HINTS FOR THE HOUSEHOLD. HEALTH PROMOTERS. Active habits, cheerfulness, early rest and early rising, temperance, and cleanliness, are great promoters of health. They are recommended for their cheapness, and are within the reach of all. Sir Astley Cooper said, that the methods he employed for preserving his own health were temperance, early rising, and sponging the body with cold water every morning as soon as he rose. These habits, he stated, he had adopted for thirty years, and though exposed to all weathers, he scarcely ever had a cold. RULES FOR A SICK ROOM. 1. A sick room should be kept very sweet and airy; if the weather is warm enough, let the door or window be open; if cold, let there be a small fire; the chimney should never be stopped up. 2. It should be made rather dark, by a blind over the window, but bed-curtains should not be drawn close. 3. It should be very clean; the floor should be wiped over with a damp cloth every day. 4. As soon as medicine comes read the labels and directions carefully. The medicines should be kept in one particular place, and all bottles, cups, etc., that are done with should be taken away at once. 5. The room should be kept very quiet; there should be no talking nor gossiping; one or two people at the most, besides the invalid, are quite enough to be there at a time. 6. The sick person's face and hands and feet should be often washed with warm water and soap, and the mouth be rinsed with vinegar and water; the hair should be cut rather short, and be combed every day. 7. Never give gin, rum, or other spirits, unless ordered by the medical attendant; sick people always feel weak, but such things given at a wrong time would only make them weaker. 8. When the person lies long in bed, take great care that the back and hips are kept clean and dry. If any place looks red or tender, dab it twice a day with some spirit, and arrange thin pillows, so as to take the weight off the tender parts. If the skin comes off, apply yellow basilicon ointment.-R. Druit, F.R.C.S. ECONOMY IN COALS. It is usual in many families to have a stock of coke as well as coal; and by having the coke broken up very small, a good fire will soon be produced. You may also effect a great saving in coal by having the ashes kept, mixing small coal or coal-dust with them, and throwing a small quantity of water on this mixture. Take some of this compost and put it at the back of the grate, fill up the front with coal, and it will all burn together brightly and clear, and save a great deal of trouble in sifting the cinders.-Household Guide. TO PRESERVE GREEN VEGETABLES. They must be kept on damp stones, covered over with a damp cloth. Beet-root, parsnips, carrots, and potatoes, are best kept in dry sand during the winter. Never wash them till they are wanted for use. Onions should be tied up in bunches and hung up. Take and bury parsley in a jar during the winter, or dry it, by hanging it up in a warm room. THE MOTHERS' TREASURY. THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN. T may be said that the children of godly parents often prove the very reverse of their parents, often disappoint their warmest and most cherished expectations. This is no doubt true. But let me ask,-May it not be that there has been some neglect, some omission in the training, some adverse influences which were unheeded, which were so strong that they overcame the good which was too feebly attempted? Godly parents sometimes err, as did David and Eli, in the bringing up of their families. If the instruction is what it ought to be, the discipline may be wanting, or the example may be defective. And it will sometimes happen that all these are more or less wanting. There must be a due mixture and combination of these three things, instruction, discipline, and example, to constitute "training up ;" and these continued through a series of years, prayerfully and systematically, to insure success. And when this is done with full reliance upon the promises of God in His holy word, we have reason to believe that God will grant His blessing. His promise to the Church at large is, "I will be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee." "I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring: and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses. One shall say, I am the Lord's; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel" (Isa. xliv. 3-5). Such promises as these the believing parent will take to God, and plead in prayer,-just as you take a bank-note to the bank which has issued it, and ask for gold. And God is faithful. He will not disappoint those who trust in Him. It is recorded of a mother who had the joy of seeing her children early brought to surrender themselves, heart and soul, to God's service, that being asked the secret of so much blessing, she replied, that she thought it must be because she had always brought them up with prayer. "While my children were infants on my lap, as I washed them, I prayed that God would wash them in that blood which cleanseth from all sin. As I dressed them in the morning, I asked my heavenly Father to clothe them in the robe of Christ's righteousness. As I set their food before them, I prayed that God would feed their souls with the bread of life, and give them to drink of the water of life. When I made them ready for the house of God, I used to ask Him that their little bodies might be fit temples for the Holy Ghost to dwell in. When they left for daily school, my heart followed their little feet with the prayer that they might be guided along the narrow paths of life. And as I laid them on their little beds at night, the silent cry of my heart was that their heavenly Father would take them to His embrace, and fold them in His everlasting arms." Such earnest and constant prayers as these were answered by Him who delights in believing prayer. Oh! consider, then, how your children are to be trained, that they may become blessings to you and to mankind. Think of the time, the attention, the care, the vigilance, which are necessary, and the prayers with which all this is to be accompanied, that they may be so trained. But is any time, any care, any attention, any vigilance, any prayer, too much, if you can but obtain that they shall become faithful servants of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven? Sad indeed, and most sinful, is the condition of those parents who neglect these momentous interests, and leave their children to take their chance, as it were, whether they shall have these blessings or lose them; whether they shall be saved or lost; whether they shall enter into life, or suffer death eternal. Such parents indeed there are. May God of His infinite mercy awaken you, my reader, if you be a parent, to a sense of your sin and danger, and arouse you to a conviction of your duties, and a strenuous endeavour to discharge them; for how terrible it will be to discover at the last, that both your own souls are eternally undone, and those whom God entrusted to you to bring up for Him, are undone also for ever! But for those who have laboured to train up their children in the way they should go, in Christian faith and holiness, how blessed will it be, when the Lord comes again in His glory, to receive His gracious approval, and in their salvation to find the reward of all their toils. O Christian parents, fathers, and mothers, look forward to that day; and with that prospect before you, leave nothing undone that you ought to do, that those whom He has entrusted to your care may then be presented unto Him without spot and blemish, cleansed in His blood, clothed in His righteousness, sanctified by His Spirit, and so made meet for His eternal kingdom.-THE DEAN OF SYDNEY, IN Home Visitor. "CHRISTIAN families are Divine plantations settled by God Himself, for this very end and purpose, to be nurseries of religion and godliness."-Howe. "A HOLY, well-governed family is the preparation to a holy, well-governed church."-Baxter. 'MY MOTHER'S PRAYERS." HE Rev. Mr. Bradford, the well-known prison chaplain, states: "A young man on whose mind the doctrines of religion had been early impressed by his pious mother's instructions, gave way to evil associations, and at length went to sea. Although he was early taught to study the sacred Scriptures, and at one period of life gave evidence that he desired to be guided by its precepts, he fell deeply into sin, and ultimately became, alas! an abandoned and miserable creature. He was thrown into prisons and workhouses, and into dens of wretchedness and vice; but into all these places his faithful mother seemed to follow him with her prayers and tears. The mother died, well-nigh broken-hearted, leaving her son in prison, convicted of crime. Here he was an object of so much dread that the keepers were afraid to approach him. In about six months, however, the tiger began to grow tame, and, to the surprise of every one, his inquiry was, 'What shall I do to be saved? "I questioned him about his feelings, and he informed me that for two months he had paced his room, with sleepless nights, in agony and remorse, save when exhausted nature would sometimes overcome his horrible convictions. I inquired what particular cause had led him to his present remarkable change of feelings. "He replied, 'My mother's prayers and counsels! Her last words to me were,- 66 William, there is no other name given under heaven among men, whereby you can be saved, but the name of Jesus Christ." "His mother's prayers were answered, and this poor wandering prodigal became a consistent follower of the Lord Jesus Christ." |