Looking into the ancient books of devotion, I find this date associated with a household name, and sacred to the memory of a Christian woman, Monica, the mother of Augustine. Such thoughts of home and its best influences are well, coming to us, as they do, so fragrant with the friendly and pious affections of ages. Monica lived long enough to see her wayward boy a firm disciple at last, and after all his wanderings of thought, devoted to Christ with all the enthusiasm of his nature. How touching is that passage of his confessions in which he speaks of laying her body in the grave, and returning to his lonely home to bless her for her faithful care, and lament his blindness to her gentle pleadings. How comforting the hymn of Ambrose that rose to his mind, as if by some angel's whisper, and lifted his thoughts to the realm whither mother and son had trusted to meet in a companionship beyond parting and beyond tears. Bless this and all like remembrances in former times, or in our own experience. Praise God for all the peace and power, the loveliness and wisdom, that have entered the homes where Christ has been welcomed. Let praise continue in prayer, and live in watching and good works.
The genial air of May comes to us all laden with the sweet breath of opening blossoms, and has a balm for the spirits as well as for the health. It stirs within us a sentiment deeper than we know how to define, revives our chilled or buried ideals, and makes every heart young again. It cannot but give something of its own tone to our thought, and we find that in all nations this month has been a continued festival in the calendar, and associated with the loveliest imagery of earth and heaven. The heathen nations, who gave the month its present name, called it so after the fairest of their goddesses, and Christians following a similar sentiment, and desirous also of enlisting every natural feeling in the service of a purer faith, transferred the honors of Maia to Mary, and in every land white flowers deck the shrines of the Madonna, and the "Hail Mary" is the burden of the matin and vesper hymn. Some of the hymns and aspirations connected with the season convey thoughts with which an earnest Protestant may sympathize, and grateful for the maternal love that has made our lives so blessed, we cannot ridicule, although we cannot imitate the Italian devotee, who salutes the Holy Mother as the representative of God's tender mercy to man through her sex, in words of such fervor:--