sense of obligation, he would be conscious of something exceedingly ungrateful, and unamiable in his character. And he cannot but feel that something of the same kind must attach itself to his father and mother. Especially is this the case, if you attempt to teach him religion; to show him the duty of thanksgiving to yourself, or to God; and to set before him the evil of ingratitude. Vile, and mean, and odious, he may easily be made to see ingratitude to be. His natural honesty, and ingenuousness, may easily be excited to indignation and scorn at the base feelings of the recipient of favours, who repays them with thoughtlessness and unconcern. But are you not in doing this, teaching him to frame an argument against yourself? If to be ungrateful be a trait of character so unlovely, then why is it that no gratitude is expressed to God, amid the many mercies of my father's house? How are his teachings about the evil of ingratitude in me, to be reconciled with entire amiableness in his deportment toward God? And if he can live from year to year, and exercise no gratitude to his great Benefactor, then why is my character to be esteemed so unlovely if I imitate his example, and receive the kindness of my father with cold reserve; or as entitled to few expressions of thankfulness?' And is not this the same as to teach ingratitude on a large scale, and make it the prominent lesson in the house, that blessings may be received to any amount from a benefactor, and yet no guilt be incurred by forgetting the giver, and rioting on his beneficence without one grateful emotion?

2. Prayer is one of the prime duties of religion. There can be no religion without it. You cannot teach your children any of the precepts of religion, without making this one of them. Perhaps the first lesson which you will of necessity teach, will be that it is their duty to pray. Yet how can you consistently teach this lesson without setting them the example? If prayer is of so much moment, then why should not he who inculcates the lesson, exemplify it also in his fa

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mily? And what will be the effect of this teaching, if in the family he observes that you are a stranger to devotion? Can it be possible to teach the precepts, or the duties of religion, unless it be done in connexion with making them prominent and constant, in the arrangements of the household? It will be remembered that on no other subject do you make such an experiment. You wish to inculcate the lessons pertaining to business, or the mechanic arts. You wish to train up the child to habits of industry, frugality and order. You wish to inculcate on him the lessons of economy, or the value of polite intercourse, or of accomplishment. You have but one way of doing it. It is by example-by making these things prominent by making them stand forth in all your domestic arrangements, so that your views cannot but be seen and apprehended. By making your conception of their value manifest to the child, you hope that he will be brought to feel as you feel, and be trained up so as to be an ornament to your name and family. Religion, you attempt to teach on a different principle-to acquaint him with the theory, not the practice; to express with the lips what the heart feels not; and to suffer the language to teach one thing, which is as regularly denied by the life. Now what is this but to take religion from all its proper connexions, and to make it a cold, distant, unmeaning thing? If I wished to tell a man how he could effectually disgust a child with a subject, it would be to teach it as he does nothing else: to take it out of all the ordinary relations of human things, and proclaim with his lips what is known never to be practised in his life.

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3. Your example, without family prayer, will neutralize all the instructions of religion. If religion is of so much importance as you would endeavour to persuade him, then the child will ask, at once, Why does not my father exemplify it? If the world is a trifle, and eternity be all, as he tells me, then why do I see his first and last thoughts given to that world? Why all his time engrossed in the counting room, the

office, or the ways of pleasure or ambition? Why is not a portion of that time given to that which is pronounced to be of such transcendent value? And if the world be so full of temptations, and trials, why does he not implore for me the blessing of that God, who I am told, can encompass me, and shield me from danger? Is it my father's belief that that God affords protection unasked, and that he would not desire to be invoked to grant that defence and protection which circumstances of danger and trial demand? And can that be of so much moment which is suffered to be broken in upon by the veriest trifle, and excluded by any project of pleasure or gain?"

4. I appeal then to the facts in the case. I appeal to those parents who neglect family prayer, whether, in fact, they do not neglect the religious training of their children, as a matter of regular, sober, faithful arrangement. Does such instruction come in, in any way, as a part of the family organization? Is it not a fact that you see the inconsistency of attempting it without family prayer, and that rather than do the one, you choose also to neglect the other? And if so, then I put the matter on this broad ground, and urge the duty of family worship, by all the importance of the religious training. If it be so, that, if the one is neglected, the other will be, then I appeal to you by all the solemnity of their eternal interests-by a reference to their religious character in this life, and their eternal doom in the life to come, and ask you whether you dare to do a thing which, in its results, is to shut religion from your family, and preclude all parental religious training in your household? That parent who can coolly take a step like that, is advancing to meet an account which I humbly pray to God I may never be called to render in the day of judgment.

And this sad neglect has given rise to an abuse of one of the noblest institutions of this age-I mean the Sunday School. The parent who is unwilling to teach his children for himself, or to pray with them at home, finds a salvo to his conscience by devolving the

and there is no device, by which you can free yours from the obligation. God most High, has clothed y with responsibility, that of training up your child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord;-that exerting the influence of a parent to prepare them usefulness, and for heaven. And that is no envia feeling which attempts to flee from the responsibili and devolve its duties on others. Besides, the Sund School teacher has a responsibility of his own, qu enough for any human being to endure. After have done your duty, still his work is as arduous any mortal would willingly undertake. It is unki ness to your children, and to such a teacher, to him to bear your responsibilities. It cannot be do He will not stand at the judgment bar in your plac nor will he meet there the doom which awaits paren neglect in the family. The other remark is this. is, that one of the prominent effects of the instructio in the Sunday School, is to teach the duty of fam devotion. That is a lesson soon learned. And yo children return to you from those nurseries of pie often deeply feeling, and greatly grieved, that th father's house is a place where no God is ackno ledged, and where mercies are ever descending wi out any returns of praise. Each Sabbath shall deep this lesson. And you are not to wonder if the lips children should sometimes tenderly ask you why plain a duty is neglected; or if they throw their ar around your necks, and intreat you to acknowled the God of all your mercies in your habitation. I gard the Sunday School as one of the means prom

ing to family prayer, and not the least of its blessings do I esteem it to be, that it throws an influence back upon your families, and makes your children pleaders for God, and prompters to duty, in the business of family religion.

But while the duty of family prayer appears thus manifest and clear, while every parent would probably admit that he can see the propriety of the duty, and that most important benefits would result from its observance, yet it has so happened that there is not probably any single duty against which so many objections are urged as this. To what this fact is owing, it is not now necessary to inquire. It may be remarked, however, that the fact of the existence of so many objections, is no small confirmation of the strength of the arguments in favour of family prayer. Men do not commonly invent and urge objections where a duty is not strongly and plausibly pressed. The amount of objection will be in proportion to the strength and frequency with which the argument is urged. When that occurs daily, as in the case of family devotion, where the duty is palpable and obvious, and yet from any cause there is an unwillingness to engage in it, then it is necessary that there should be some excuse always at hand, and sufficiently plausible to turn aside, at least for the present, the force of the argument. It is of importance to notice these objections.

The first and most plausible is, that the duty of family prayer is not expressly enjoined in the Scriptures. This I admit-and having frankly made the admission, let us advance to ascertain, if possible, the precise shape which this subject assumes in the sacred volume. This will be seen by the following observations.-1. One design of law, and especially of laws pertaining to morals, is to give general statutes, or injunctions, applicable to all the cases which may oc

cur.

It is not to specify each case, in which business there could be no end-but to advance general principles that can be readily understood, and applicable to