lies, and neighbourhoods; each with its own set of sympathies; with peculiar interests; with peculiar resources. One design is, to divide our sorrows by sympathetic emotions. Another, to double our joys by imparting them to others who sympathize with us. Sorrow hath not half its pangs when you can mingle your tears with those of a friend; and joy has not diffused half its blessings until your joy has lighted up the countenance of a father, or touched the sympathies of a brother or a

sister.

This organization will be seen at once to be eminently adapted to religion. On no subject have we so many sympathies as in the great business pertaining to our eternal welfare. I look on a family circle. What tende: feelings! what mutual love! what common joys! what united sorrows! The blow that strikes one member, reaches all. The joy that lights up one countenance, diffuses its blessings over all. Together they bend over a sick member; together they rejoice at his recovery; or together they bow their heads and weep, and go sad to his grave. They are plunged into the same apostacy. They are together under the fearful visitations of that malady which has travelled down from Paradise lost. They are going to a common tomb; and over the circle shines the same sunbeams of hope; and the same balm of Gilead, and the same great Physician may diffuse health, peace and salvation there. Cheered with the hopes of the same immortality, they may travel to the tomb; and the joy in religion that beams from a father's eye, may be reflected from the happy faces of beloved sons and daughters. The whole organization is clearly one of the most profound and wise in this world, to deepen, extend, and perpetuate the principles of the Christian religion. Of this any one may be satisfied who will for a moment compare the facilities of deepening and prolonging the feelings of religion under all the advantages of the family sympathy, compared with what it would and must be if the earth were tenanted by Isolated and independent individuals. God designed the

organization with reference to all that is pure, and lovely in man; and in fact he has at all times made the family organization one of the most important facilities for extending, and perpetuating religious feeling.

The question now arises, whether the full benefits of this organization can be accomplished without the aid of family devotion? In answer to this, you will see at once, that the neglect of religion as a family, will be to break in upon the whole design of the organization, so far as religion is concerned, and to throw every member upon his own individual strength and responsibilities. That is, to separate religion from all other things, and deny it the aid which is rendered to every other object which you wish to promote-the aid derived from the sympathies of the domestic alliance, and the endearments of the family circle. You call in this aid when you wish to promote other commendable designs-when you would prompt to industry, to learning, to morals, to esteem; and you withhold this aid in the greatest and most important matter that can ever press on the attention of your sons and daughters, and make their religion to be a cold, isolated, independent matter, in which they receive no sympathy from you; and where they are rudely put back from all the tender sympathies which divide their sorrows, and joys, in all their other interests. We all know the power of alliance and confederation. It is the way in which good and evil ever have been, and ever must be, propagated in this world. Solitary, undivided efforts avail little, and from the nature of the case must avail little. This is understood by all men. He who wishes to rouse his countrymen to arms, does it by an appeal to the social principle, and seeks confederated talents and valour. Individual and unorganized efforts would do little in the day when men struggle for freedom. Hence they seek to pour on the battle field combined talent, and organized and compacted energy. So in great deeds of evil. The drunkard, the profligate, the infidel, the pirate, seeks alliance and desires confederation in the enormous deeds of guilt which

are contemplated and planned. In the same way, if religion is to be spread, it must be by the same alliance and confederation. It must be by bringing combined powers to act on combined ills and dangers. It is designed to be done by calling in all the aid of the family confederation; by appealing to all the authority and venerableness of a father; the tender love of a mother; the silken cords which bind sons and daughters in common love, and in common hopes. This is clearly one great design of the organization. Religion brings one of the most obvious and plain appeals which can ever be made to the family sympathies. It has more that is adapted to the family compact; more that carries forward the tender family sympathies; and more that will consolidate and cement the alliance, than any other subject that can be presented to the little community.-Yet to secure this, it is clear that it must be primary and prominent in the family doings. It must occupy a place that shall be obvious and often seen. It must be often presented; and the strength and tenderness of the family emotions must be often brought to bear upon it. I shall attempt to show that this can never be done without family prayer. Indeed, it is almost so clear as not to admit of argument. The force of the organizationthe power of all the sympathies in the family, cannot be made to bear on it, except by daily acts, in which the whole community shall bow with united feelings before the God of grace.

II. I proceed to remark, 2dly, that family worship is one of the most direct and obvious means of meeting the evils to which the family is exposed. The design of the family organization is well understood-at least all parents have some great ends which they are endeavouring to reach by it. Whatever these ends may be, it will be assumed that they contemplate education, restraint, guidance, defence from danger, preparation for future years. You regard your children as exposed to dangers; subject to passions which demand control; liable to headlong and dangerous propensities, which need, in the

earliest years, to be met and restrained. The world is setting in upon them even in very early life, like a mist from the ocean, with a full tide of influences, which you desire to resist. You know there are a thousand opinions and habits among men from which you would gladly restrain your children. Pious you may not be; but you would be willing to see them walking in the paths of wisdom. You know that there are vices to which they are exposed; and they may meet with companions which would ruin them; and that they will soon be beyond your control; and you would throw around them a panoply which should shield them from evil. You seek that the influence of a father and mother may be prolonged, and live even when you may lie in the grave. You would give to yourself a kind of omnipresent influence, that your example and precepts at least may speak when they are away from you, or when your tongue may no more be able to give utterance to the precepts of experience, or to the tenderness of parental love. Now contemplate for a moment the influences from the world, against which a parent would guard.

There is, at first, the influence of formed plans and employments. The schemes of yesterday travel over the night watches, and meet them in the morning. They are still under the influence of the world which they met yesterday. Their schemes may not be complete. The world which they saw before they retired to rest; the opinions which they heard; the temptations which they met, shall put forth new power in the freshness of the morning. The charm has not been dissolved by the slumbers of the night. The forming habits have not been crushed, or even slept, while they have sought repose. The influence of the world which you feared yesterday, will meet them again in the morning. The enemy that made advances, did not lose his hold or even slumber while they reposed. The ever sleepless foe is strengthening his power, riveting the chains, and making his prisoner sure. Can there be any way so likely to break in upon this influence, as by a solemn presenta

tion in the morning, to the God of grace; to bring in the parental power, and suffer them to see that you are influenced by better things; and to bring down all the sacredness of the religious feeling to arrest and annihilate this malignant influence?

A second influence from the world, results from your own plans, and views, which they see from day to day, and with which they are becoming increasingly informed and familiar. They see what engrosses your thoughts. They know what is in your heart. You are encompassing them with a set of influences in your family, and plans, which is each day determining their views of the relative value of objects. If religion has no place-no obvious, seen, and prominent place, in those plans, they will understand it; and they will learn what to think of it. Let the pleasures of living be all; or the gains of traffic be all; or adorning be all; or the first and last energies in your house, and your conversation be to grasp the world, and your children will be among the first of mortals to comprehend your whole character. Other men may learn it slowly. Your children will learn it at once. And to-day shall deepen the lesson of yesterday, and to-morrow shall write it with the pen of a diamond on their hearts. Can there be any way of meeting this influence so direct, and decided, as by a solemn presentation of them to God, in the morning and evening; and by thus leaving on them the deep fixed impression, that though engaged of necessity in the world, yet that you are not unmindful of better things, and that your first and last thoughts are given unto God? This act will shed a new influence over all your doings. It will teach the child that your worldly plans are not primary, or all. It will satisfy him that your toils for gain are the result of necessity, and duty; not of idolatrous choice. It will show that religion is the deep voluntary preference of your soul; excited not by selfishness and interest, but by love and a conviction of its truth and importance; and though your ardour in worldly achievement should be little varied, yet all your efforts will