measure, which, while it may be the
best one for us, may not be exactly adapted to them. "By their fruits
you shall know them," which the Apostle defines thus: "The fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness,
faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law."

Pleasant and merry times your dear mother had at home, with her
young friends, and long to be remembered. But more cherished still to
her are the recollections of our religious hours. The same sweet hymns
of praise that she loved to sing, while away at school, that would
bring tears trickling down her sunny face, and with them that relief
which her home-sick heart required, ascended in former times at our
morning and evening orison. A few friends dropping in to tea were no
excuse to evade the worship of our God. Regularly the Bible and hymn
books were placed, before retiring from table, in front of your
grandfather, and without an apology, excepting occasionally he might
say, "it is our habit," as he turned the leaves of the Blessed Book.

There were a few restrictions with regard to how often your
mother, when a young lady, should accept invitations to spend the
evening out, or have invited company at home, but none was so strictly
regarded as the one concerning Saturday night: for, as in early
childhood she had been taught to put away her toys and irreligious
books before the dawn of the Sabbath, she now found it easy and
natural, if not to prepare her mind for the sacred day, at least to
engage in nothing which might physically unfit her for its enjoyments.
And the Sabbath was esteemed "the day of all the week the best." Often
felt so by her, who, in the midst of this fascinating and beautiful
world, never forgot that it was the burden of her father's prayers that
like "Mary of old, she might choose that good part which should never
be taken from her, and learn like her, to sit humbly at the feet of
Jesus." And this quiet day of rest, so still, so sweet, so unlike the
bustle of the world without, is well calculated to arrest the current
of worldly thought, and cause the mind to revert to the impressions of
happy childhood, and often to incite a desire for joys more pure and
stable than Earth can afford.

Christians of an ardent temperament, who have come out from the
world without having had previous religious training, are apt to go to
extremes, and in trying to keep the Sabbath holy sometimes become
slav