that needs a guardian power, is that which proceeds. from other men, and other families-from the nameless attractions, and seductions, that go forth each day from the world. Of this you can know nothing definite. Your family go forth to encounter you know not what. You know not what new and untried scenes of temptation they shall meet before the shades of evening descend around them. You know not what new baits and allurements the world shall present, when You they are away from the watchful parental eye. know not how attractive some form of evil shall appear to them-how it shall appeal to youthful passion, or dance in delightful vision before the mind just awake to the sentiments of pleasure, vanity, or ambition. Long since you passed through such scenes, and you know their power. You felt their danger, and you would guard your children from the seductive influence. To you of riper years, and wisdom, there may be no danger. To them, all is fresh, attractive, lovely, like the first light of a morning, without mists or pestilential vapours. They know not the dangers; and are slow to learn. Still further, you little know what companions they may meet with, before the evening. The spendthrift, the profligate, the infidel-the young man, profane, flippant, confident, polished, yet dissolute; or the aged man skilled in the cunning of unbelief, and knowing each avenue to the youthful heart, may meet him, and in a moment undo the slow work of parental instruction of many years.

Now I submit it to you, whether there can be any so effectual safeguard against this, as family devotion? I do not affirm that it will be infallible. But I ask whether any influence can be formed so likely to shield from these dangers, as the solemnity of an invocation

of the presence and blessing of God; and the expectation of a similar solemn presentation in the evening. It is a kind of familiarizing the mind in early life, to the judgment seat of God. It is a species of arraignment there each day, to suffer His all-seeing eye to rest on each thought and deed. That God hears prayer: and that God is every where. To him, it is as easy to guard your child when away from your roof, as when the eye of the earthly father is upon him. That God will see each temptation; mark each alluring influence; go before each child in the hour of danger; and restrain the power of the tempter. He can impress parental precept on the soul; and when the theatre, or the tavern, or the gambling place allures, the power of God unseen, can freshen in his memory the precepts of a father, and recall the expressed wishes, and the pleadings of a mother. All the influences in this world are under his control; nor can there be any way so effectual of meeting them as to secure the favour of that God who can give them a direction to virtue and to heaven. Greatly do I wonder, that in a world of temptations like this, and at a period of life so exposed as that of childhood and youth, any parent dare suffer his children to go forth into the allurements of a city, or a wicked world, without having once asked the Father of mercies to take them beneath his protecting care, and to defend them from the ills that may bring ruin into their souls; and wo, deep and inconsolable, into your own bosom. And much do I marvel, that any parent can send them forth upon the ocean of lifeamid the billows that break around the frail bark, and never seek for them the protection of that God who rides upon that ocean. And I wonder much that you can fail to implore the help of Him, who, when your

eye shall sleep in death, and the child shall walk over your unconscious grave, can stretch forth a hand more mighty than yours, and speak with a voice more tender than yours, to save him from the ways of ruin and despair. And much do I wonder also, that there is rest to your pillow, when you have offered no sacrifice of praise to God for preserving mercy, and sought no protection from him whose eye never slumbers nor sleeps.

III. I remark, thirdly, that the direct influence of devotion in obtaining the ends of the family organization, may be, and should be incalculably great. I mean the influence in all those great interests which you are endeavouring to secure. One of these is family government-a thing, which to be efficient, must be mild, steady, consistent, firm. There are two ways of governing a family. One is with the rod of a tyrant, and the rage of the furies; by cold, unfeeling statute, and never-ending reproof; by passion, and fire, and wrath. The other is by love, and tenderness, and discipline, administered with calmness, and yet with a faithful hand-by calling into exercise all that is tender in the social affections-all the budding and blossoming ingenuousness of the child-by the aid of conscience and of reason—and by severity only when other means fail; and then suffering the feelings of the father to be seen, at the same time that the firmness of the ruler shows itself to the child. The one is modelled on the plan which tyrants choose; the other is the plan of God. The one shuts God out of view; the other is like him, and borrows its features from the Divinity. And this one truth is established, and will yet be better known-that the model of a proper domestic administration is God in his moral government-and is a bringing down the great principles in which he acts, to

bear on the smaller community over which presides an earthly father. Now I think I am warranted in affirming, that no father will be likely to embody these principles and express them, without prayer. They are not to be possessed without it. No man can understand the principles, on which God governs men, without that familiarity with him, which results from prayer. No man can keep this great plan before him, without that close and pressing converse and contact with God, which exists in solemn devotion. And on a father's own spirit, there will be no so happy restraint as that imposed by family intercession. Anger and passion, ill become the bosom of the man who has just been engaged in a solemn presentation of his family to the God of love. And wrath, and anger, flee away, when we know that soon we are to bend together before a common altar.

Besides, there is no way so direct of giving authority, and sanction to your commands, as by family devotion. Whatever will increase the venerableness of the paternal character, will, of course, impress his laws with additional sanctions, and power. Now, it is clear to my mind, that there can be no way of doing this so effective, as by connecting the image of a father in the mind of a child, with the sacredness of religion. Let him be regarded by them as the venerable priest of the family, to bow before the altar, and speak their wants into the ears of God-the converser with the Deity-the invoker of heaven's blessings on the community-the venerable organ through whom the sought blessings of heaven, will descend on them, and a sanction is given to his laws and opinions, which you will gain in no other mode. It is not easy to treat the man with disrespect, who is known often to approach the throne of

grace; sacred by such an approach-and who is known to approach that throne only to obtain heaven's blessings on us. At all times, the ministers of religion have been regarded with respect, and there is no way so effectual of securing esteem in your family, as by suffering it to be seen daily, that you are a friend of God—a converser with the Deity-and that you are invested not only with the character of a father, but with the additional venerableness of being the priest of the family, and presenting their wants and feelings to the King of kings.

Thus, too, by your example, you shall correct and adjust their views of the world. More effectually than by any lessons, you shall teach them your sense of the value of earthly objects. Time, gold, pleasure, cannot be esteemed to be all, when the first and the last thoughts of the day are given to God. Nor can your children, in advancing years, go forth so easily to the undivided pursuit of gain and pleasure, when they know that a father and a mother, at the altar, have expressed their views of the value of these things. It will check the wantonness of worldly pursuits; it will come into the pleasures of the ball-room and the theatre, with a chilling influence on all those delights, if the thought then crosses the bosom of the son or daughter that at this late hour, parental feelings are expressed at the family altar, and a father and mother bow before God, to implore his blessing on thoughtless sons and daughters. 'I should be there, will be the instinctive language of the heart; my place is not amid these scenes of vanity, when a parent seeks God; and these scenes can afford no permanent joy, against whose malignant influence a parent prays, and to guard me from