If thus treated, you

cannot fail to know when he is done. will find him very digestible, agreeing nicely with you and the children, and he will keep as long as you want, unless you become careless and set him in too cold a place.”

The homely, affectionate, and familiar way in which priests officiating at French weddings address the brides and bridegrooms has often been commented upon. One recently delivered ran as follows: "It is from the bottom of my heart, Joseph, that I congratulate you upon the great step you are taking. It was indeed sad to see you wasting your youth in a life of disgusting drunkenness. However, all is well that ends well; and it pleases me to think that you have said good-bye for ever to the wine shop. As to you, my poor Catherine, thank heaven heartily that you have been able, ugly as you are, to find a husband. Never forget that you ought, by an unchangeable sweetness, and a devotion without bounds, to try to obtain pardon for your physical imperfection; for, I repeat, you are a real blunder of nature. And now, my dear children, I join you in matrimony."

Catherine might well be comforted, for it is quite true that beauty of temper atones for ugliness of face, and that a sweet and devoted wife who is physically imperfect has in the long run a greater influence over her husband than one who is better looking but worse tempered. Never lose your temper: it ruins the face, and it always leaves a disagreeable impression which nothing quite rubs out. You will grow old in years; but you may continue youthful in feeling, and beautiful in the eyes of your husband by a constant use of the following prescription:

"Of Unselfishness, three drams,

Of Essence of Heart's-ease, three drams,

Of the Spirit of Charity, three drams, and no scruples,
Of Extract of Rose of Sharon, a whole ounce.

The mixture to be taken daily."

As a rule "the husband is the head of the wife; but sometimes she is the stronger of the two.

It is not her

fault that she is the stronger; she is what she has been made, and water must find its own level. Let her guide her husband along the right road without his feeling the bit. She must choose her opportunity and cultivate tact. A good wife is

"Blessed with temper, whose unclouded ray
Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day!
She who ne'er answers till a husband cools,
Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules;
Charms by accepting, by submitting, sways,
Yet has her humour most when she obeys."

For the sake of completeness this chapter should be followed by one on the management of a wife. We give it up, and leave it to be written by the man who has managed a wife, and who knows how it is done. It is true that Petrucio is represented by Shakespeare as having managed even "Katharine the curst," but this never was done in real life, and is only the creation of the poet's brain. I shall say nothing of my own on the subject, but shall quote a remark lately made to me by a young married woman: "We women," she said, "like to be mastered if we get a really good master, but that is the great difficulty."

"Bring thy children up in learning and obedience, yet without outward austerity. Praise them openly, reprehend them secretly. Give them good countenance and convenient maintenance according to thy ability, otherwise thy life will seem their bondage, and what portion thou shalt leave them at thy death, they will thank death for it, and not thee. And I am persuaded that the foolish cockering of some parents, and the over-stern carriage of others, causeth more men and women to take ill courses than their own vicious inclinations."-Lord Burleigh.

HE patriarchal or family form of government is generally acknowledged to be the foundation and first development of all government. The man who can well rule his family is capable of governing a kingdom. No wonder that the Apostle Paul should say, when speaking of the necessary qualifications of a bishop, that a suitable candidate for the office is one who maintains good government in his

own house. "For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the Church of God?" Yet this is the government that people generally undertake without any serious thought or the slightest preparation. Parents go into their office with good intentions perhaps, but without any attempt to understand the duties and authority it involves. We all understand that some kind of preparation is necessary to teach school, drill soldiers, or even to make coats and boots; but as regards preparation for parenthood-this is ignored by every curriculum of education.

The first thing to be said about family government is that it should really maintain law and rule. It is more than a mere nursing, petting, and provisioning agency. Fancying that there is a kind of severity implied in the act of governing, some parents are unwilling to bear rule at all. And yet by common consent we speak of an ungoverned family as a synonym of a disorderly, wretched, if not ruined family. There is no greater cruelty than this false tenderness. There is indeed a kind of cruelty on the opposite side when despotic will and violence make no appeal to the moral nature. Yet even this may not be so cruel in its effects as the false tenderness just named.

Parental authority should be regarded as vicegerent authority set up by God and ruling in His stead. A parent is to a child what God is to a good man. He is the moral governor of its world of childhood. Parental government is therefore only genuine when it rules for the same ends as God pursues. But how seldom is this ideal even in a small

degree realized! We rule as parents in a careless, irresponsible way, making laws, not for the child's highest and most lasting good, but for our own selfish convenience or for the gratification of vanity. We want our children to shine and be fashionable, and with this end in view a vexatious yoke of unnecessary commands is put upon them. If some parents exerted themselves as much in developing the moral characters of their children as they do in making them please their own hobbies, they would indeed be parental models.

When children accord willing obedience, then the end of family government is gained. By willing obedience is meant that obedience which springs from right motive and is not given to mere will and force. The highest and perhaps the most effective motives that can be urged are such as these: Doing right because it is right; God's approbation; the approval of conscience; the sense of honour as opposed to the meanness of lying and deceit. Besides these highest

motives there are lower ones that are sometimes more practical. Rewards and punishments are second-class motives, but they cannot be dispensed with. It is certainly better even to bribe a child to do good than not to have the good done. And as regards fear, if it be a mean motive, yet it is the only one to which mean children will much attend. There is, then, to be such a thing as penalty in family government, but it should be inflicted with the greatest consideration. First of all, it should be threatened and inflicted as seldom as possible. When, however, it is threatened, let it be inflicted, for nothing so much weakens