patches of sunshine that are granted us. I feel that many homes-and circumstances sometimes almost necessitate it-are wanting in brightness, in touches of a genial nature, making all one in kindly feeling and interest. Don't frown on the fireside romp, the fireside mirth. Don't be always "straining at gnats" in respect of what you may and may not permit. What carries in it no evil association, what healthily exercises muscle and sinew, what pleasantly and purely stimulates the active and spirited elements of our nature, let that obtain your hearty sanction, keeping all within bounds, consecrating all by the light of Christian love. There is a fine ring in one of Dr. Norman M'Leod's poemsthat in which he describes the old man cheering on the romp, concluding

"Thus a gray-haired father speaketh,

As he claps his hands and cheers;

Yet his heart is quietly dreaming,
And his eyes are dimmed with tears.

"Well he knows this world of sorrow
Well he knows this world of sin;
Well he knows the race before them--
What's to lose and what's to win.

"But he hears a far-off music

Guiding all the stately spheres,

In his father's heart it echoes;

So he claps his hands and cheers."

This is good; the cheer though the heart is

quietly dreaming-the sadness in the knowledge of what the world is, but the joy caught from hearing the far-off music of the all-ruling Heaven. Yes, it is good. Godliness with such fellowship in a dwelling fills that dwelling, whatever its pretensions may be, with the voice of joy.

Thus, viewing the fireside life in its quiet, even course day by day, my object has been to show that, in virtue of the natural connection of godliness with contentment, with temperance, with refinement, and with fellowship, the dwellings of the righteous are the fit and proper homes of joy and gladness. In my next paper about the fireside, I wish to illustrate the action of a true family holiness by reference to the more prominent features in the history of a household. I close this paper with the prayer that the writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah, may have its fulfilment in the homes of those whom I address:-"The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth. The Lord was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the Lord."

IV.

The Family History.

"" He and all his."-ACTS xvi. 33.

HERE is a noteworthy feature in the story of the jailer at Philippi. In his

question to Paul and Silas, personal safety is the only care. A strange fear had overmastered him. The events of the midnight—“ the great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed". had filled him, rough, rude man as he was, with a nameless, superstitious awe. Of course his own life would be the forfeit for the and that had much to do with the terror which seized him. Rather than suffer the disgrace of being arraigned as a traitor and delivered to death, he had drawn his sword, determined to kill himself. But when checked in this purpose by the voice of Paul, and told that all the inmates of the gloomy

escape of the prisoners,

cells were still within the prison-walls, that panic gave place to another. Who can those men be,. who had been heard in prayers and songs of praise, and, in connection with whom, somehow, the mysterious shaking and loosing of bonds had occurred? Persons with a supernatural force about them they must be." Light in hand, his knees smiting one against another, all trembling and agitated, he falls down, crying, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Now, what is the reply? "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved; and thy house." Thy faith shall extend to thy house; the blessing to thee shall include those who are thine. The apostle and his companion proceed on the line of St. Peter's testimony on the day of Pentecost-— "The promise is unto you, and unto your children." And so they speak the Word of the Lord to the house, as well as the head of the house; and when the head, receiving the word, proves his acceptance of the message by his acts of love to the messengers, they baptize not him only, but "him and all his," from the least to the greatest, children and, it might be, servants also, straightway. The baptism of the Holy Spirit accompanied the baptism with water; for "he rejoiced, believing in God, with all his house." Is not this a striking witness for that family oneness and holiness to

which in a previous paper I have alluded? Is it not a beautiful and impressive illustration of that "voice of rejoicing and salvation" which is the natural and becoming music of the dwellings of the righteous? "He and all his rejoiced, believing

in God."

I take that phrase" He and all his." Let us glance at the several threads woven into the unity which it represents ;--our special subject, Family history.

I shall ask my readers to imagine such a family Bible as that which I have previously placed in their view, the Bible with the Family Register sometimes on the fly-leaf, sometimes between the two Testaments. Wherever it is, that Register is always interesting to me. Away in the Far West of America, on the border of the prairie-land, you will find, as I have found, the old Bible, from which the "old folks" at home used to read, cherished as the most sacred of treasures. Thither it had been borne, after the death of the parents, from the glen or hill-side cottage of Scotland, and now there it is; the poetry of the life-that which lifts it out of the stern, dull prose of the "daily round, the common task is in that Bible. It is the guide into the unseen; but it is more in the brief simple records, lovingly preserved within the boards of

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