of our human nature must answer. Having a common love for one object, the mother for her son, the wife for her husband, they should be bound by strong ties, and their mutual interests should produce mutual kindness and sympathy, and this would always be the case if each were governed by the spirit of the Gospel. But alas! love of self rather than the pure love inculcated by Jesus Christ most often rules. Brought together from different paths, unlike, it may be, in natural temperament, perhaps differing in opinion, the mother wishing to retain her wonted control over her son, the wife feeling hers the superior claim, there springs up a contest which is the fruitful source of unhappiness, and which mars many an otherwise fine character. Before us in memory's glass as we write, sits one of a most fair and beautiful countenance, but over which hang dark clouds of care, and from the eyes drop slowly bitter tears. She is what all around her would call a happy wife and mother. Fortune smiles upon her, and the blessing of God abides by the hearth-stone. Her husband is a professing Christian, as is also his yet youthful-looking mother and the wife herself. Beautiful children gambol around her, and look wonderingly in her face as they see those tears. What is the secret of her unhappiness? She deems hers a very hard lot, and yet if we rightly judge, could her sorrow be resolved to its elements, it would be found that the turmoil of her spirit is occasioned solely by the fact that she finds it hard to maintain her fancied rights, her desired superiority over her husband and servants, because of the presence of her calm, firm, dignified mother-in-law, whose very lips seem chiseled to indicate that they speak only to be obeyed. What would be the result if the tender, considerate love of Naomi and the yielding spirit of Ruth were introduced to the bosom of each?