cause he wishes to approve himself to God, but because it is the best policy in business, or most reputable in society.

Between this character and that of a thoroughly devout man are almost as many shades of difference as there are between the darkness of midnight and the brightness of noonday. Some men can never entirely forget the impressions of youth, the instructions of their catechisms, their infant prayers, and their childish notions. The idea of God returns to them, upon extraordinary occasions, to excite some feelings of awe or religious restraint. Some have intervals of consideration, when they perform a few actions with express reference to God's knowledge and observation. Others reserve all their consideration of God for those seasons, when they go up, with others, to the temple, to pay a customary homage; and think the ideas, which they cannot then avoid admitting, quite sufficient for the purpose of life. They go away, perhaps, with resolutions of amendment, which pleasure or business soon drives from their minds; and they wait, till the first day of the next week comes round to throw the idea of God again into their minds.

Many are awakened to think of God by some unusual calamity. For a while they stand aghast. But the tremendous voice of admonition soon, perhaps, dies away, and the din of the world drowns their serious meditations. Others admit the idea of God so far as to keep up certain formalities which they think agreeable to him. In the hearts of some persons more piety exists than appears to men in external acts. In others the outward appearances of religion are more promising than the state of their hearts really confirms.

The character of the man of habitual devotion is far

superior to any of the varieties which have been described. He is accustomed to see God in everything. Not an object arrests his attention, or interests his hopes or his fears, but he descries the agency of God. All the beauty, grandeur, wisdom, complex uses, structure, and operations of the material world give him hints of Omnipotence. The calm and soothing serenity of the sky impresses him with the mild character of the Deity. The happiness of the inferior creation invites him to rejoice in the Dispenser of so much life and alacrity. The tremendous changes of the elements, thunder, whirlwinds, earthquakes, eruptions, seem the mightier movements of irresistible Power. The various adaptation of means to ends, the complex structure of animal bodies, their growth, progress, tendencies, and distinctions, fill him with unaffected admiration of the supreme Intelligence.

But the peculiar characteristic of a man of piety is, that he looks upon God in the character of a Parent. Events, as they occur, are considered by him as arising under the direction of parental wisdom. In his own life he acknowledges the moderating hand of an omnipotent, heavenly Father. He is convinced that nothing of evil befalls him, but under the direction of one who is able to make "all things work together for good to them that love him." He feels that he is a creature, in the hands of a Being who has destined him to live forever, and that nothing in creation can snatch him out of the hands of this gracious God. He never feels so happy as when he has the most intimate communication with his heavenly Friend; and the sense of his dependence, so far from being irksome, is, in truth, one of the most soothing sentiments which he can entertain. The consciousness of having aimed to please his greatest 36

VOL. II.

and best Friend is a recompense for anything which he may have unmeritedly suffered from erring mortals. No important event occurs to him without leading his thoughts to God. Sickness, pain, reverses, disappointments, bereavements, and joys are all associated in his mind with God as the Disposer of all things.

He looks upon his children as God's children, his family as a part of God's family. He makes no friends, allows himself in no pleasures, engages in no pursuits, encumbers himself with no cares, without considering whether God looks down with complacency. He is never alone, never destitute, never insensible of his dependence. The idea of God accompanies him in his pleasures, in his business, as well as in his devotional exercises. Acts of devotion are congenial to the state of his feelings, for God is in all his thoughts.

FAMILY RELIGION.

It is not to be concealed, that the salutary discipline of domestic government, the great business of religious education, and, above all, the reasonable and interesting practice of family worship, have fallen into a degree of disuse, of which it is more easy to conjecture the extent than to counteract the example, more easy to lament the symptoms than to predict the consequences.

Christians, the worship of God in your families is a reasonable service, and may be rendered a most profitable service. These are the two heads of our remarks.

First, then, it is a reasonable service. If there be any who doubt this, their reasons are to me utterly beyond conjecture. It is not easy to imagine any reasons, which can be suggested, in favor of public, congregational worship, which are not equally strong in favor of the worship of families. The same God, whose providence governs communities, presides over the small circles of which communities are composed. It is he, who "setteth the solitary in families." It is he, who has united them in ties more intimate than any which can bind together the members of a large society.

Is it of any consequence, that the public should be impressed with reverence for God and his government? Surely, then, no practice can be indifferent which will make those impressions early, stamp them deeply, and give ideas

of religion an intimate association with the most tender, amiable, and lasting affections of the human heart.

It is not necessary to insist on the authority which the head of a family possesses for this service, and which it is his duty to exercise with fidelity and affection. However much the relaxation of the sentiments of religion, conspiring with other maxims of insubordination, may have enfeebled the authority of parents and masters in this age and under this government, the obligation of those, who are at the head of families, to provide for the religious wants of those who depend on them for support, is still commensurate with the power; for it is the power, which everywhere constitutes the obligation; and I shall refuse to believe that the power is extinct, till some serious attempt to revive and exercise it shall have failed. The father and the master may yet be the priest of his household.

But you ask, Is it not enough, that we observe our private devotions, in which we pray for our families, but must we also pray with them? I might reply by asking, Is it enough, that I give orders for the provision of the day, though I never take a repast with my family? Is it enough, that I secretly wish my children should possess knowledge, which I take no care to communicate; or habits, of which I set not the example; or principles, which I take no pains to enforce? Unless it is first taken for granted, that the practice, which we recommend, is either unnatural, unreasonable, or useless, no man, much less a Christian, can have fulfilled his parental and domestic obligations, while he neglects to make an experiment, at least, of family worship.

Can any one imagine that topics will be wanting, while there are so many subjects of family congratulation and