? Has not every
mother's heart made it already? asking the question, "Is my influence
over my children such that when I am gone my portrait shall have such
power over them for good?"

Cowper has embalmed his mother's miniature in lines which will touch the
heart while our language is preserved. But this picture is hallowed by
strains which are poured forth from angelic choirs, as they tune their
harps anew "over one sinner that repenteth."

The likeness of Cowper's mother led him to mourn for past delights, but
this picture led the son to look in humble joy to that blessed hope and
glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.

EDITH.

* * * * *

Original.

LIGHT READING.

During a recent tour in search of health and pleasure, I was surprised
and pained at seeing the amount of light reading indulged in while
traveling, by old and young of both sexes and all classes. I observed,
while rapidly urged over our railways, many thus engaged--many
purchasing eagerly the trash offered at every station, and could but
regret they had not provided with the same care food for the mind, by
placing in the satchel that contained sustenance for the body, some
valuable book, some truthful work.

Lake George, with its clear waters and lovely islands, its majestic,
untrod mountains and historical associations, had not attractions
sufficient to win the lovers of fiction from the false pages of life, to
the open, beautiful book of Nature. It was a bright July morning when I
stood upon the deck of the "John Jay."

"The beautiful sun arose--and there was not
A stain upon the sky, the virgin blue
Was delicate as light, and birds went up
And sang invisibly, the heavenly air
Wooed them so temptingly."

Now the mountain-tops were radiant with the golden light, now valley,
lake, and green islet, rejoiced in the morning sun. Yet, at such an
hour, amid such scenes, ladies and gentlemen were engrossed with the
mawkish sentimentalities of fictitious narrations, their eyes closed to
all the beauty of the time and place, their ears deaf to the delicious
harmony of awakening nature.

Lake Champlain, with its romantic ruins ever dear to the heart of an
American, its verdant shores and rural villages, nestling in the valleys
or crowning the hills, could scarce obtain a passing glance from those
enraptured with the improbable if not impossibl