FLUENCE OF INDOLENCE.

If you would preserve your children from the pernicious influence of
indolence and all its corrupting tendencies, you must be earnest in
purpose, active, energetic and fervent in spirit. Earnestness sharpens
the faculties; indolence corrodes and dulls them. By the former we rise
higher and higher, by the latter we sink lower and lower. Indolence
begets discontent, envy and jealousy, while labor elevates the mind and
character. Cultivate in your children habits of thought which will keep
their minds occupied upon something that will be of use or advantage,
and prevent them from acquiring habits of idleness, if you would secure
their future well-being.

It has been said that he who performs no useful act in society, who
makes no human being happier, is leading a life of utter selfishness--a
life of sin--for a life of selfishness is a life of sin. There is
nowhere room for idleness. Work is both a duty and a necessity of our
nature, and a befitting reward will ever follow it. To foster and
encourage labor in some useful form, is a duty which parents should urge
upon their children, if they should seek their best good.

SELF-RESPECT.

It is the mother's duty to see that her children protect themselves from
the many pit-falls which surround them, such as malice, envy, conceit,
avariciousness, and other evils, by being clad in the armor of
self-respect; and then they will be able to encounter temptation and
corruption, unstained and unpolluted. This feeling of self-respect is
something stronger than self-reliance, higher than pride. It is an
energy of the soul which masters the whole being for its good, watching
with a never-ceasing vigilance. It is the sense of duty and the sense of
honor combined. It is an armor, which, though powerless to shield from
sorrows that purify and invigorate, yet will avert all hostile
influences that assail, from whatever source they come. The mother
having once made her children conscious that always and everywhere they
carry with them such an angel to shield, warn and rescue them, may let
them go out into the world, and fear nothing from the wiles and
temptations which may beset them.

RESULTS OF GOOD-BREEDING IN THE HOME CIRCLE.

The laws of good-breeding in no place bear more gratifying results than
in the home circle. Here, tempered with love, and nurtured by all kindly
impulses, they bear the choicest fruit. A true lady will show as much
courtesy, and obse