operation of this habit in different families where it has been unhappily adopted, and the result has been, that it has proved most destructive to their peace and piety. If subjection on the part of a wife be a duty enjoined upon her by the authority of God, surely she ought to yield conformity to the will of her husband, where their mutual happiness and the religious improvement of their children are at stake. To demand or to require submission from him on this point, is no less unscriptural than indecorous; nor ought he to yield, unless he wishes to proclaim his own disgrace.

A spirit of most tender regard for your present and eternal welfare has dictated these hints, and I pray the Lord to bless them.

J. M.

the total extinction of every spark of affection. An evil of such a destructive character does not take its rise in any of those ebullitions of feeling to which the most placid, as well as the more turbulent, are occasionally exposed, but may be attributed to negligence-the cherishing of an unaccommodating disposition. I am not disposed to insinuate that wives are exclusively to blame for this declension of attachment, but I would urge you to be on your guard, lest what has destroyed the bliss of others may mar your own. If you wish to retain, as a permanent possession, that ascendency over the affections of your husband which you have acquired, do not neglect yourself. Your person is precious in his sight; never let it be disfigured by the appearance of negligence.

He may have a more exquisite taste for neatness than he can state, without being supposed to insinuate reproof; and, therefore, for his sake no less than your own, be careful that no offence is unnecessarily given to it. But, after all, he will be more anxious about the brilliant appearance of the jewel than the exterior condition of the casket in which

words, 'good will towards men,' are worthy the attention of every reader, who is either anticipating, or at this moment enjoying, the blessings of a Christmas festival.

There are many whose eyes will rest on these pages, to whom it may be said: God has seen fit to shower on your heads his choicest blessings; and the season of Christmas, which you are wont to dedicate to joy and festivity, calls upon you, while you are enjoying the good things your prosperity may afford, to think upon the wretched condition of those who are ready to perish. Before you raise to your lip the cup filled with mellow wine, or taste the delicious viands your table may supply, resolve to spare something from your superfluity to those who are suffering; ask yourselves if you know no poor and worthy family who might be made comparatively happy by the very crumbs which fall from your Christmas-table. Remember that in the cold and wintry season, there are many on whose lot the unfriendliness of poverty is added to the rigours of the season. Christmas-day, a day of festivity to you, is to many around you a day of weeping and of mourning. While you are enjoying

yourselves, thousands are as it were feeding upon ashes, and their tears their drink. Well, indeed, hath the poet said:

If

"Ah! little think the gay, licentious, proud,
Whom pleasure, power and affluence surround,
They, who their thoughtless hours on giddy mirth,
And wanton, often cruel, riot waste-

Ah! little think they while they dance along,
How many feel this very moment death,

In all the sad variety of pain

How many drink the cup

Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread
Of misery. Sore pierced by wintry winds,
How many shrink into the sordid hut

Of cheerless poverty."

you

would make a merry Christmas to others, and a really happy one to yourselves, on Christian

principles, feed the hungry, visit the sick, clothe the naked,' and give the gospel to the poor.'

B.

CLOSING THOUGHTS,

ON THE LATE DREADFUL VISITATION OF PESTILENCE.

As our labours for the present volume of the SOUVENIR will terminate with the article on which we are now engaged, we have felt it a sacred duty to ask the attention of our readers of all classes to a few serious thoughts, on a subject which either has been, or soon may be, of very deep personal interest. Except among our hitherto exempted brethren of the eastern states, there is scarcely a section of our country to be reached by our unpretending volume, which has not felt the pressure of the 'pestilence that walketh' comparatively in darkness;' and sure we are, that we may safely venture to ask our readers, before they close the volume, to follow us, while, for their good as our object, we offer a few suggestions.