Take the history of Rehaboam. There is, in his life, just one short sentence which supplies the key, more perhaps than anything else, to his sin and folly,—“his mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess.” She was by blood an alien, and by religion a heathen.

Unhappy in many things, but unhappiest most in such a mother, he begins to be regarded more with pity than with astonishment. The letters written on water are hardly formed when they are filled up; on the other hand the finger that traces them on stone leaves no visible impression on its indurated service; but plastic clay, midway between what is hard and soft, offers to the gentlest finger a substance which both receives and retains an impression.

Such is the heart that youth and childhood offer to a mother’s influence. Hear how Cowper sings of the boy by a mother’s knee.—
“His heart, now passive, yields to thy command,
Secure it thine, its key is in thine hand.”
—GUTHRIE.

Now we want these young converts to serve Christ. It is not too much to expect that each of you should bring twelve more. One young man came to me and said he was converted on the 3d of February; he had a list of fifty-nine persons, with the residence of each, whom he had since that time been instrumental in leading to Christ; and if that young convert had led fifty-nine, every man, woman, and child ought to be able to reach some.

Let each one go to work. That is the way to grow in strength. “They that water others shall themselves be watered, and the liberal soul shall be fed. God is able to make all grace abound.” Let me give you a little advice.

Let your friends be those who are in the church. Select for your companions experienced Christians. Keep company with those who know a little more than you do yourselves.

Of course, you get the best of the bargain; but from my own experience I know it is the best way to make advances in religious life. And get in love with the Book, and the world will lose its hold on you.—MOODY.

An address to converts at the close of a great revival In New York.

The face of pleasure to the youthful imagination is the face of an angel, a paradise of smiles, a home of love; while the rugged face of industry, imbrowned by toil, is dull and repulsive; but at the end it is not so. These are harlot charms which pleasure wears. At last, when industry shall put on her beautiful garments, and rest in the palace which her own hands have built, pleasure, blotched and diseased with indulgence, shall lie down and die upon the dung-hill.—BEECHER.

The young are seldom tempted to outright wickedness; evil comes to them as an enticement. The honest generosity and fresh heart of youth would refuse to embrace open meanness and undisguised vice. The adversary conforms his wiles to their nature. He tempts them to the basest deeds by beginning with innocent ones, gliding to more exceptionable, and, finally, to positively wicked ones. All our warnings therefore must be against the vernal beauty of vice! Its autumn and winter none wish.

As we get older, do not let us be affronted if young men and women crowd us a little. We will have had our day, and we must let them have theirs. When our voices get cracked, let us not snarl at those who can warble. When our knees are stiffened, let us have patience with those who go fleet as the deer. Because our leaf is fading, do not let us despise the unfrosted.—TALMAGE.

The world comes to the child when it is in the April of life, and sows tares. The world comes along again when the child is in the May of life, and sows thistles. Again in the fair June it comes and sows nox vomica.

The church meanwhile folds its hands and waits until the April has gone, and the May has gone, and June and July have gone, and then at the close of August gets in earnest and says, “Now, now we have got a bag of good wheat here, and we must sow it in this fresh young soil, and we shall have a glorious harvest!” Will it? No, no! It is too late! Everlastingly too late! You should have sowed in April and in May the good seed of the kingdom.