild willfulness, of parental idolatry have lived to pierce those loving hearts with many sorrows."

"Really you do astonish me with such extraordinary ideas," said Mrs. Denby, looking with wonder on the earnest countenance before her. "I cannot in the least understand, you."

"But do try, dear madam—it is worth an effort—to know Him whose presence can comfort yourself and bless your precious children; who alone can furnish you with strength for duty, regulate and control the outflowings of tender affection, and make you what you long to be, a happy, useful mother, whom God will delight to bless and honor."

In tears and trouble Mrs. Denby took leave of her nursery the next morning, relying on the kindness of her Christian neighbor, who had nevertheless suffered somewhat in her esteem since she found that measles, and hooping-cough, and scarlet fever were not specters perpetually haunting her threshold, and that the health, and prettiness, and cleverness of her children were not the chief objects of her solicitude and ambition. She did not comprehend any motive for maternal attention but that of intense and absorbing affection. To her it seemed inevitable for maternal love to degenerate into what her neighbor deemed idolatry, no sanctifying motive prompted her self-denial by the fact that she was invested with a responsibility of which she must some day give account, or that the young creatures on whose every whim and wish she attended with slavish assiduity, were immortal.

Her devoted love was lavished on those fair forms which seemed to her the very incarnation of beauty and grace. And had any unusual interest been perceived in any one of them concerning things that pertain to a future state and "the better land," her apprehensions would have been painfully excited lest some mysterious influence had awakened a presentiment of early death. Religion and death were inseparable in her thoughts; Christianity and a life of holy happiness and usefulness were not her idea of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. "Too good to live" is a false proverb which has made many a mother's heart ache, in forgetfulness that a generation of living believers should be "lights of the world," and "salt of the earth."

But alas! she thought little of the future man who must one day stand alone among men, compelled to take a place in the world whose atmosphere is ambition, and pride, and covetousness, and unbelief, to encounter temptation without, and feel the workings of natural corruption within. She thought but little of the future woman on whose temper and principles might depend the happiness or misery of some future home and the peace of her own life. And she entirely forgot the certain day when parents and children shall stand before the judgment-seat of God; when neglected opportunities will wring the conscience with intolerable anguish; when it will be seen that the sad inheritance of a fallen nature has been transmitted from generation to generation, without a serious effort to arrest its tremendous consequences by the effectual means provided in the Gospel of the grace of God.

A mother once said, in the hearing of her child, to the governess resident in the family: "Though we may not be very religious ourselves, we wish our children to be brought up religiously." And the arrangements prescribed for that end were, that they should be taken to church once every Sunday. And how many parents, conscious that there is some spiritual mystery bound up in the being of man, that "something" after all is "needful," yield to hired teachers, or a weekly sermon, the precious privilege of teaching the infant soul all it may ever live to know of God and Christ, of heaven and hell.

And what wonder, if the parent needs no religion, the child should take the liberty of judging it needless also, and deem the formal reading with the governess a troublesome task to the mind, and the Sunday service a weariness to the flesh? Surely the conclusion would be reasonable, that if papa and mamma were going to heaven without any such trouble, their sons and daughters might tread in their steps. And so "the name that is above every name," the favor which is "better than life," the wisdom whose "price is above rubies," become associated with dreary task-work and superfluous obligations.

Little do such parents know how charming to the ear of childhood is the sweet story of Jesus, when told with the animated earnestness of one who loves him; little do they know how his touching sorrows, his pitying love, his wonderful sacrifice for sinners, can penetrate the hearts of "babes and sucklings," and constrain their acceptable praise. They are not aware how the knowledge of Jesus would throw a shield between their children and the worst dangers to which they are exposed on the journey of life; nor covet the joy of that parent's heart who is made instrumental to the eternal happiness of beloved ones doubly dear in the bonds of earth and heaven.

In contrast with such, and amid the few redeeming scenes that this sin-burdened earth presents to the eye of the great God who looks down on the children of men, none can be more fair in his sight than that of a family under Christian rule, where "the instruction of the father" and "the law of the mother" are in harmony with his word and will; where "he knows them, that they will command their children and their household after them; and they shall keep the way of the Lord."

It is a Goshen, where a portion of the "little flock" is tended; there is a mark on the door that the destroyer must pass by; it is a spiritual camp in the wilderness of sin, a witness for Christ in the world that denies him. And there the Lord commands "the blessing, even life for evermore."

Happy the land that contains many such scenes, yea, happy the families in such sacred keeping!