specting whether it be your duty or not to worship God morning and evening, at least, with your household. A fearful threatening is denounced by the Prophet against those who neglect this duty: "Pour out thy fury upon the Heathen, and upon all the families that call not upon thy name." It is desirable that every Christian's house should resemble a temple, and his family a church, where the members are instructed and trained up for heaven. And family worship, punctually and properly performed, will be found a most efficacious means of accomplishing this great object. Choose the most convenient season for collecting the whole of your family together. The very title of the duty implies that it belongs to the whole family; and as you are answerable to God for every one under your roof, and every one needs this help, you should 'be careful that, without some unavoidable hinderance, not one shall be absent. Endeavour to render the service as interesting as you can. Where singing a hymn is practicable, I recommend it, not only as an elevated part of devotion, but as calculated to engage and interest every one present. Read a portion of God's holy word both morning and evening. You will find it profitable to pursue some regular plan in doing this. Let your prayers be simple and earnest, neither so long as to weary your family, nor so short as to appear like a want of interest in the duty. Try to avoid sameness; and, in order to keep up variety, observe family mercies, family wants; notice special circumstances, as birth-days, the reassembling of your children after any have been absent, or any special providential interference in their behalf or yours, turning these into subjects of praise or prayer. By extending family devotion to too great a length, fatigue and disgust are apt to be excited; and the careless or formal performance of it may make an equally injurious impression, by leading your children to think it merely a part of your domestic arrangements, but from which no immediate good arises, or is expected. Let all your skill, piety, prudence, and zeal be brought to make this ordinance of God as efficacious and fruitful as possible. Be in earnest; let it appear that you are so, and that you expect great effects to be produced.

I further direct you to train up your children in observing the outward decencies of religion. And, first, with regard to company: Be careful of the company into which you allow them to go, and of the friendships you permit them to form. Company is a rock on which thousands have split. The neighbourhood of vicious persons is contaminating. Solomon says, "A companion of fools shall be destroyed;" and the Apostle adds, "Come out from among them, and be ye separate." It is not desirable that children should always be confined within the limits of their own domestic circle; for many valuable ends may be answered by allowing them a moderate indulgence in suitable society: but on this point parents will need to exercise great prudence and caution, and absolutely prohibit all association with young people of loose principles and of bad morals. Parents will find

it their interest to provide for their children under their own roof such agreeable occupations and amusements as will prevent the temptation of wandering abroad in search of enjoyment. Home should, if possible, be made, in the estimation of a child, the most pleasant spot on earth, and the society which it affords preferable to every other. It is certainly an error in parents, who, by refusing to gratify, as far as they can, the natural inclinations of children towards innocent pursuits and amusements at home, create a disgust with domestic government and discipline, and drive their children to seek for society where they can indulge their taste and inclinations with greater freedom. When practicable, music, drawing, experimental philosophy, a flower-garden, or a workshop, would furnish domestic resources, which would at once engage the attention, and refine and elevate the character. But this brings before us another particular, the pastimes and amusements of children. These require to be overlooked; an all that savour of cruelty, or tend to vice, or a disregard of religion, should be absolutely prohibited. I hardly need denounce cock-fights and horse-races as cruel and wicked sports; nor remind you that balls, plays, cardparties, and fashionable assemblies are contrary to that seriousness and purity of the Gospel, and to be ranked amongst the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, which by our baptismal vow we have engaged to renounce. Some seasons of relaxation will be necessary; For will a parent, who wishes to gain the affections of his child, refuse him the indulgence, in this respect, which his health may require, or which may be necessary to recruit his mental vigour after close application; and yet great care should be taken that even lawful amusements be not carried to excess, so as to prove a waste of that most precious material, time, and trench upon the calls of more serious occupations. Reading, as another youthful employment, will require the watchful eye of a parent. My former remarks related to religious reading, these to reading in general. Nothing tends more to enlarge, cultivate, refine, and improve the mind than a habit of reading; and where a youth contracts a love for books, it will save him from a thousand temptations, and, by affording him endless employment, prevent the inclination of seeking amusement in company. The Bible should always form a part of the juvenile library, with some other small books, such as "The Companion to the Bible," ""The Manners and Customs of the Nations mentioned in the Bible," which will enable them, without much reading, to understand and feel an interest in the oracles of truth. Besides books for sacred reading, it will be proper, as far as prudence and your circumstances admit, to place within the reach of your children books on history, modern travels, polite literature and science; carefully selecting such as are free from impure mixture that might warp the principles, pollute the imagination, or inflame the bad passions of our degenerate nature. All books of an infidel or immoral tendency should be forbidden, and carefully kept out of the VOL. XVII. Third Series. FEBRUARY, 1838.

