A father I love is away from me now Oh, could I but print a sweet kiss on his brow, Or smooth the grey locks, to my fond heart so dear, But my own darling home, it is dearer than all." A new home was afterwards found; but even there Margaret thus regretted the wilder scenery of her native place, Champlain :— "Thy verdant banks, thy lucid stream, "The little isles that deck thy breast, I've sported round them bright and free! My own, my beautiful Champlain! "How oft I've watched the freshening shower "And shall I never see thee more, My native lake, my much-loved shore? : And must I bid a long adieu, My own, my beautiful Champlain ?" Her sister, Lucretia Maria Davidson, had an equally strong home affection. Her father had suffered many losses during a recent war. Her mother, too, for weeks and months seemed on the verge of the grave. One of her poems to that beloved parent thus concludes: -- "Hang not thy harp upon the willow, That weeps o'er every passing wave; There's calm and peace beyond the grave." Touching as these lines are, there is one fact still more so. Her father's well-chosen library, so delightful to herself, had been broken up and scattered by the invasion of the town in which they dwelt, and with no common regret did Lucretia look on its empty shelves. One day her father met at a friend's house an English gentleman, who expressed a strong desire to see some of the productions of a little girl of whom he had heard much, and she consented, though with reluctance, that a few copies should be sent to the stranger. This gentleman returned a polite note to her father, expressing his pleasure, and enclosed a very handsome present in money for Lucretia. She received it, and examining it with eager simplicity, exclaimed, “Oh, papa, how many books it will buy!" But casting her eyes on the bed where her suffering mother was lying, a shade of tenderness passed over her bright countenance, as she added, "Oh, no, no, no! I cannot spend it; take it, papa; I do not want it; take it, and buy something for mamma!" Who does not see in a moment that these young persons acted rightly? They feltand they showed that they felt-what was due to a parent's love. A sense of this confers honour on all by whom it is displayed. I will give you another fact:-A plain country-looking man, many years ago, went to the house of the dean of Canterbury, and was insulted by a servant, for inquiring if John Tillotson was at home. His person, however, being described to the dean, he immediately exclaimed, "It is my worthy father;" and hastening to the door, he fell on his knees in the presence of his servants, to ask his father's blessing. He had learnedand often should a child think of this-that even a father would be unable to describe the love for his offspring which is cherished in a father's bosom. Yet there is, if possible, a love still more tender. Where is there the first gleam of an infant mind? It is in its smile-a smile of which its mother is the object, for it knows its mother before it knows itself. And here what tributes might I gather from the lives of eminent persons to a mother's love! I might not only form many beautiful flowers into a garland in its honour, but weave many such garlands. At present we can only look at one of these flowers here and there. Lord Bacon, a man of great rank, learning, and ability, thus displays his filial affection in his will:-"For my burial, I desire it may be in St. Michael's church, near St. Albans: there was my mother buried." Bishop Jewel had the name of his mother engraved on a signet. Hooker, a very celebrated writer, used to say, "If I had no other reason and motive for being religious, I would strive earnestly to be so for the sake of my aged mother, that I may requite her care of me, and cause the widow's heart to sing for joy." Gray, the poet, thirteen years after the death of his own mother, wrote to his friend Nicholls in the following terms: "It is long since I heard you were gone in haste into Yorkshire, on account of your mother's illness; and the same letter informed me she was recovered, otherwise I had then written to you to beg you would take care of her, and to inform you I had discovered a thing very little known, which is, that in one's own life, one can never have any more than a single mother." Cowper, who stands so high as a Christian poet, refers, with similar feelings, to the same relation, when he had received from his cousin his mother's picture, and among other lines, equally affecting, says: "'Tis now become a history little known, That once we called the pastoral house our own. A thousand other themes less deeply traced. Thy nightly visits to my chamber made, That thou might'st know me safe and warmly laid; C |