be choleric, hasty and extreme in administering chastisement; the poor urchin has no redress. He must content himself with squirming under the birch and perhaps making rash and unredeemable promises in order to abridge the suffering; as was said to have been the case with the sweet singer of the British Calvinistic churches who, when a child, was peremptorily forbidden by his father to make any more verses. While smarting under the correction inflicted for his violation of the command, he piteously cried:

"Pray, father, do some pity take,

And I will no more verses make."

Mighty little supreme court! Powerful little empire! Only the ferule may be its sceptre and the darkened chamber its dungeon; but its autocracy is as potent as that of the Cæsars; its sanctions well-nigh as formidable as those which are wielded over his vassals by the Czar of all the Russians. Is it not easy to see how such a government, so manifold, so nearly unlimited in its power, so strongly seconded by the natural affections, exercised during the forming period of childhood, must impress itself, and impress itself almost determinatively, upon the future career of its youthful subjects? Callous must be the sensibilities, inhuman the heart of the parent who is not affected by the responsibilities which this view of the subject thrusts upon his mind. There is a tribunal before which he must stand at last to give an account of the manner in which on earth he discharged the momentous trusts reposed in his hands. Tremendous Bar of God! Who of us shall appear before Thee with consciences guiltless in this thing? Who of us shall dare to confront Thee without a hope

in the mercy of a heavenly Father and the blood of an Elder Brother?

Let us, in the last place, view the Family as an Institute of Worship.

We would be disappointed were we to look in the Scriptures for many express inculcations of the duty of family worship. The reason is plain. That duty is enforced by the most obvious dictates of nature itself; it is one of the elements of natural religion which the Bible, as a supernatural revelation, of necessity presupposes. Its very silence, so far as the formal injunction of the duty is concerned, is exceedingly significant. For a like reason no doubt it is that Scripture nowhere presents an elaborate argument for the existence of God or even for the Trinity. These were fundamental doctrines of the religion of nature, and are treated as great presuppositions to be universally and unhesitatingly assumed. Yet the awful imprecation, "Pour out Thy fury upon the heathen that know Thee not, and upon the families that call not on Thy name," while it furnishes support to the view just expressed, also enforces, under sanctions of the most dreadful character, the duty of family worship. It is like a flash of lightning on a dark night that at once lights up the whole face of a landscape. They who neglect this obligation are classed with heathen, and are threatened with the fury of the Almighty poured upon them like a storm. It is not worth while to argue the case. He who theoretically denies this obligation, subverts religion and cannot decently appropriate to himself the Christian name. But we are apt, through weakness, to neglect acknowledged duties, and a few things may appropriately be said concerning the rea

sons for the discharge of this office and the motives which incite to its performance.

The parent is by the appointment of nature, and in conformity with the feelings implanted by nature, the minister of worship for his family. He is not only God's representative of them, but their representative to God. The congregation for which he officiates is the beloved little flock, every one of whom is tied to him by the tenderest bonds-is bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. His function it is to read to them the blessed word of God, and expound it for their understanding. His function it is to collect their praises and their prayers, and bowing with them at their own household altar, to present their joint worship to his Father and their Father, to his Redeemer and theirs. What moving considerations impel him to its discharge! How can he refuse to lead them in offering thanksgiving to the Father of mercies for perpetually recurring benefits, new every morning and fresh, every evening; for daily bread, for the comforts of life, for the preservation of health, for protection against a thousand dangers, for deliverance from innumerable calamities which are ever impending, and, above all, for the unspeakable blessings of redemption? Will he, by omitting so plain a duty, teach them, through his example, to trample down the feeling of dependence on their God and Saviour, and indoctrinate them in the dark crime of ingratitude? The perils at birth, the contingencies environing the cradle, the stormy exigencies of life, the prospect of the bed of death, of the family gathering in anguish and tears around some dying member of the beloved little circle, of the sad funeral procession following the dust of the departed to the devouring grave; the temptations incident to

childhood and youth, the need of atoning blood to cleanse from guilt, and of the grace of the Holy Ghost to convert, and sanctify, to strengthen and console,—all, all urge him to erect and maintain the altar of worship in his house, and to render there his morning and his evening incense of adoration, thanksgiving and prayer.

It deserves, moreover, to be remarked, that in conducting family worship, the parent enjoys the special and eminent advantage of pleading before God his peculiar promise to his people and their seed, of throwing himself and them upon the provisions of that eternal covenant which is ordered in all things and sure. It is true that this may be done, and ought continually to be done, in his own private approaches to the throne of grace. But there is a singular propriety in his pressing in the midst of his children their common relation with him to God's covenant and its promises. Besides the answer which might, by faith, be expected to be returned to these joint petitions, in itself no small consideration, these desirable results would be also secured,-God's covenant would be recognized and honored by the concerted worship of the whole family, the instructions touching its blessed provisions and promises didactically impressed upon the children would receive additional and affecting enforcement by praise and prayer; their own connection with the covenant would be daily brought to their attention, and so be inworked into their habits of thought and feeling; and it might be fairly hoped that they, following the example of their parents, would themselves be led to plead with the God of the covenant their own interest in his promise of salvation.

In conclusion, suffer me, brethren and friends, to address to those of you who are parents, a few plain, practical counsels suggested by this subject.

In the first place, I entreat you to remember that the obligation resting upon you to teach your children the religion you profess is divinely appointed, indestructible and inalienable. It is God who says: Bring up your children. That in which you are to bring them up is the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The relation of these beloved pupils to you ordinarily terminates only at death. It is you who are enjoined to do this duty: "Ye fathers, bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Consequently you cannot, without guilt, transfer this office to others. Every institute and means of instruction has its own allotted place. Yours is the family. However useful in its way the Sabbath School may be, its teachers are not the parents of your children. You cannot roll off upon them the function your Lord assigns to you. I need not say, Teach your children the word of God and the Gospel of your salvation. But I counsel you to tread in the steps of those who have gone before you to glory, and see to it that they commit to memory and recite the Shorter Catechism. Cause them also to memorize some choice Psalms and Hymns, containing the essential features of the plan of salvation. Verse is more easily retained than prose, and it is a well known fact that the sweet songs of Zion linger upon the lips of the dying and sustain and refresh them in their departing moments.

In the second place, rule your children in the fear of the Lord. Do not, like poor old Eli, allow them to make themselves vile because you restrain them not. Suffer the word of plainness. If they have grown