H

way of young people, as a casual glance into one of this description may create a desire to peruse the whole, and lead to a train of reading that may prove exceedingly injurious. Care should be taken, too, how we speak before children in terms of commendation of writers, whom we may admire for beauty of style, poetic imagery, or acuteness of reasoning, but whose principles are corrupt, and morals of a vicious tendency. I recollect an instance of a Minister having mentioned in public an objectionable book in terms implying some degree of commendation. The next morning, in passing through a room, I found one of the junior branches of the family poring over it, having evidently taken the earliest opportunity of procuring it. If some defence may be set up for the conduct of persons of riper years, who peruse infidel publications with a view to make themselves acquainted with their arguments, and refute them; nothing, however, can be said in favour of allowing such books to children and young persons, whose judgments are not yet matured, and who are altogether incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong. Inculcate on your children's minds a deep reverence for the Bible, as a revelation from God, infallibly true, and containing the words of eternal life. I hate the flippancy of proud reason which would receive the book of God as the writings of men, and submit its facts and statements to the same ordeal as that to which human compositions are submitted. No! It is the voice of God to man; its dictates demand our unhesitating faith, though feeble reason may not always be able to discover the why and wherefore. Teach them that from the Bible there can be no appeal. Accustom them to honour and respect the Ministers of Christ. Try to make them understand the Minister's high calling, the importance of his work and office, reminding them of our Lord's own words, addressed to the heralds of his mercy: "He that receiveth you receiveth me; and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me." Ministers are your most powerful auxiliaries in the religious instruction and training of your offspring; and if you wish those under your care to be benefited by their ministry, you must train them up to respect their persons and character. The higher your Minister stands in the estimation of your children, the more likely will they be to "receive the law at his mouth." It is to be feared, that even religious parents are not sufficiently careful of their remarks on Ministers before their families. Nor do they seem sufficiently aware that, even an unguarded observation on the talents and preaching of their Minister, and especially a train of such observations, may raise prejudices in their young minds that will entirely prevent the good they might otherwise have received from his ministry. How awful is the consideration that a parent, in the indulgence of a fastidious taste, or in a vain show of pride of intellect, should destroy, in his own family, the effect God has designed to be produced by the preaching of the Gospel, and lead his own children to treat with disrespect the Minister of God,

under whose ministry they should sit, and trample under foot his message. Or can he who is guilty of this, wonder that he should have to mourn over the waywardness of his own offspring, whom he cannot induce to attend the house of God. Never allow your children to treat religious subjects with levity. I need not stay to remind you of the necessity of giving them to understand that religion is a solemn reality,—the one thing needful, with which nothing can compare; that it sweetens life, destroys the fear of death, and secures to its possessor the joys of heaven; that whatever is connected with it is all-important, and cannot innocently be treated with levity. The very mention of the name of Him we worship should spread seriousness over the countenance. Teach them a due respect for the servants of Christ of every rank and station, and strive to inculcate an inward reverence for the character of a good man; that as religion is a solemn reality, so he who has it in his possession is a wise man, the excellent of the earth, a child of God, a friend of Christ, an heir of salvation on whom angels wait, and whose inheritance is the kingdom of heaven. "A Christian is the highest style of man." And a deep conviction of this wrought in the mind of your child will be the most likely means of leading him to desire and seek to become a Christian in reality.

