and going down with a broken heart to the grave?

Around the fireside they are probably acquiring unchanging characters for good or ill. They will probably go on through time and through eternity in that direction upon which they enter during the first few years of life. The stamp is in your hand with which to place upon their characters that impress which never can be effaced. It is therefore almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of domestic influence.

1. Family prayer is an indispensable requisite in the promotion of domestic happiness. The man who neglects this duty, whatever may be his theoretical notions about religion, is a practical atheist. However loud may be his professions, his conduct refutes them all. It is totally absurd for one to pretend to the Christian character who is neglecting the practical duties of religion. It matters not how orthodox his creed, it matters not how ostentatious his zeal; if his heart does not impel him to gather his family around him, and to commend them, with himself, to the divine protection, it is certain that he is a stranger to all the feelings of the renewed heart. If he is not allured to this exercise by his own desires, if he needs to be driven to it by authoritative commands, if he is looking about for excuses for forsaking God's altar,

he has not that spirit which is essential to piety. The man who loves God, and is sensible of his dependence upon God, must feel that hardly any earthly deprivation would be so great as the loss of the privilege of family worship. He is urged by the strong impulse of a grateful heart to the morning and the evening altar. He is impelled by a sense of his own necessities and helplessness. He is allured by an attraction of love and reverence, which he can find no will to resist. He who is dragged reluctantly to the throne of grace is the slave of sin. His heart must be wrong.

one

At this exercise all the members of the household should be assembled. If any individual is unwilling to recognise the existence and the authority of God by meeting with the family for prayer, such an ought not to be allowed to remain an inmate of a Christian dwelling. It is vain here to plead conscientious scruples. A man may as well say that he feels conscientiously bound to go unwashed or undressed, as to affirm that his conscience will not let him unite in prayer to God. If an individual is found with an understanding and a heart so perverted, the Christian should have conscience enough to say, "Let him then go in peace, but I will not employ in my family one who interrupts its harmony and injures the moral sense of my children by his wicked

example." Let every man worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience. Let religion in all its forms be as free as the mind. But let no one come and demand employment and admission into a Christian family while denying and dishonouring the Creator of the world.

This subject is one which at the present time is of most momentous importance. Every day the emigrant's ship is pouring thousands upon our shores who are ignorant of the claims of God's law and almost of their own immortality. They come strong in passion, but powerless in principle. They are capable of sweeping over our land with the desolation of the whirlwind, and of prostrating our institutions before the lawless violence of the mob, or of becoming men of respectability and of salutary influence. They are accompanied by professedly spiritual guides, who are deeply interested in excluding from their minds all light and knowledge, which may tend to weaken the influence of a degrading superstition. Every avenue to their understanding is watched with an eagle eye, lest some enlightening truth should find its way there, and reveal to them the spiritual thraldom by which they have been defrauded. The hearing of a prayer offered to God may rouse the soul from its degrading servitude to spiritual freedom, and therefore is much influence

exerted to prevent their being present at such prayers. This young girl, who lives in your family, with foreign accent and rude, uncultivated, yet affectionate feelings, will probably, ere long, be the mother, and instructress, and guide of a numerous family. The only school she can enjoy, to prepare her for these responsible duties, is the few months she passes under your roof. Till she came to your dwelling she, perhaps, never heard the voice of sincere and heartfelt prayer; and when she leaves your dwelling, she may never hear that voice again. She has seen nothing of religion but ceremonial pomp. She knows nothing of her accountability to God. She has no conception of her own sinfulness or of the way of salvation. God has placed her for a few months under your influence, and what you do for her must be done quickly. To a great degree her own character and that of her future children is dependent upon your exertions. Bring then every holy influence in your power to bear upon her mind and her heart. And, above all things, let her hear your confessions of sin, your acknowledgment of duty, and your prayer for heavenly guidance and forgiveness.

You have a young man in your employ. He has just come from the ignorance and the degradation of his foreign home to seek his fortune in this new world. He is a

stranger to our customs, and, with an understanding totally uninstructed, is easily made the victim of the vicious and the dupe of the designing. Soon he is to be an American citizen with all the rights, and all the political power, our free constitution gives. He is to help to frame our laws and choose our rulers. Soon he will leave your home for a dwelling of his own, and his moral image, whether it be that of ignorance and vice, or intelligence and virtue, will be transmitted to perhaps a dozen children, inheriting the American's birth-right. Not a few would gladly keep him in ignorance, and shut out from his soul the light of true piety. God has placed him for a time under your tuition. He has given you a strong influence over his mind, and the most favourable opportunity for exerting that influence; and, if you neglect the duty thus devolving upon you, you neglect one of the most important responsibilities of your life, and you cannot be held guiltless. Let him be in reality a member of your family; let him share in all the privileges and all the purifying influences of your devotion. Perhaps the flame which warms your heart may be enkindled in his. The views of truth which you express in prayer and praise may communicate light to his mind which in no other way can be imparted.

The foreign population now crowding to