to offer these hints or suggestions' First, bear in mind that "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh;" thus, more earnestly seeking to lay up in your own hearts the things of the Lord, you shall gradually experience less difficulty in speaking of them to your children. Second, take encouragement from the recollection, that a little from the heart and lips of a beloved parent will go farther than a great deal more from a stranger's; and that ever as you attempt to teach your child, you are teaching yourselves in the most effectual manner, and by degrees shall diminish the unfitness of which you complain. Third, remember the manifold aids you enjoy in this work-principally the Scriptures, with their charming histories, for example, of Samuel, and Joseph, and Moses, and Daniel, and so many others; and as for the more doctrinal portions of the word, it were no small thing if your children only learned to commit considerable parts of these to memory. How precious the aids you enjoy also in our incomparable catechisms, shorter and larger, with all our psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs! And once more, there is no reason, of course, why you should not supplement your own instructions by those of the Sabbath-school teacher, provided you do not seek, by devolving the care and responsibility on another, to shake yourselves free of it. But how natural is now the transition from parental instruction to

3. Parental Example, since all you teach in the other form may not only be taught over again, as it

were, in this, but taught more palpably, exhibited before the very eye, embodied in living, loving characters, fitted to commend it to hearty acceptance while, apart from corresponding example, your instructions may prove something worse than useless, the contradictions of the life suggesting possibly to the minds of your children that all may be but a mockery and a lie together.

Going a little more into detail, however, suffer us to urge affectionately the importance of parental example, in the matter of truth; of reverence for the name of God; of loving regard for divine ordinances and institutions; of amiableness in temper and deportment; of perfect temperance and sobriety; and, more generally, of a thorough consistency in religious character. Truth. We do not refer to anything like deliberate falsehood practised before your child-a thing too horrible, surely, to be imagined. But are there not parents among us who deceive their children in sport? or who would win their obedience by promising what they do not intend to perform, or threatening what they do not mean to execute? Oh, your child, by an instinct of his nature, is disposed to confide in you. Do not oblige him to tread the instinct beneath his feet. Do not train him to distrust his own parent. Let your word be, on the contrary, to him as if he stood upon a rock. And example, we have said, in reverence for the name of God. Neither do we point here to any language of gross profanity before your children. Of course, no parent making serious

profession of religion would exclaim, on a trifling occasion of surprise, "God bless me," or "God keep me !" Beware, however, of exclamations approaching more or less nearly to this. Why any even half-formed oaths? "Let your communication be Yea, yea; Nay, nay." Bear in mind that you may teach your child reverence for the name of God, long before he has learned rightly to reverence God himself; and the lesson is of high importance so far as it goes.

And example, we said, in loving regard for divine ordinances and institutions-as the Sabbath, the services of the sanctuary, prayer. As to the Sabbath, take care lest your own drowsy, irksome Sabbaths should seem to say in your children's hearing, "What a weariness is it!" Let it be made very apparent, on the contrary, by "the voice of rejoicing and salvation heard in your tabernacles," the voice of many a pleasant psalm, and sacred song, that you account God's day a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable;" and that your whole religion is a joy and glory to you,-the very beginning of heaven upon the earth. As for the services of the sanctuary, let your children be trained to habits of punctual attendance on them, by the marked regularity of your own, as well as by your taking them to God's house along with you, to the uttermost of your power. It may not be quite so easy to show an example in prayer, secret prayer at least. Yet much might be indirectly done, even as to this, by your occasional prayers with your children individually and apart; by the

spirit of your prayers in the family; and by the reverential manner of your supplicating God's blessing on your common meals.

