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BED SORES.

When a person lies long in bed, wash the back and hips with brandy to harden the skin, and put thin pillows to take the weight off any tender part. But if sore does form, mix together equal parts of mutton suet and bread crumbs, grated fine, in a saucepan over a fire, with a little water, and stir them till they make a soft poultice, and apply it twice a day.

A HYMN FOR THE MILLION, IN THESE PERILOUS TIMES. (BY MARTIN F. TUPPER.)

"God preserve the Queen!"

How glorious is thy calling,
My happy Fatherland,

While all the thrones are falling,

In righteousness to stand!

Amid the earthquakes heaving thus
To rest in pastures green,-
Then, God be praised, who helpeth us,
And-God preserve the Queen!

How glorious is thy calling!

In sun and moon and stars

To see the signs appalling
Of prodigies and wars,―

Yet by thy grand example still

From lies the world to wean,

Then, God be praised who guards from ill,

And-God preserve the Queen!

Within thy sacred border

Amid the sounding seas,

Religion, Right, and Order

Securely dwell at ease;

And if we lift this beacon bright

Among the nations seen,

We bless the LORD who loves the right,
And-God preserve the Queen!

Fair pastures and still waters

Are our's withal to bless

The thronging sons and daughters
Of exile and distress:

For who so free, as English hearts
Are, shall be, and have been ?
Then, God be thanked on our parts,
And-God preserve the Queen!

Though strife and fear and madness
Are raging all around,

There still is peace and gladness
On Britain's holy ground:

But not to us the praise,-to us
Our glory is to lean

On Him who giveth freely thus,
And-God preserve the Queen!
O nation greatly favour'd,

If ever thou should'st bring
A sacrifice well savour'd

Of praise to GOD THE KING,
Now, now let all thy children raise
In faith and love serene,

The loyal patriot hymn of praise
Of God preserve the Queen!

THE BETTER OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH.

IN December last, a gentleman, anxious to promote the better observance of the Sabbath, issued an announcement, offering three prizes, of 25l. 157. and 107. respectively, for the three best essays on "the Temporal Advantages of the Sabbath to the Labouring Classes." It was stated in the advertisement, that "the competitors must be working men, in the strict sense of the expression;" and the essays were required to be forwarded to the adjudicators before the 30th March. Notwithstanding the shortness of the interval allowed, and the circumstance that many of the competitors did not hear of the matter until within a month of the day fixed for the reception of the essays, the advertiser's announcement was responded to by upwards of 950 working men; a cheering indication of the moral and intellectual condition of the working classes, and of the prevalence, among our labouring population, of those qualities of mind and heart which are the surest guarantees both of order and of liberty. Among the essays received was one bearing the title of "The Pearl of Days," written by a servant girl, the daughter of a labourer. The terms of the original announcement, limiting the prizes to working men, prevented the adjudicators from voting either of them to the author, but they have now published it for her benefit, and the Queen, on being made acquainted with the circumstances, has directed that the work be dedicated to Her Majesty.

CARE OF CHILDREN.

PARENTS ought seriously to consider that they are to their children, either their best friends, or their worst enemies; and a solemn reckoning will be made at the last great day. What an awful meeting will that be for ungodly parents and ungodly children! What a blessed meeting for pious parents, and grateful happy children whose feet. they have early directed into the way of peace! How true and how weighty are those sayings of Holy Writ, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it;" but "a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame!"

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Never deceive children in the smallest matter or the greatest. Never promise that which you cannot perform, or which you do not intend to perform. Never get them to act as you wish, by telling them a thing is different from what it really is, or by any foolish threats of "an old man," 66 a black man," 99 66 a ghost," &c. It is foolish to make them fear what has no being, and wicked to make them fear and hate what does exist, but would never injure them. People talk of "white lies" to children, there are no white lies; but some of the blackest are those which, by deceiving children, teach them to practise lying and deceit themselves.

Children should be early taught to employ their time in doing something useful. There is no surer way to make a child respect himself, and have a regard to his character, than to let him feel that he is of some use to his parents; and nothing so effectually keeps children out of mischief as the habit of having something to do.

Children should be early trained to an orderly attendance at the house of God. It is not for us to say at how early a period religious impressions of a saving kind may be made on the minds of children. Some children have given decided evidence of them, very young indeed; but whether or not a child of three years old may be benefited by what he hears, it is a disgrace that a child of years old should keep some one at home to mind him. A mother who manages her infant well, may very safely take it in her arms the first six or eight months.

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It will then perhaps become so lively as to disturb the solemnity of worship; but if it is brought under control, and accustomed to habits of propriety at home, at eighteen or twenty months old, it may be made sensible that at such a time and place he must be quiet. It is of great importance early to impress on the minds of children sentiments of respect and reverence for the ministers of the Gospel. Children are very observant of tones and manners. Happy are those children whose earliest associations are connected with the minister as the most esteemed friend of the family; one who was always welcomed with affectionate cordiality, always spoken of with respect and gratitude; his advice sought; his approbation valued; his instructions treasured up and enforced; and the success of his labours made a constant matter of prayer. Many such families have I known, and I have observed that the young people in those families have been distinguished by a modest sedateness of manners, and a reverence for sacred things in general; which, though not in themselves amounting to a saving change, nor by any means to be substituted for it, are yet very lovely and desirable, and which are often the companions or the precursors of an ear and a heart opened to receive the saving impressions of Divine truth. I have known families, yes, and schools also, professedly religious, where the dinner-table conversation of the heads of the family on a Sabbath-day was generally occupied in censuring some expression of the minister, or ridiculing something in his tone or manner. And the effects have been lamentable. Some young minds, on which impressions had been made by the sermons so ridiculed, were then encouraged to postpone the convictions they had begun to admit, and to shut their hearts against the instructions they were taught to despise. Some have even advanced from contempt of an individual minister, to indifference, contempt, and scepticism on all religious subjects. A great and beneficial hold is laid on a child who is taught to reverence his minister.

Parents who know the value of their own souls, will hardly neglect the religious instruction of their children. Perhaps they may feel their own ignorance and inability

to teach; yet let them be encouraged to try. It is very remarkable that the means of instruction most expressly charged on parents in the word of God, is that which is in the reach of the poorest and most illiterate. It requires no great learning to talk in a familiar way with our children. Who is there that sits down to a meal, and rises up in silence? Who takes a walk with his children, and says nothing as they go along? Now Scripture expressly enjoins, that this free and affectionate intercourse between parents and their children, should be made subservient to the purposes of early religious instruction. The only pre-requisite for employing this best and most efficient means, is a heart thoroughly alive to the importance of the subject. "And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thine house, and upon thy gates.' That is, all the habits and observances of the family should be calculated to keep alive a constant remembrance of religion, and to present it in a lovely and attractive form to all around. A child brought up in a consistent family, when he goes out into the world, will look anxiously for a Bible, and feel the want of it a deficiency for which nothing can compensate. He will wait for the summons to family prayer, and if no such call be heard, he will feel that a most important part of the business of the day has been neglected, and a most delightful part of its daily enjoyments withheld.

Parents who are sensible of their own deficiencies, and yet desirous that their children should be well instructed, will surely avail themselves of the valuable advantages of Sunday-school instruction. Indeed, every young person, in whatever station of life they may be placed, ought to be either a Sunday-school scholar or teacher. It is a pity that either pride, indifference, or love of pleasure on the part of the young, or false in

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