this but a family; none that are together each day, and none where the prayer would be so directly adapted to the wants of the petitioners, as in a household dependent on God, bowing down before him in the morning to ask the supply of their returning wants, and to implore protection and defence in the various trials to which the household would be exposed. "What a live coal," says Dr. Hunter, "is applied to devotion, when the solitary my Father and my God, is changed into the social our Father, and our God!" 7. God has expressly declared his abhorrence of the neglect of family devotion. It is given as a characteristic of those who know not God, that they call not on his name, and as classifying them with the heathen world. Jer. x. 25. "Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name." 8. I would only add here, that to a parent it would seem that there was no duty that less required an authoritative injunction from heaven. I would not sit down here to an inquiry into the nature of abstract statute and law. I would not look for iron enactments, and Gothic and terrific mandates here. A parent's love for his children, prompts him to do all that is possible for their welfare. For them he toils, he denies himself, he watches around their beds of pain. What is there which a mother or a father will not sacrifice for the welfare of their children? How freely do health, and property, and rest, go to promote their peace, and train them for usefulness and felicity! And who, when a child is sick, asks for an iron statute, to learn whether he shall send for a physician? Who, when the storm howls, or the flames rage, looks for inexorable law to know whether he shall stretch out his arms to aid? Why is it not so, we ask, in regard to all the great helps and blessings that may establish their virtue and promote their welfare here, or prepare them for glory hereafter? You, and your children, rise from beds of repose, protected by the hand of God. The blessings of his providence crown your board, and fill your houses with rejoicing. Protected by an unseen

arm, raised by unseen power, and blessed by an invisible hand, what inexorable law is demanded to induce you, with them, to express thanksgiving to your great Benefactor? You go forth to the duties of the day. You know not its temptations, its toils, its dangers. No eye can see what unexpected occurrence may meet you— what dangers may assail--what temptations may lie in your path. Who can crown your goings with blessings but God? Who can watch over them but his unseen and never slumbering eye? And do we look for statutes to bind us to seek his blessing and ask his protecting care? The shades of evening come around you. Again protected, defended, shielded, you come into the family circle. Peace is there, and health, and cheerfulness, and plenty. Do I need a formal law when I go into such an abode, and say, here the goodness of God should be acknowledged; here it is appropriate that heaven's Eternal King should listen to the voice of praise, and the watchfulness of that eye that never slumbers nor sleeps, should be invoked? Your children go into-what? a world of peace, and friendship, of virtue, and of joy? O no. They tread a vale of sorrow. You have given them existence in a dwelling of temptation and of danger. Foes, deadly, and malignant, are in their path. The most fragrant bower may be the residence of the serpent, beguiling to destroy. The most lovely glade, the fairest path, and most charming stream, may be the residence of foes that shall attack their peace, or endanger their souls. They will be in peril-they will be allured, beguiled. Other lips than yours will attempt to influence them; and the guilty and the voluptuous may seek to make them their prey. They will weep. They will feel-yes, deeply feel, that they are in a cold, unfriendly, guilty world. They will be laid on beds of pain; will pant, will struggle, will expire. But one eye can mark their dangers or their pains, when you are dead. Far away from them in the cold grave, your eye will have lost its power to pity, and your hands their strength to relieve. Say, parent-father, mother, do

we need the formality of law, the sternness of command, to tell us we MUST seek the blessing of God on our family? Is it not the instinctive feeling of every father, May I bend before the God of heaven; and will his ear be open and can I have the assurance that he is ready and willing to defend my children?" Cast the eye onward. What shall be the doom of your children beyond the grave? Whither shall they wander in that undiscovered world? Shall they repose forever in the arms of heaven's King, or shall they be vagrants and outcasts, excluded from the place of mercy and of peace, and driven away with the polluted and the lost forever! On whom is dependent their eternal doom? On that Being who is to be invoked by prayer. Who alone can save them from being cast down into hell? None but that Almighty God, whose blessing you never ask for your children, whose protecting care you never seek.

