THE IN ESSENTIALS, UNITY; IN NON-ESSENTIALS, LIBERTY; ALL THINGS, CHARITY. SUFFOLK, YA., FRIDAY OCTOBER 8, 1880. Volume XXXIII Number AO. tired mothers. A little elbow leans upon your knee ; Y’our tired knee that has so much to bear ; A child’s dear es are looking lovingly From underneath a thatch of shining hair. Perhaps you do not heed the velvet touch Uf warm, moist fiugeis holding vours so tight; You do not prize this blessing over much, You almost are too tired to pray to-night! But it is blessedness. A year ago 1 did not see it as I do to-day ; We are so dull and thankless and too slow To catch the sunshine till it slips away. And now it seems surpassing strange to me, ’lhat while I boie the badge of motherhood, 1 did not kiss more oft and tenderly, The little child that brought me only good. And if. some night when you sit down to rest, You miss this elbow from your tired knee; This restless, curly head from of your breast, This lisping tongue that chatters constantly — If from your own the dimpled hand had Blipped And could not nestle in your palm again ; If the white feet into the grave had tripped, i could not blame you for your heartache then. I wonder so that mothers ever fret At little children clinging to their gown ; Or that the footprints, when the days are wet Are ever black enough U» make them frown. If I could find a little muddy boot, Or c»p or jacket on my chamber floor, If I could kiss a rosy, restless foot, ADd hear its palter io my borne once more— • If I could mend a broken cart to-day, To-morrow make a kite to reach the sky, TherG is no woman in God's world could say She was more blissfully content than I. But Oh ! the little pillow next my own Is never rumpled by a shining head ; My singing birdling from its nest has flown, The little boy I used to kiss—is dead I —May hiley Smith. PITCHING TOWARD SODOM. When Lot separated from Abra ham he pitched his tent “toward* Sodom.” He did not go to Sodom, and it is not certain that he intended to; but while he left Abraham be bftid upon the breezy bills, be pitch ed his tent ‘ towards Sodom,”aud the next thing we find of him he is in Sodom. To be sure the men of Sod orn were sinners exceedingly, and his rightesus soul was vexed from day to day with their unlawful deeds; but yet he hud “pitched his tent towards Sod oid,” and dually we see him inside oi the city. There may have been ebau ces for money-making in Sodom.— Possibly he had iuvested in coruei lots, and thought by speculation to acquire wealth. His wife had got tired of moviug around as Abraham did, and wondered perhaps how Aunt Surah could bear it. For her part she wanted to settle down and take some comfort. So Lot perhaps UullL mm U I1UUKU, »U J UJUUO wuau called a permanent settlement. But it was in Sodom. Sodom was all around him. Not only was his house in Sodom, but Sodom vras in hie house. “The men oi'Sodoui were sin ners exceedingly ; and the women 01 Sodom were no better; and ere long Lot found his whole family hopeless ly contaminated and defiled by the prevailing ungodliness. Lot did not stay loug in Sodom,but ■ yet he stayed too long. He got oui of it in a hurry ; but he did not get out soon euough. He leit all of bis wealth there; he left some of his children theie; his wife, looking back, perchance th the flue house where she had hoped to spend her declining years, was smitteu with the curse of God, and left a mouumeut ol his wrath. And when Lot1* old, im poverished and lonely, found his shelter in a mountain-cave, he found that the curse of Sodom followed him even there, and the abominations which vexed his soul amoug the Cities of the Plain, still clung to him and covered him with unspeakable disgrace, aDd made him the father ol two accursed natious, which were excluded from the congregation of the Lord, through all generations.— Gen. xix; Deut. xxti. 3 6. There are many men to-day who are pitching their tents toward Sod om, they have not settled there, nor would they on any account think of making Sodom their home, but they pitch their tents that way, and the end is not difficult to divine. To wards Sodom at first, in Sodom af terwards, then cursed with Sodom’s curse to the latest geueratious ; this is the result of pitching the tent to wards Sodom. When will men learn to beware of dallying with siul How much bet ter to be a pilgrim with Abraham, alone upon the distant hills, than to have Sodom’s pride and tulluess of hiead and abundance of idleuess, and Sodom’s shame and overthrow at last. CARING FOR THE LAMBS. When Jonathan Sturgis, the. emi nent merchant, was but eleven years ohl, he kept his grand father’s sheep. Complaining one day that the boy wild was sent to help him lay nnder the tree and read, leaving him to do all the work, his grandfather kindly replied, “Never mind, Jonathan, my boy, you watch the sheep and you will have the sheep.” He who takes care of property us ually has property; lie who takes care of clothes, always has clothes; and ho who takes care of money is not likely to be destitute of it Ana frequently that which seems least worthy of our care is the most im portant thing of all. The care of the pence'is more important than the care of the ponuds. The “stitch iu time” is the great thing which settles the question as to whether we are to be clothed or ragged. The most important thing in the family life is the baby. The grand parents will soon be gone ; lather and mother have about reached their highest point of growth, and must soon go down. The young people have grown up, and it is almost im possible uow to teach them what they should have been taught years ago, to save their lives from disaster and wreck ; but the baby,—he has ail oi life before him. Itightly trained he may out live them all and out-do them all, and be a power lor good iu the world, lie should have the fami ly’schielest cate; and a family which eliminates the baby from its circle, puts away the chief reason for its ex isteuce, and may count itself a failure. No wonder that such families die out. What have they to live for! They ueglect the little ones, and so can on ly expect deterioration and decay. A keeper of sheep who should ueg lect the lambs, and devote his time and attention exclusively to the old sheep, would in a few years have on ly a Hock of toothless ewes aged with ers who would give no promise of growth or increase, but would be dy ing off and thinning out every year. A wiser mail would take special care of the lambs, and so mako provision for a vigorous growth and an increas ing dock. We have seen persons who pro •eased to feed the dock of God, who took little or uo interest in the ehil dreu—little or no care of the lambs. What has been the result! Not withstanding all their zeal aud intel ligence, their churches have dwindl ed, their children have grown up in sin or have been led away to other associations, aud the docks bear all the marks of deterioration aud decay. They did not take care of the lambs, aud they lost them ;—others cared for them aud gained them. The United Presbyterian sensibly says; “YVe have frequently presented the complaints of the denominations that their membership does not increase. There are^ revivals, during which large numbers are received and en rolled, aud there are encouraging ac counts of statistical prosperity in many quarters, yet a tiual summing up discloses'the unhappy fact that if i here has not been loss, there has been but little gain. “Now, the natural growth of the church population ought to yield a a large yearly increase to the enroll ment ; and if no gain is made by con versions from the world, there should be evidence of numerical strengthen ing. The fact that this is not so, shows that the Church’s children are not true to their obligations. They wander off from the early home and Christian fold, losing themselves iu the worldliness that solicits and ab sorbs their devotion. Whatever can be done to resist this tendency will be well done. “ I he hope of the Church is in its own children. Mission schools are good, and saving souls iroui death, they may be expected to add some thing to the force of the Church, but the real dependence for stable andef lective strength must be in theyoutb born in the Church aud inheriting its blessings. We are gla