you What was your first concern on awaking from sleep? You had been solemnly exhorted and entreated to "draw nigh to God." Did you attempt to do so, not only in the attitude and with the words of prayer, but with the understanding and the heart? Did you either feel happy and grateful because you were enabled to do this, or depressed and dejected, because you could not do it- yet confident in the truth of God's promise, and determined to persevere till you could? Did read with devout attention, and silent if not direct prayers for that influence of the Holy Ghost, which could alone lead you to a right understanding; and did you wish and did you strive, first to comprehend and appreciate, then to apply and act upon the sacred word? Did you next, having fulfilled your previous and incumbent obligation as a master or a father, in attempting by a religious service to lead your family to God, turn to your worldly duty, your occupation, or your pleasure-for there is much pleasure that has no alliance with sin-in that frame of mind which permitted you to remember Godwhich excited no wish or desire that you could forget him? If you were urged in a moment of hilarity beyond the limits of Christian soberness, did you check and restrain yourself from the consciousness of the Divine presence? If some advantage, not prohibited indeed, or dishonourable, or contrary to the usual practice of your trade and calling, yet which could not be grasped without sullying, though but by a breath, the clear, bright mirror in which the Christian's integrity should ever be reflected-did you pass it by, from a sense of what was due to the honour of the Gospel? If offended, were you placable; if provoked, patient; if successful, not greatly elated; if disappointed, not unduly cast down? Was no duty wilfully declined, because unpalatable to the carnal mind or difficult to the natural man; or if even there were, as there might be, inconsistencies in these or similar respects, were they detected ;were they promptly retracted and repaired to the utmost of your knowledge and ability? Did the day close as it began, with family worship, with private study of the sacred volume; with prayer that strove and struggled to be, if it actually was not, earnest, heartfelt, and sincere? And, where all seemed fair and upright to the eye of man, was there humiliation of heart and contrite acknowledgment, on account of those blemishes which could not but be discoverable to the allexploring eye of God? Such is an epitome of the every-day life of a Christian, whose treasure, like the sun, is in heaven, but its influence, like the sunshine, is felt upon earth. And it is in the main a happy life;-all that is beautiful and innocent in creation contributes to the believer's gratification; and what can be permanently beautiful that is not innocent? Rich or poor, he has alike treasure in heaven; happy or depressed, he alike aspires to, and alike anticipates pleasures that are at God's right hand for ever; his rock no storms can overturn, and his anchor no waves can loosen. Subject like others, yet not more subject than they, to those vicissitudes of sorrow, disappointment, sickness, and death, which are the thorns and briars of the wilderness of this world; he only can look upwards when the way is most rugged, the effort most painful, the struggle most severe. He only, when riches become dross, and learning weariness, and wisdom folly, and beauty corruption, and honour but a name-he only can look to heaven, which is the throne of his Saviour, and exclaim" There is my treasure, there is my heart; my haven and my home are there." - SERMON XIII. THE DUTY AND ADVANTAGES OF FAMILY PRAYER. JOSH. XXIV, 15. "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." THE more strictly we examine into the spirit which the Gospel everywhere enjoins and exemplifies, the more fully shall we be persuaded, that it invariably consults and promotes in conjunction the glory of God and the welfare of mankind. It consults the glory of God, since that glory is best advanced by an extensive communication of the Divine benefits; and who will deny that the spirit of the Gospel consists mainly in the desire to do this-it consults the welfare of mankind, as it is diametrically opposed to that selfish and interested principle of action, which is the acknowledged source of many evils, and the latent cause of more. "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others," is an injunction, which has reference at once to things temporal and things eternal; and the general tenor of the Gospel precepts renders it incumbent on every true disciple of Christ to regard the interests of his neighbour and of his family, as well as of himself; and that as concerns both worlds. Were a practical evidence of this required, we need do no more than appeal to the invariable conduct of the early Christians upon the receipt of the Gospel. They did not lay up the talents which the Lord had entrusted to them, in a napkin, or bury them in the earth; they went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. No sooner had they freely received than they were ready freely to bestow; and made it their delight, as it became their duty, to urge the acceptance of similar privileges with those which themselves enjoyed, on all who came within the sphere of their influence. The first step was to believe and be baptized themselves; the second, to inculcate on their families the same faith, and lead them to be partakers of the same holy rite. Such, among others, was the practice of the Philippian jailor. Such of Cornelius, the first Gentile on whom was conferred the high pri |