Now I would only ask of any parent, to look at his children with a parent's feeling, and remember they go to a world of dangers, and woes; to inevitable scenes of sorrow and of death; to an illimitable eternity; and to remember that none but the arm of Jehovah can shield them; and then to contemplate his household as practically heathen, where no God is adored; no voice of prayer is heard; no song of praise is offered; no hands are stretched out to the heavens to save your beloved sons and daughters! We are here tempted to ask, can there be such scenes? Certainly we do ask, can there be such a scene among the friends of God, and among parents, feeling that they are professedly devoted to the service of the Most High? If I speak to such an one, I address you as a Christian father, as a dying man, and beseech you that this night the God of heaven may be invoked in your abode, and that your dwelling become consecrated as the dwelling-place of the Most High.

2. A second objection is want of time. This objection scarce deserves a serious answer; and yet it is one of the most frequent that is made. I reply to it-1. That the objection is one which may be turned to account, and

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do good, if you ever establish family worship. The great fault of devotion in families is, that it is too tedious, monotonous, and long-that it becomes wearisome and disgusting. It will be well if you can enter on it with all the advantage of the objection so often urged, and with the hope that you will feel the propriety of being short. 2. I reply, make your devotions in the family as short as you please. I am not pleading for long services. I am pleading for the thing itself. And assuredly it would not greatly impede the more important business of making money, or enjoying the world, to give five minutes or three minutes to God. 3. Is this objection ever urged by those who are conscientious about this thing, and who feel that time was given them for some valuable purpose? Is it urged by those who have actually engaged with interest in this duty, and who love it? From them should come the objection, if from any quarter; and it is not fair for an objector to presume that he, of all men, is conscientious about his time; and that those who offer prayer in their families are the idle, and the prodigal. An investigation on this subject might show that all conscience is not on the side of the objector, and that the acknowledgment of God interferes with no man's welfare; and that there may be a conscientious appropriation of time, even among those who regard family devotion as a pleasure and a duty. To such objectors I respectfully submit whether no time is spent in unnecessary sleep; whether the toilet claims no time that God might claim; and whether no time is spent in unprofitable reading or remark, on which God might have a claim on the head of the family. I feel that I am letting down this subject by noticing this objection. It requires some self-denial to meet the reasonings of men, who suppose that God is an aggressor, and an usurper; that the Eternal King is violating all the laws of property, and is rudely intruding, when he claims a jurisdiction over your hours, or moments; and that for God, your Creator, to demand even a few moments of human life, is to come in as an unbidden and unwelcome guest

into your family; and is such an act of trespass on a man's castle, as to demand the deliberate purpose of a father to exclude him each day from the domain. I add in the language of Barrow, "Do we take devotion itself to be no business, or a business of no consideration? Do we conceit, when we pay God his debts, or discharge our duty toward him, when we crave his mercy, when we solicit the main concernments of our souls, that we are idle, or misemployed? that we lavish our time, and lose our pains? What other affairs can we have of greater moment, or necessity, than this? Can there be any interest more close, and weighty, than this, of promoting for our own souls eternal health and happiness? Is not this indeed the great work-the only necessary matter-in comparison with which, all other occupations are trifling? What are the great businesses of this world? What but scraping for pelf, compassing designs of ambition, courting the respect and favour of men, gratifying sinful curiosity, and carnal humour? Shall these images, these shadows of business, suppress or crowd out devotion?-that which procureth wealth inestimable, pleasure infinitely satisfactory, and honour incomparably noble: above all that this earth can afford? Is it not, beside, no such indispensable business, but rather some base dotage on lucre, some inveigling bait of pleasure, that crosseth our devotion? Is it not often a complimental visit, an appointment to tattle, a wild ramble in vice or folly, that so deeply urgeth us to put off our duty? Nay, is it not commonly sloth, rather than activity, an averseness from this, rather than inclination to any other employment, which diverts us from our prayers? Is it not the true reason why we pray so seldom, not because we are very busy, but because we are extremely idle: so idle, that we cannot willingly take the pains to withdraw our affections from sensible things, to reduce our wandering thoughts, to compose our hearts to right frames, to bend our untoward inclinations to a compliance with our duty? Do we not betake ourselves to other conversations and commerces, merely for re