"If ye count society for past time,--what happier recreation
than a nursling,
Its winning ways, its prattling tongue, its innocence and mirth?
If ye count society for good,--how fair a field is here,
To guide these souls to God, and multiply thyself in heaven!"

"Walk, therefore, worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all
lowliness and meekness." "Magnify your office." Be faithful to your
home-mission. Draw your pleasure from it. Souls are committed to your trust
and hang upon your hire. Your regard for the temporal and eternal welfare
of your children should prompt you to faithfulness to the holy mission of
your family. You love your children, and desire their welfare and
happiness. But do what you will for them, if you are unfaithful to their
souls, you wrest from them the means of safety and of happiness; you aid in
their misery in this and in the world to come. You are more cruel to them
than was Herod who slew the bodies of children. You murder their souls. He
murdered the children of others; you murder your own; he employed others to
do it for him; you do the work of slaughter yourself! If, then, you love
your children; if their souls are committed to you; if your unfaithfulness
to them may result in their ruin; if God blesses the holy mission of your
home to their temporal and eternal welfare; if its fulfillment by you be
"like words spoken in a whispering-gallery, which, will be heard at the
distance of years, and echoed along the corridors of ages yet to come;" and
if it will prove to them in life like the lone star to the mariner upon the
dark and stormy sea,--should you not be faithful to your home-vocation!

Not only so, but your regard for your own comfort and happiness here and
hereafter should impel you to this faithfulness. Do you love yourself? Do
you regard your own comfort and welfare? Would you avoid painful