child's piety that he is robust, healthy, and fond of play, and that he enters into it with all the freedom and buoyancy of childhood. We do not want an unhealthy and precocious maturity, but a healthy childpiety. Children must be judged of as children, and the piety of children, to be genuine, must be childish in its character.

It is true that in many instances pious parents have been compelled sorrowfully to abandon the hopes they had cherished on behalf of their offspring in childhood. The appearance of early piety has faded away, and the "lusts of other things entering in"! have choked the good seed which seemed to have been implanted in their hearts. The restraints of home have been broken through, the principles taught at home have been cast off, the habits formed there abandoned. To all appearance, a state of reckless impiety has followed; or, in other cases, a cold and careless indifference to vital religion. Yet even here we ought not to despair. The disappointment is often only for a time. Under that apparent indifference there frequently exists a restless anxiety of heart, which will not be allayed till it finds rest in Christ. And even in the case of those who have become most abandoned, numerous instances prove that while no case is hopeless, we are justified in indulging especial hope with regard to those who have in early life been piously trained.

The Christian home can only be complete when the children are led to Jesus; when the right means are wisely and prayerfully used to develop in them

1 Mark iv. 19.

a piety which shall make their childish lives beautiful and holy. What more lovely sight can there be on earth than a home of happy children, full of the exuberant vivacity of childhood, as yet unburdened by the world's cares, recognising Christ as their Saviour, and growing in love to him and conformity to his commands! Conscious of sin, and feeling their need of forgiveness, they have learned daily to seek it at his feet. Conscious of their need of Divine help to enable them to resist their childish temptations and fulfil their childish duties, they are daily suppliants for his grace. Their little troubles, their childish difficulties, they bring to Him who said, "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not." They grow daily in the recognition of him as their Saviour and Lord.

The home-life in all its aspects would be thus brightened and blessed. Parents and children would have a still stronger tie of affection, and brothers and sisters would feel their love more hallowed, if they could thus regard one another as fellow-heirs of the grace of life. Obedience would be rendered to parents, not by compulsion, but of delight, as obedience to the Divine will. Parental supervision and authority would be exercised to guide and control, rather than to correct. Mutual service, ungrudgingly rendered, would fulfil the law of Christ. O happy homes ! Circles of Christian love and fellowship more beautiful than aught else this world contains! Scenes where "ministering spirits" might love to linger, and in which God himself delights to dwell! Christian

1 Heb. i. 14.

parents! let no effort, no prayer be spared, that such a home may be yours.

'I feel," wrote a little child not more than twelve years old to her mother, "that I am a great sinner in the sight of God, that I need to have my sins forgiven, and to have a new heart. Dear mamma, I have prayed for these, and I hope and trust that, through the blood of Christ, I am made clean. I have felt in my own mind happier, much happier, since I thought more of religion." That child grew up to maturity a consistent and pious follower of Christ. Why should such cases be rare? Why should children ever get from us the idea that piety is something far removed from their range of life? The child's heart is accessible to the influences of Divine grace. The child's affections may be won by Christ's love. The child's conscience may be awakened to a sense of sin. The child's prayer may ascend through the one Mediator for pardon and cleansing. The child's faith may trust,—and, oh, how simply and fully it does trust-in Christ as the only Saviour! The child's life may show, in a way suited to its childish knowledge and experience, the proof of the Divine change wrought in its heart. Christian parents! seek that such grace, such wisdom may be given you that such Divine blessing may rest upon your efforts to bring up your children "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," that the happiness of your home may be completed in the early piety of those for whom your hands toil, and your hearts pray.

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CHAPTER IX.

FAMILY WORSHIP.

It seems probable that the oldest form of worship was family worship. In patriarchal times the head of the household was the priest, and the household itself the congregation. Even heathenism recognised, after its fashion, the duty of family worship. In Rome, the lares, which were supposed to be the guardians of houses, and the penates, which were regarded as the protectors of families, were worshipped in the house, and their images and altars formed a necessary part of the domestic establishment. "The necessity and propriety of family prayer," says Mr. James, "arise out of the constitution of the family; and were it not enjoined by the word of God, either by precept or example, it would still be binding upon the conscience of every parent, by the relation in which he stands to his family, and the extent of their dependence upon God."

The Bible contains abundant evidence that family worship has been the invariable accompaniment of family religion. The examples of Abraham, who, wherever he pitched his tent, built an altar; of Joshua, whose resolution to serve God embraced his family and household; of Job, to whose family piety especial attention has already been directed,' are cases in point 1 Chap. II.

But the indirect argument is no less forcible. Can we conceive it possible that the supreme claims of religion in our domestic relations can be fulfilled without a daily recognition of our allegiance to Him who "setteth the solitary in families," and who is the Giver of our family mercies? The very prayer, after the manner of which we are taught to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," points out its fitness for family use. It is evidently designed to be the prayer, not only of the individual, but of the social or domestic circle to which he belongs.

"The voice of rejoicing and salvation," says the Psalmist, "is in the tabernacles of the righteous.”1 There God is daily worshipped; there his praise is heard; there his mercy is the daily theme of song. Surely, as the Christian father and mother gather their little ones around them, refreshed by the calm rest of the night, and surrounded by the new mercies of the morning, they cannot fail to remember and thank Him whose eye has watched over their home, under the shadow of whose wings they have slept in peace. And as evening gathers them together again, unbroken in numbers, and still crowned with lovingkindness and tender mercies, what more fitting close to the day can be imagined, than that they should. again commend themselves and their children to His care who only maketh them to dwell in safety?

But family worship is also of great practical importance as a means of maintaining family piety. It is a witness, a practical and persistent witness, of the holy solicitude felt by the heads of the household for each of its members. Amid the duties of the day, the cares