Now he 's under other banners

He must leave his former manners;
Bid adieu to female games,

And forget their very names.
Puss in corners, hide and seek,
Sports for girls and punies weak!
Baste the bear he now may play at,
Leap-frog, football, sport away at,
Show his skill and strength at cricket,
Mark his distance, pitch his wicket,
Run about in winter's snow

Till his cheeks and fingers glow,
Climb a tree or scale a wall,

Without any fear to fall.

If he get a hurt or bruise,

To complain he must refuse.

Though the anguish and the smart
Go unto his little heart,

He must have his courage ready,
Keep his voice and visage steady,
Brace his eyeballs stiff as drum,
That a tear may never come,
And his grief must only speak
From the color in his cheek.

This and more must he endure,

Hero he in miniature!

This and more must now be done,
Now the breeches are put on.

DOMESTIC INFLUENCE OF CHILDREN.

THE relations of parents and children are the holiest in our lives; and there are no pleasures, or cares, or thoughts connected with this world, which reminds us so soon of another. The helpless infancy of children sets our own death before us, when they will be left to a world to which we would not trust ourselves; and the thought of the character they may take in after life brings with it the question, what awaits them in another. Though there is a melancholy in this, its seriousness has a religious tendency. And the responsibility which a man has laid himself under begets a resoluteness of character, a sense that this world was not made to idle in, and a feeling of dignity that he is acting for a great

end. How heavily does one toil who labors only for himself; and how is he cast down by the thought of what a worthless creature it is all for!

We have heard of the sameness of domestic life. He must have a dull head and little heart who grows. weary of it. A man who moralizes feelingly, and has a proneness to see a beauty and fitness in all God's works, may find daily food for his mind even in an infant. In its innocent sleep, when it seems like some blessed thing dropped from the clouds, with tints so delicate, and with its peaceful breathing, we can hardly think of it as of mortal mould, it looks so like a pure spirit made visible for our delight.

"Heaven lies about us in our infancy," says Wordsworth. And who of us, that is not too good to be conscious of his own vices, who has not felt rebuked and humbled under the clear and open countenance of a child? Who that has not felt his

impurities foul upon him in the presence of a sinless child? These feelings make the best lesson that can be taught a man; and tell him in a way which all else he has read or heard never could, how paltry is all the show of intellect compared with a pure and good heart. He that will humble himself and go

to a child for instruction, will come away a wiser

man.

If children can make us wiser, they surely can make us better. There is no one more to be envied than a good-natured man watching the workings of children's minds, or overlooking their play. Their eagerness, curious about everything, making out by a quick imagination what they see but a part of,their fanciful combinations and magic inventions, creating out of ordinary circumstances, and the common things which surround them, strange events and little ideal worlds, and these all working in mystery to form matured thought, is study enough for the most acute minds, and should teach us, also, not too officiously to regulate what we so little understand.

The still musing and deep abstraction in which children sometimes sit, affect us as a playful mockery of older heads. The little philosophers have no foolish system, with all its pride and jargon, confusing their brains. Theirs is the natural movement of the soul, intense with new life, and busy after truth, working to some purpose, though without a noise.

When children are lying about seemingly idle and

dull, we, who have become case-hardened by time and satiety, forget that they are all sensation, that their outstretched bodies are drinking in from the common sun and air, that every sound is taken note of by the ear, that every floating shadow and passing form come and touch at the sleepy eye, and that the little circumstances and the material world about them make their best school, and will be the instructors and formers of their characters for life. And it is delightful to look on and see how busily the whole acts, with its countless parts fitted to each other, and moving in harmony. There are none of us who have stolen softly behind a child when laboring in a sunny corner, digging a Lilliputian well, or fencing in a six-inch barn-yard, and listened to his soliloquies, and his dialogues with some imaginary being, without our hearts being touched by it. Nor have, we observed the flush which crossed his face when finding himself betrayed, without seeing in it the delicacy and propriety of the after man.

A man may have many vices upon him, and have walked long in a bad course, yet if he has a love of children, and can take pleasure in their talk and play, there is something still left in him to act upon,