Oh say not, dream not, heavenly notes

To childish ears are vain :

That the young mind at random floats,
And cannot reach the strain:

And if some notes be false and low,
What are all prayers beneath,
But cries of babes that cannot tell

Half the deep thoughts they breathe?

Keble.

ལ

66

In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening

withhold not thine hand."

T would be impossible to overstate the importance of EARLY CHRISTIAN TRAINING. There is but one Spring season in the year, and if that be not improved, no after diligence can compensate for the neglect. Let a man wait until the fertilising rains of Spring have ceased to fall, and until the ground is beginning to harden in the fierce heats of Summer, and no matter how good the seed he sows, nor how great the skill and diligence he expends on its culture, the storehouse and barn will not be filled in Autumn. Even the briefest period of neglect will result in evil consequences of no slight magnitude. The right time allowed to pass in the right month, the delay will tell upon the produce, although the after attention be unremitting.

Nature's lesson is easily translated into spiritual language.

Our children are in the Spring of their days, and we are the gardeners under whose culture God has placed them. On us, as parents, rests the responsibility so to tend and train them, that they may, in this life, be fruitful of all excellence, and, in the life to come, dwell in that better country, where

"Everlasting Spring abides, and never-withering flowers."

The husbandman's voice and example in the Spring of Nature's year call loudly to us,-"Do not delay the commencement of your task.”

There are parents, who, mistaking what religion is—and, alas! how common are such mistakes !—seem to fancy, that it is possible to begin too early. If religion were a matter of knowledge only, this might be so; but religious, Christian truth is designed and adapted to meet the opening thoughts and feelings and affections of the youngest child.

The child may know but little in the head: it may nevertheless feel much in the heart. The love and fear of God, gratitude for the Divine goodness, the holiness of God, the sinfulness of our nature, the Divine love of Jesus, the help of the Holy Spirit, the graces of the Spirit beautifying and adorning the character and the life,-children are capable of very early impressions of these main religious truths. Christ said not in vain, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me and forbid them not: for of