our shores, from which we have already experienced so many evils, and have so many still to apprehend, would soon be disarmed of all dangerous power, were we to receive them with kindness and hospitality, and really to exert ourselves for their welfare. They are brought from countries of papal darkness, from associations of oppression, and from where the extreme of poverty secures its attendant calamities of intellectual and moral degradation. And there, in their penury and in their mental and spiritual ignorance, fortified by the most powerful superstition, and with passions inflamed by the insane policy of civil and ecclesiastical governments, they are almost inaccessible by any moral influences. The Christian missionary can get no access to their dwellings, and far less can he get access to their hearts. The printed page they dare not receive; and if received, it conveys no ideas to their benighted minds,

Now God allures them away from these strongholds of sin. He separates them from their associates, and brings them as strangers to this land of strangers. They come with friendly feelings, seeking a refuge. They are scattered throughout the country, and placed in the families of the intelligent and the pious. It is indeed a peculiar providence which is thus dividing this otherwise impregnable force of sin,

and opening its ranks, and separating individual from individual, that the light of truth may, from every direction, beam in around them. It seems as though God, by special design, had placed these strangers in our families, and dependent upon our kindness, that we might instil into their hearts Christian principles and mould their characters aright. We should welcome them with the utmost cordiality, and manifest towards them untiring benevolence. Every family should receive with Christian sympathy all who are in its employ; and especially should that sympathy be manifested by the assemblage of the whole household at family prayer. The soothing spirit of

devotion is as oil to the wheels of domestic life. It tunes the otherwise discordant instrument, and sweetest harmony is the result. It tends to inspire each individual with fidelity to his Maker and to his fellow men. It promotes temporal prosperity, and secures spiritual peace. It enlightens the understanding, and affects the heart.

The father who neglects the duty of family prayer, may just about as well say, in words, to his children, "I do not believe that there is any reality in religion." They see that their father does not feel his dependence upon God, that he does not deem it neces sary to pray to him. Thus is God excluded from their hearts, and they are led by

parental example to prayerlessness and sin. A prayerless family must be in the sight of God a hideous spectacle. God is banished from his own dominions-from that spot which he blessed above all others, and where, above all others, it is important that his authority should be recognised.

Judiciously conducted, family prayer is a constant appeal to the heart and the consciences of children. It continually impresses upon their minds the sense of God's presence and their duty. It subdues the strength of evil passions, it fortifies them with correct principles. It enlightens their consciences, and thus restrains from sin. It acts upon the soul beneficially in every respect in which the soul can be benefited. The young man who leaves such a parental roof, to encounter the temptations of life, is fortified by a strength of inward principle which has been daily and yearly accumulating at the family altar; and when he hears the oath of his associate, he trembles; and when he sees the dissolute going in the paths of sinful indulgence, he will not follow. The voice of a father's prayers is not forgotten. Its still and persuasive monitions follow him through all the turmoil and thickening cares of life.

The

It is a sabbath morning in winter. breakfast table is early removed, and the family are assembled around the blazing

hearth. Father and mother, brothers and sisters, with others in the employment of the family, encircle the fireside. The father has previously selected an interesting extract from a religious paper or book, which one of the older children reads. They then read in rotation from the Bible. The hymn is read, and infant voices rise sweetly to the ear of God, mingling in the notes of family praise. They then bow in prayer; and as the father gives utterance to his feelings of penitence and gratitude-as his heart grows warm with the glow of devotion, the whole household is impressed with a sense of the reality and excellence of religion.

As the bell summons them to the church, they go with feelings prepared to be rightly affected by the preaching of the gospel. As the minister pleads the cause of righteousness, and unfolds the scenes of a judgment to come, the truth descends with power upon these hearts disarmed and opened for its reception. Think you that this young man, who has just come from the bosom of a Christian family, and from the warm utterance of a father's prayers; who has just been reading his Bible, and uniting in the morning hymn of praise; whose affections are enlivened by the recent melody of the Christians' song; think you that he can listen, as coldly and insensibly, to these

appeals to his conscience and his heart, as can that young man by his side who has never heard a father's prayers, and who has, perhaps, seldom seen his father even look into the word of God? No! while the one struggles in vain to conceal his emotion, the other sleeps in unconcern. The one, in all human probability, will soon join the church of Christ here on earth, eventually to be a member of the church triumphant in the skies: the other will go on to live without God, and without God to die. Compare the records of our churches with the secret history of families, and it will be found that the children of prayer are pre-eminently those who are gathered into the kingdom of God.

The impression which is produced upon the mind by the instructions of the sabbath is strengthened by the home scenes of the week. After the exercises of the day are over, and the family is again assembled, in the silence of the evening, for the evening hymn and prayer, the emotions which the day has awakened are increased in intensity, and the resolutions to which the day has given birth are renewed by the humbled spirit. During all the week, each morning and evening, these impressions are revived, till another sabbath comes with its new energies of moral power.

A young man, who had recently become