FAMILY WORSHIP.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.-JOSHUA XXIV. 15.

Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his. We have said on a former occasion, my brethren, that if we would die their death, we must live their life. Doubtless there are some cases in which the Lord manifests his grace and glory to man, on his death-bed, saying to him, as to the thief on the cross: To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise. The Lord, from time to time, gives such examples to the Church, thus to demonstrate his sovereign power, by which he can, if it please him, subdue the most hardened hearts, and convert the most alienated souls, causing us to see that all depends on his grace, and that he has mercy on whom he will have mercy. But these are only very rare exceptions, upon which you cannot absolutely count; and if you would have a Christian death, my dear hearers, you must have a Christian life-a heart truly converted to the Lord, truly ready for the kingdom, which, trusting only in the grace of Christ, desires to walk near Him. There are many means, my brethren, by which you can prepare yourselves during life, to obtain, one day, so blessed an end. To one of the most efficacious of these we would lead you to-day. This means is domestic worship; that is to say, that edification which, day after day, a Christian family receives at the common altar. "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord," said Joshua to Israel. We desire, my brethren, to present to you the motives which ought to lead you to this resolution of Joshua, and the necessary directions for its accomplishment.

THE MOTIVES.

Domestic worship is the most ancient as well as the most holy of institutions. It is not one of those innovations against which one is easily prejudiced; it began with the world itself.

It is evident that the first worship, which the first man and his children rendered to God, could be no other than family worship, since they were then the only family existing on the earth. Then began men, says the Scripture, to call upon the name of the Lord. Domestic worship must have been for a long period the only worship rendered in common to God; for as the earth increased in population, each head of a family establishing himself alone, a priest unto God in the place in which his lot was cast, presented to

the Lord of all the earth, with his wife, his sons, his daughters, his men servants and his maid servants, the homage which was His due. It was only when by gradual increase men had infinitely multiplied, that different families dwelt near each other, and then came the idea of offering to God a common adoration, and public worship had birth. But domestic worship had become too precious to the families of the children of God to be abandoned by them, and if they united with strange families in worshipping God, how much stronger reasons had they for persisting in adoring Him with their own families? So, when leaving the cradle of the human race, we transport ourselves under the tents of the patriarchs, we find there also this household worship.

Go with the angels to the plains of Mamre, when Abraham sits at his tent-door in the heat of the day; enter there with him and we shall see the patriarch, with all his house, offering a common sacrifice to God. 66 I know," said the Lord, speaking of the father of the faithful, "I know that he will command his children, and his house after him, to keep the way of the Lord,-to do that which is just and right.” Public worship is established by Moses; he gives many ordinances ;--a magnificent temple is to be raised. Will not domestic worship now be abolished? No; by the side of this temple, and all its magnificence, the meanest house of the faithful is to be filled with the Word of God. "These words which I command thee this day," said the Lord, by Moses, "shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." Joshua, in our text, declares to the people that they, if they will, may adore idols, but that he will not mingle in their profane feasts, but withdraw into his own dwelling, he and his house will serve the Lord. Job, rising early in the morning, sanctified his children, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all, saying: "It may be that my sons have sinned!" David, whose whole life is a continual adoration of God, and to whom a day passed in the courts of the Lord was better than a thousand days elsewhere, neglected not the domestic altar, when he exclaimed, “The things that our fathers have told us we will not keep from our children." Transporting ourselves to the times in which our Saviour appeared, we find domestic instruction in all the pious families of Israel. It is thus St. Paul was enabled to say to Timothy : "From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation. I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also." Jesus, during his ministry, laid the foundations of domestic worship among Christians, when he said: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there will I be in the midst of them." St. Paul recommends it by saying: "Rule well your own houses, having your children in subjection with all gravity; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,

singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." Yes, my brethren, if we penetrate into the humble dwellings of the early Christians, after having been under the tents of the patriarchs, we shall find there also, this same family worship offered to the Lord, we shall hear in the distance those songs, which may have revealed the existence of the disciples of the Crucified to their persecutors, which they caused to ascend with joy before the throne of their Saviour, because they feared him rather than men; we shall see them gathered together around these sacred books which they hide so carefully, lest they fall into the hands of those who would destroy them.