In the prosecution of your duty you may expect many difficulties from youthful ignorance, volubility, and perhaps occasional stubbornness; and to succeed, will require a skilful, patient, firm, persevering use of your authority. But recollect your station. "God," said one," has made me master in this house, and I dare not take a lower place.” You take the lead, guidance, and management of your family in what relates to your temporal concerns; and if you can do this for this world, unquestionably God requires it at your hand that you should employ the authority with which you are invested, and the influence that you have acquired, in securing, from those placed under your care, an observance of the forms, ceremonies, and external decencies necessary to his service.

The great object at which a pious parent aims is, the conversion of his children to God; and this he cannot expect to be accomplished without ceaseless and persevering efforts on his part. Whilst he will see the necessity of pursuing general plans, such as I have pointed out, he will also feel it to be his duty to avail himself of all changes, vicissitudes, states, and conditions, employing every means, seizing every advantage, and pressing onward without intermission to secure a favourable issue. Yet, as Paul may plant, and Apollos water, but God giveth the increase; so, convinced that the best-directed labours will be fruitless without the aid of God's Holy Spirit, he sees the necessity of resorting to the last means which I propose to mention, namely, "prayer.”

4. When I mention prayer, I do not confine the direction to prayer at family worship. But I recommend you at proper times and seasons

to retire with your children; endeavour to enter into their views and feelings; suit your words to their understanding, and pray with them, and for them. You may not only pray for them all together, but mention each child by name, confess his weaknesses and follies, recount the mercies of God towards him, and pray for the pardon of his sins, and for grace to help him in time to come, and for every other blessing. Such exercises make a deep impression on children's minds; and if any thing can increase a parent's interest in the salvation of his child, or inspire him with hope, it must be prayers of this description. A pious Minister who had lost his beloved wife, one day took his son into the parlour, and thus addressed him: "Did not your dear mother sometimes kneel and pray with you?" With eyes filled with tears the youth replied, "Yes, father; mother used to kneel at that chair, and hold my hand, and pray for father, that he might do good, and for me, and Henry, and little Mary, and for us all." And this excellent woman left it as her dying testimony: "I believe my dear boy will never forget some of those seasons any more than myself. O, my happy seasons with my dear boy!" The Rev. Legh Richmond has related the following fact concerning his pious mother. She was then in deep distress of mind, occasioned by the death of a lovely infant two years of age, who was, by the carelessness of a nurse, precipitated from a bed-room window upon the pavement beneath: "The day after the infant's death," says he, at which time he himself was but six years old, "she took me to the bed on which my little brother lay, and, kneeling down, she wept for a few minutes in silence; and then taking his cold hand in one of hers and mine in the other, she said,Lord, if it had not been thy good pleasure, it had not been thus. Thy will be done. I needed this heavy trial to show me myself, and wean me from the world. Forgive my sins, O God, and let me not murmur.' Then, looking at the cherub countenance of her babe, she added, 'Thou art not lost, but gone before!' She then put his hand into mine, and said, 'If you live, my child, never forget this; and may I one day meet you both in heaven!"" Nor did he ever forget it; and the prayer has had its accomplishment in the kingdom of God. I have other facts of a similar kind concerning the effects of the kind of prayers that I now recommend; but forbear to mention them.

Pray for them in the public services of the sanctuary forget not your children. In family prayer let them occupy a part; carry their cases into your closets, and there wrestle with God in their behalf. Be earnest, constant, and persevering in prayer for your children. "For all these things will I be inquired of by the house of Israel, that I may do them for them," contains a direction not to be overlooked by those who are waiting for the fulfilment of God's promises in relation to the salvation of their offspring; and "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." In addition to praying for your