answer to my inquiries, the lady said, "He is the son of a missionary. His parents couldn't educate their children in India, so they came back here. But they had learned the language of India, and they did not feel that it was right for them to stay in this country. Finally, the husband said, 'You stay here, wife, and educate the children and I will go back.' The mother said, 'No; God has used me there with you—we will go back together.' 'But,' the father said, 'you can't give up those children. You never have been separated from them since they were born. How can you leave them in this country and go back?' She replied, bravely, 'I can do it if Christ wants me to.' They made it a matter of prayer and put notices in the papers that they were going to leave their children, and asked Christian people to take them and educate them. I saw the notice and wrote that I would take one child and bring it up for Christ's sake. The mother came and stayed a week in our home and observed everything. She watched the order and discipline of the family, and after she was convinced that it was a safe place to leave her boy, she set the day for departing. My room adjoined hers, and when the time came to start, I heard her pray, 'Lord Jesus, help me now. I need Thee. Help me to give up this dear boy without a tear, that I may leave him with a smile. Oh, God, give me strength.' She was helped to leave with a bright smile on her face. She went to five homes in the same way and went back to India, leaving her five children. "Some time afterward," Mr. Moody continued, "I was in Hartford and found a young man busy in the good work of picking up the rough boys of the streets and bringing them to my meetings and trying to lead them to Christ. It pleased me very much and I asked who he was. He was studying in the theological seminary, and I found he was one of those five sons of that brave woman, and all of the five were expecting to return to India to carry on their father's work."
(2304)
PARENTHOOD AMONG SAVAGES
An Australian mother will coddle her baby
with ape-like fondness, and hardly ever let
it stray out of sight for the first four years;
but as soon as the toddling little imp seems
able to take care of itself, its debt of gratitude
to its progenitors has to be paid by
the worst kind of slavery. At the first sign
of insubordination a half-grown boy is apt
to be kicked out, if not killed, by his own
father. (Text.)—Felix Oswald, Good Health.
(2305)
Parentless—See Sympathy, Practical. Parents—See Example of Parents. PARENTS AS TEACHERS OF RELIGION The teaching and preaching by fathers and mothers in the seclusion of the home circle are doing much more to determine the fate of souls than the eloquent sermons and elaborate lessons in pulpit and Sunday-school. Parents are touching life at its beginnings, making impressions that can never be obliterated. The family is the natural and divinely appointed school of religion because it has the first opportunity. The smallest thing at the beginning of life affects all the future. A child but a year old slipt and fell on a wet floor, and tho that was seventy years ago, the man is lame yet. And the moral nature is as easily crippled as the body. The moral lameness we see in the old or middle-aged is often caused by some mis-*taught or neglected lesson in infancy.—The Cumberland Presbyterian.
(2306)
Parents, Example of—See Family Religion.
PARSIMONY IN GIVING
On one occasion a new silver dollar found
itself in the same plate with a penny with
the head of an Indian upon it. And the
goddess of Liberty looked down upon the
Indian, and said: "You miserable, copper-*faced,
feather-trimmed heathen, what are
you doing in this plate, in the same company
with me?" And the copper coin, with
the Indian's face, responded: "I am found in
a great many more missionary gatherings
than you are!"
(2307)
PARTIALITY
Chief Justice Marshall, of the United
States, was all his life an ardent votary of
quoits. He was an active member of the
Barbecue or Quoit Club for forty years,
their main amusement being quoits and back-*gammon.
Great respect was paid to the
veteran lawyer in these contests. Once an
old Scotch gentleman was called in to decide
between him and a keen rival as to
the winner, and after a most careful measurement
that oracle gave his decision thus:
