taught his children to do the same. "Your wants may be brought within a very moderate compass; and I hope you will never feel yourself at liberty to waste on yourself such means as, by system and right principles, may be beneficially applied to the good of those around you." Sterling advice this is, from a wealthy father to his son, which advice I do most prayerfully commend to all parents and children that read the GUARDIAN, be they rich or poor. Lawrence had his own way of doing good. There were many persons and families, for whom he felt under the same obligations to provide, as for his own family. He kept two rooms in his house, sometimes three, wherein to receive and arrange useful articles as gifts for the benefit of others. There he spent many an hour in putting up packages and addressing them to the proper persons. Usually his coachman would help him. Many an attack of illness was brought on by overwork in these rooms. Some of these bundles (small haycocks" he was pleased to call them) grew to large dimensions. For a college professor he sends "a barrel and a bundle of books, with broadcloth and pantaloon stuff, with odds and ends, for poor students, when they go out to keep school in the winter," To another under-paid professor, he sent a "dressinggrown, vest, hat, slippers, jack-knife, scissors, pins, neck-handkerchief, pantaloons, cloth coat, books," &c. lot In riding out he would stop at some book store, and pack of religious books in his coach, which he scattered among needy persons as he passed along. Among the gifts he daily sent away is often found" a barrel of books." He kept an account of every package to whom sent, and the articles contained, noting them at cost prices. Besides his large donations to colleges, asylums, and benevolent societies of various kinds, he relieved many ministers of different denominations, in their pecuniary straits. For one he cancels a note of $500; $100 he sends to a sick man, on a cold morning, and "tells the poor fellow to keep in good heart, for our merciful Father afflicts in love, and trusts that his sorrows will prove a stepping-stone to the mansions of bliss." "How is old father F? Does he need any warm outside coat ?" He sends Dr. Moses Stuart a heavy overcoat, which the grateful man of God says he would not exchange for a lump of California gold. An old debt of $500 is paid him, and he at once invests the money for the benefit of his debtor's poor sister. He is an ardent friend of the young, and is evermore devising schemes to interest and benefit them. Now he sends large packages of books to some Female Seminary, then to some College or Theological Seminary, usually attended with expressions of kindness and wholesome counsel. The apprentices of Boston had formed a Library Association. To these hard working boys he sends a lot of books and a letter. My Young Friends:-It cheers and comforts me to learn of your well-doing, and encourages me to offer a word of counsel, as prosperity is often more dangerous in its time than adversity. Now is your seed-time. See to it that it is good; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.' The integrity, intelligence, and elevated bearing of Boston mechanics have been, and are, a property for each citizen, of great value; inasmuch as the good name of our beloved city is a common property, that every citizen has an interest in, and should help to preserve. At your time of life, habits are formed that grow with your years. Avoid rum and tobacco, in all forms, unless prescribed as a medicine; and I will promise you better contracts, heavier purses, happier families, and a more youthful and vigorous old age, by thus avoiding the beginning of evil. God speed you, my young friends, in all your works." Will not his sons be spoiled by the prospects of a rich inheritance? Amos Lawrence sees the danger. They must learn to work; learn the value of time, and of correct business habits, of money and character. "I would rather see you on a farm, or studying any profession, than pursuing trade," he tells his son. "No man can acquire valuable influence or character, unless he labor to increase human improvement and happiness. Whatever be a man's fortune, if he is an idler, he can find no real comfort." The word philanthropist is greatly abused in our day. It is by many applied to a class of unchristian sentimentalists, who affect to be the highest type of reformers. People who sneer at the Bible, or if they have the semblance of respect for revealed truth, will have nothing to do with the Church of Christ. Amos Lawrence was a member of the Church for over forty years. Always attended public worship, unless providentially prevented. Communed regularly at the Lord's table, sometimes weeps as if his heart would break, during the solemn service. I tell you, this happy New Englander will have none of your Concord philosophy, none of your Theodore Parker poison. A child of God he is who finds the power of godliness in his form, and literally does what his hands find to do with his might. An old pocket-book found after his death, bears the inscription, written by his own hand: "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" A very good motto for a pocket-book. Well may he call himself" the happiest man in America," sufferer as he was. He is intensely conscientious. His nephew, Franklin Pierce, becomes a candidate for the Presidency. He esteems his nephew much, but his convictions more, and casts his vote against him would have done it to his brother. He is greatly annoyed by unworthy applicants for charity. Here, too, conscience and enlightened judgment control his actions and not indiscriminate sympathy. A certain woman berates him soundly for refusing her request for charity, for the time being. A Lowell lady asks for the loan of $300 to start a boarding-house; refused. A woman of sixty, has lost her sons and wants help. N. T. wants aid to study, or something else. "Mr. F., with a great share of hair on his face, gold ring and chains, wants to travel for his health; has a wife and child." These three in twenty-four hours, and all sent away empty. Chiefly the last one, for he rarely employed a clerk or an apprentice, or helped any person "who wore a ring." He despises the dandy and the demagogue. For an overworked minister he sends $50, without being asked for it, with the request that he go from home to recruit his health. G. M. calls to sell a lot of sermons, which he said he published to do good. "He seems to me a wooden nutmeg fellow," and he, too, can't fool Lawrence. At length these helter-skelter applications became so numerous, that his ill-health compelled him to see only those persons whom competent judges deem worthy of admittance. From January 1, 1829, till his death in 1852, he gave the sum of $639,000 for charitable objects. Amos Lawrence had a family burying-place in the Boston Mount Auburn Cemetery. From time to time he bought burial lots around his own, and presented them to ministers of various churches; as he said, "it became an object with him to gather around him in death those whom he had loved and honored in life." One of these, in accepting the gift said: "It is soothing to me to anticipate that my grave will be so near your own." Here all now lie snugly around their friend. Much more might be said of this influential and useful Christian. But the story has already grown too long on my hands. I commend his example to all our readers. Not because he was rich, but because he made such good use of what God gave him. The chief end of man is not to get rich, as some seem to believe. Rather to use such gifts of body, mind, spirit and property, as God may bestow upon us for the good of others and His glory. By honesty and industry, try to acquire, as much as you can, whereby you may serve God and your fellow-beings. Look at this boy at school, who, then already," is anxious to be manly, like the manly, boys.' When a youth in Boston, he will never consent to even pass through a certain quarter of the city, because the devil lurks there to destroy souls. This man, whose praise is universal, is packing gifts for the poor in his charity room, and he has a package of toys, candies and trinkets for every child in the family of poor missionaries, and penning friendly notes to them in the bargain. I love him ardently. What are you doing for yourselves, for others, for Christ, dear readers? Begin life right; with God, in His Church. Be careful in selecting a trade or business; then learn it well and stick to it. Be strictly honest, industrious, and religious, then people will trust, and God will prosper you. Should you get a family of your own, take Christ in as a member of it from the start. Consecrate your home by daily prayer. Choose your companions carefully. Whether you have much or little, use what you have to do good. Lawrence was not ashamed to join the Church when young, and he continued steadfast in the faith unto the end. He was a working Christian, did good as he had opportunity. May God bless the story of Amos Lawrence to all our readers. THE LEADERS AND DISCIPLES OF FASHION. BY THE EDITOR. "See'st thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is? how giddily he turns about all the hot bloods between fourteen and five-and thirty?" "These remnants Of fool and feather, that they got in France, SHAKSPEARE. A charming scene do Christian communities present on the Lord's day. Thread-bare and soiled working garments give place to clean and fine clothing; the best that the people can command. The streets of our cities and villages present a cheerful and often gay appearance. Rural people wend their quiet way to their country churches, in their Sunday suits-the best they have. All this I aver is a pleasing sight, which angels must surely behold with delight. Is it not a result of the Christian religion, this becoming outward adorning of the body, on the day and in the house of God? A strange incongruity would it be for people, as a rule, to appear before the Lord in their work-day clothes; the men in their shirtsleeves, and greasy pantaloons and hands more greasy still; the ladies just from the wash-tub, sleeves rolled up, frocks tucked up, hair dishevelled from weeks of neglect, half concealed by a bleached calico sun-bonnet, unwashed faces, marked by contact with sooty pots; a pretty-looking Christian congregation would they make, in sooth! Aye, the proprieties of dress help to make the Lord's day pleasant and impressive. But the bounds of propriety are not always observed. In socalled fashionable churches the giddy and gay become the showwindows of expensive milliner trappings, endowed with locomotion. An American authoress says: "The contemplation of one of our fashionable churches, at the hour when its fair occupants pour forth, gives one a great deal of surprise. The toilet there displayed might have been in good keeping among showy Parisian women in an opera house; but even their original inventors would have been shocked at the idea of carrying them into a church. The rawness of our American mind as to the subject of propriety in dress is nowhere more shown than in the fact, that no apparent distinction is made between church and opera house in the adaptation of attire. Very estimable, and, we trust, very religious women, sometimes enter the house of God in a costume which makes their utterance of the Litany and the acts of prostrate devotion in the service seem almost burlesque. When a brisk little creature comes into a pew with hair frizzed till it stands on end in a most startling manner, rattling strings of beads and bits of tinsel, mounting over all some pert little hat, with a red or green feather standing saucily upright in front, she may look exceedingly pretty and piquante; and if she came there for a game of croquet, or a tableau party, would be all in very good taste; but as she comes to confess that she is a miserable sinner, that she has done the things she ought not to have done, and left undone the things she ought to have done,-as she takes upon her lips most solemn and tremendous words, whose meaning runs far beyond life, into a sublime eternity-there is a discrepancy which would be ludicrous if it were not melancholy. It is all just so. After this gifted lady says it, I trust one less gifted and less versed in matters of female attire, can commend her strictures without seeming to meddle with things too high for him. Thoughtful people are often surprised that those who invent and control the fashions have so little regard for convenience and comfort. Think of the awkward looks of a young man strapped in pantaloons, almost as tight as his skin, giving him the appearance of stilts in breeches; a tight, short coat, reaching a little below the waist, and a stove-pipe hat of immoderate height, which every passing breeze bears into the gutter, unless carefully held with his hand! Surely such a style has neither good taste nor comfort to commend it. And the ladies' dresses, with trails, which require as many waiting maids to help them comfortably through the world, as the queens of England and France used to have. A trail is not without grace, and not without mud, when swept over slushy pavements and street-crossings. Whence come all these fantastic fashions? It would seem from France. "It is the great misfortune of the civilized world at the present hour, that the state of morals in France is apparently at the very lowest ebb, and, consequently, the leadership of fashion is entirely in the hands of a class of women who could not be admitted into good society in any country. Women who can never have the |