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An illustrious father of the Church, Clement of Alexandria, about the commencement of the third century, recommends to Christian wives to make common prayers and the reading of the Bible their daily morning employment; then, he adds, mother is the glory of her children, the wife is the glory of her husband; both are the glory of the wife, and God is the glory of all." And another father, not less celebrated, Tertullian, gave, a little while before, this admirable description of the domestic life of a Christian pair: “ What a union is that which exists between two faithful ones, who have in common the same hope, the same - desire, the same manner of life, the same service of the Lord: both as a brother and sister united according to the flesh, and according to the spirit, cast themselves together on their knees; they pray and fast together; they teach, they exhort, they mutually support each other with gentleness; they are together in the church of God, at the table of the Lord; they partake of pains, of persecutions, of joys; the one hides nothing from the other, the one avoids not the other; they visit the sick, they succor the needy; psalms and hymns are heard resounding among them; they strive to see which shall sing most fervently in the heart to God. Christ has joy in seeing and hearing these things, he sends them his peace. There, where two like these are found, he is found also; and where he is no evil comes."

Leaving the humble dwellings of the primitive Christians, it is true that we find domestic worship becoming gradually rarer; but with splendor did it re-appear at the time of the Reformation. And what an influence did it then exercise on the faith, the manners, the intellectual development of these nations who returned to primitive Christianity! The period is not very distant in which it was found in all evangelical families. If our fathers have been deprived of its light, our grandfathers at least knew it. It flourished especially in the evangelical provinces of this kingdom, and we trust that numerous and precious fragments may yet be found.

My brethren, such has been in all ages a life of piety. Shall we be such Christians or shall we not? Do we wish to invent a new species of piety which shall agree very well with the world, or do we wish to retain that which God has ordained? Beholding this worship, which passed from the tents of the patri

archs into the dwelling of the first Christians, and at length established itself in the households of our fathers, shall we not say, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord ""

But, my brethren, if the love of God is in your heart, if you feel that, being purchased by a great price, you ought to glorify God in your body and spirits which are His, where will you delight to honor him, if not in your own family, in your own house? You love to unite with your brethren in rendering public homage to Him in his temples: you love to pour out your hearts before him in your closet. Shall it be only in the presence of the person with whom he has associated your life, and of your children, that you do not wish to be employed with God? Will it be precisely there, that you will have no thanks to give? Will it be precisely there, that you will not have some favors, some protection to implore? You occupy yourself with everything in your intercourse with them. Conversation turns upon a thousand different objects; cannot your tongue and your heart find a word for God? Can you not lift up your voice in your family for Him who is the true father of your family; can you not converse with your wife and children of Him, who may one day be the only husband of your wife, the only father of your children? The Gospel has produced a domestic society, which did not exist before it and cannot exist beyond it; it would seem then, that this society, full of gratitude to the God of the Gospel, ought to be especially consecrated to Him; and above all, my brethren, such unions as families, who call themselves Christians, who have even a respect for religion, and where there is never a question raised concerning God. What is the condition of immortal souls, who have been united, who never ask themselves who has redeemed them, who has united them, what is their destiny, their future, their end? What is the condition of those, who, seeking to aid each other in everything else, never think of assisting each other in "the one thing needful," of having a single conversation, of reading a single line, of pronouncing one prayer, which has reference to eternal interests! Christian partners! Is it then only in the flesh and for time that you desire to be united? Is it not in spirit and for eternity? Are you then beings who have met only by chance, and whom a new chance, that of death, will soon separate? you not wish to be united by God, in God, and for God? Religion would unite your souls in immortal bonds! But do not reject them; every day increase their strength by the devotions of the domestic circle. Passengers, whom the same ship encloses, discourse of the place whither they go; and you, voyagers on the same vessel towards an eternal world, can you not speak of that world, of the route which conducts you thither, of your hopes, your fears? For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ," says St. Paul; for our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ." But if you ought for yourselves to be employed for God in your dwellings, ought you not for those of your household, whose

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