parents, and be a blessing to them to their dying day, and be joined with them in everlasting happiness in heaven; or he may, by neglect and unfaithfulness, make them thorns in his side while they remain at home, a bitterness and a curse to his declining years, and a source of unmixed and never-ending sorrow in eternity. There is no power like it. The father of a family, though his dominion is bounded by narrow limits, has, within those limits, the most absolute sway.

The reason is, because it takes hold at once of the heart and the character. That boy of yours is as much under your power as it is possible for a human soul to be. It is not merely that he is now entirely in your hands, that you can control his time, his employments, his earnings, his amusements; it is not that you can now make him happy by your kindness and care, or render life an intolerable burden to him, by oppression from which he can find no refuge; but it is that you have all his future years at your disposal, and can determine whether misery or happiness shall fill them up. It is true, that in a few years he must leave your roof, and then you must cease to have any direct control over him; but in the mean time, you may instil principles and cherish habits which will make him a curse to himself when you shall no longer be able to inflict direct suffering. And on the other hand, you can so mould and form his character now, that the rich and happy fruits of what you do shall descend around him in rich profusion, long after you shall have slumbered in the dust. In a word, you may now fix a poisoned barb in his heart, to fester and rankle there for ever; or you may apply the balm of the gospel to heal existing wounds, and, by the

blessing of God, secure his perpetual peace and happiness.

The master of a family is thus a monarch, whose power and responsibility are imniense. He not only has the peace and happiness of those committed to him almost entirely at his disposal for the time being, but the effects of his influence over them run on through all the years of this life, and often through all the ages of the life to come. It is too much power and responsibility for any man to bear alone. If we could really see its extent, we should all feel that it is too much. God does not intend that we should exercise it alone. We ought to be in our families vicegerents, not sovereigns. God is the sovereign : we ought to rule under him.

This idea, then, that the master of a family is God's vicegerent, and that in his household he has to administer the government of God, and not his own, lies at the foundation of his duty. If he feels this and acts on this princiole he is safe. He will be humble. Feeling under a law himself, he will set an example of submission, which will be readily followed. The captain who obeys his general best, will, in turn, be best obeyed by his soldiers. If, however, you, the master, rebel against your own sovereign, how can you expect vour children will be submissive to you?

His authority will be sustained. Weak and frail, and ignorant as man is, if he rules his house in the name of God, and not in his own, he will have authority. But he must do it really in the name of God. He must feel that he acts as the representative, the lieutenant of his Master in heaven; and if he feels this really, he will be

clothed, in the eyes of those under him, with power from above.

He will have a guide.

Should he act for him

self alone, in his own name, and guided by his own wisdom, he will be almost continually in difficulty, if he feels any sense of responsibility at all. Emergencies will often arise, when he will be beset with difficulties, and scarcely know what to do. If, however, he will undertake to administer God's government in his family instead of his own, there is one above him to give him full direction and to take all the responsibility of consequences.

But if the master of a family concludes to come and surrender himself and his family to God's care, making himself the vicegerent, not the sovereign, he must do it in earnest; and while he performs his duties in the name and under the authority of God, he must feel that his children and friends, and all his possessions and all his hopes, are really in the hands of God, to be disposed of according to his good pleasure. If such a surrender is really and honestly made, and the master, after it, exercises his power over his household, not as principal, but as the steward of God, he may feel safe and happy whatever may be the circumstances in which he is placed. And yet some fathers and mothers strangely prefer to live in open irreligion; to commence their union without committing themselves to God, to receive their children,-trusts so invaluable !— without at all recognizing the hand which bestows them; to bring them up in impiety, to give up their families to discord and sorrow, knowing too that the time is approaching when they must part for ever. And how miserable must their partings

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be! A father bending over the dying bed of a child, whose eternal welfare he has wholly disregarded, and now he sees that he is going before his Judge, and his wretched parent dares not even inform him of his danger;—a child bidding adieu, a final adieu to a parental roof, when no prayer has been offered, the blessing of heaven never invoked, and God never acknowledged;parents going down to the grave in old age, with children scattered over the earth confirmed in sin, and some perhaps already gone to their final home of sorrow, where the miserable father and mother must soon join them-these are bitter cups. they must be drank by those who incur such responsibilities as those which come upon parents, who do not acknowledge God, and seek his guidance and care.

But

"I must, I will acknowledge God, in my house; I must commit my family to his care, and act under him in the management of it. I must have his guidance, his protection; I must have him to fly to as a shelter when trials and afflictions come upon me in future." Who can refrain from saying this and acting accordingly?

In efforts to promote the Saviour's kingdom, Christians should look with special interest at measures calculated to promote the religious welfare of family circles. For, as we have said above, it is God who has grouped the human race into families. The other institutions and relations of life man has formed for himself; but the ties by which husband and wife, parents and children, are bound together, are formed directly by the hand of God.

It is curious to observe that the Creator, in

his plans, looks at valuable results, not at

magnificence in the means of accomplishing them. In a summer evening, the earth is dry and parched, and plants are ready to droop and wither from the heat of the day, and some plan must be devised to refresh and revive them. A human mechanist would have gratified his pride by exhibiting some magnificent machinery to accomplish effects so extensive. God does it, silently and unseen, by the evening dew. Few know how or why it falls, but in the morning millions perceive its refreshing and invigorating effects.

So, in the production of moral effects, God secures the simple principle, which when secured will operate every where, and the immensity of whose results depends upon the universality of its application. Man, on the other hand, is prone to look with too much interest at what is magnificent and grand as a means, and to forget what should be the real object, the widest possible extension of useful result. In a word, man turns his attention to more splendid organizations than that which gathers round the fireside; but God finds nothing so worthy of his attention and care. Man founds empires, organizes armies, erects cities. Jehovah establishes the family, links the husband to the wife and the parent to the child, and protects the institution by laws, whose observance will secure the highest earthly happiness, and whose violation will be followed by the most acute of human

woes.

In taking this course our Maker has shown that the promotion of human happiness is his great design. For happiness, if it exists at all, must exist in the family. A bad government makes misery enough, it is true, but the woes it brings are n thing, compared with those of bad families.