knife, and said that he would rather die first, since he was of the tribe of Levi, and none of that tribe were allowed to enter the sanctuary with mutilated limbs! A plucky son of Abraham indeed; and his pluck would be worthy of our imitation, if we insisted on such a _status_ of manly integrity as to refuse to do any wrong to our manhood, on the ground of its destroying our position and selling our birthright. We do need certainly some deeper sense of our personal and national worth at the outset: and our children should be trained to look upon themselves as heirs of the ages, children of Providence, and bound to keep the priceless trust confided to them. A cheerful home should love them before they can return the love, a great nation guard over themselves, and a broad and exalted and genial and helpful church should be mother to them before they know how to interpret her care; and the golden light of the first home should shine upon them as but the faint, earthly gleam of that uncreated light that kindles every rational intelligence, and sends it into the world, as if, "trailing clouds of glory," we came "from God who is our home." We ask our writers for children to throw this cheerful radiance upon the outset of their pilgrimage, and relieve the sore pressure of care, and the anxious burden of never ceasing responsibility, and the force of incessant temptation, by the great and blessed conviction that we start from the supreme good, and, if we go away from it, we not only come short of a precious prize, but we forfeit a sacred birthright. All the ages, nations, leaders, sages, heroes, apostles, have endowed us and our children with a priceless heritage; and we are not to start in life as if we were a set of beggars, aliens, slaves, or heathen. Rome has thought to bless and enrich our America by putting the land under the watch of the immaculate and supernatural Mother. I will not stop now to fight against Rome, but will be content to say that our children have from God a peculiar guardianship from the natural mother who bore them, and from that natural humanity which is the daughter of God and the recipient of all natural and supernatural graces. Mystical as this thought may seem, when stated in general terms, every genuine American poem and story is full of its meaning; and our best juvenile literature is making it our household faith and love. We shall see good days, when our children start from the true home feeling, and a sacred memory joins hands with a brave and cheerful hope. Our good old mothers thought so; and our books are good as they repeat their wisdom and renew their love. We might weary our readers, if we tried to say what is in our minds of the American mother in history, and the ideal mother that should charm our books and pictures; but no more now. DIOS TE DE.[1]