And example, we have said further, in amiableness of temper and deportment. Miserable, truly, when children have to witness a rude, noisy, quarrelsome temper in the intercourse of parents together. Miserable, if a parent is seen by his child boiling with rage, destitute of selfcontrol, the victim of selfish, sour, unlovely feelings and disposition? And we have said, example in perfect temperance and sobriety-not so much meaning sobriety in opposition to a brutal drunkenness, as to all and every approach to so horrible a vice, a sobriety so perfect and palpable as to tell of a horror of it, proportioned in some measure to its fearful and murderous character. And once more we have said, example, generally, in thorough consistency of religious character. For how quick of observation our children How ruinous, if a parent shall be found at the prayer meeting one day, and, the next, seen immersed in the world's most characteristic gaieties and follies! Dearly beloved and longed for, "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things," and within the precincts of your sacred home long to exemplify them. We suppose, however, that Eli taught those things to his children, and as a good man sought to practise them.

are.

Yet, "I have told him," said the Lord, "that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not." Thus we are led to touch on

4. Parental Government. You recollect that blessed contrast to Eli, "I know Abraham, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which He hath spoken of him."-(Gen. xviii. 19.) And here it is of high importance to ascertain, and mark well, the true spirit of the government of a Christian household. It is expressed in the two words, authority, love. Neither of these apart from the other, nor yet any feeble medium betwixt the two, but each entire -entire authority, entire love. Authority, because you are the parent; and, although you are to enjoin nothing on your child that is unreasonable, yet it is obedience he owes you-obedience, not so much because he approves the grounds and reasons of your will, as simply because it is your will. On the other hand, however, as you can lawfully enjoin only that which is just and reasonable, so it will be of great importance that your children be made to know and feel this to be the principle of your government, and that oftentimes, accordingly, you shall give your reasons to them along with your will-so shall their obedience be the more genial, as well as your authority more loving.

But we have further, under the

head of government, to ask your attention to these words of Paul (Eph. vi. 4)-"Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord:" and (Col. iii. 21), "Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged"; evidently pointing to that important branch of parental government-discipline, or the infliction of chastisement. In three different ways may children be injured here. By the inflicting of punishment too frequently; or with too much severity; or in passion, resentful anger. Too frequently. "Provoke not your children to anger," the Apostle says, "lest they be discouraged,"-lest they begin to find they cannot please you by any means. Many minor faults there are in a household which must, to a great extent, be passed over without notice. And again, punishing with too much severity. No doubt Solomon says, "He that spareth the rod, hateth the child." But the simple frown of one parent shall be more deeply felt as a kind of rod-as punishment, than the lash of another; and, assuredly, all the more severe punishments ought to be kept for more serious offences-such as deliberate falsehood, wilful and persistent disobedience, abstraction of property, wilful injury done to the children of another household, &c. And yet again, punishing in passion, in resentful anger-alas, as if it were found a gratification to punish! O let it be, on the contrary, very manifest that few things give you deeper pain, that you punish only because you must, and never because

you will. It is worthy to be noted that in both those passages, Ephesians and Colossians, Paul says, "fathers" probably because the father is more prone in this matter to err. And it may be added, that in the words to the Ephesians the manner of expression is peculiarly instructive, "ye fathers, provoke

not your children to wrath, but bring them up," a term expressive of the utmost affection and gentleness, nourish them up, "in the nurture," or education, "and admonition of the Lord," solemn, faithful warning, that is to say, combined with the gentleness and affection.

MAN is so constituted as to be powerfully influenced by the opinion of his fellow-men. In this consists in a great measure the force of petitioning, which at first sight seems a feeble affair-an all but worthless right-constitutes a power which has often proved too strong for kings and emperors. Public opinion is the opinion of large bodies of men; the power is, of course, in proportion to the numbers. Unanimity is irresistible. In free countries it is the lever by which Governments are moved, guided, and controlled. The right of petitioning, therefore, is one of the most valuable privileges of Englishmen-a right that should never be abused, but which ought to be used to the full extent of the nation's necessities. It is the hand by which the people mould both the legislature and the executive. power of the petition consists in its being the embodiment of opinion. If a true representation, it is omnipotent-nothing can stand before it. All men are each in his measure

The

amenable to it; but conscience will discriminate. The man of truth and faithfulness will neither be seduced nor intimidated by mere public opinion.

The moral sympathies of our race are quite as strong as the physical, and there is a magnetic influence which mind has over mind that no one can doubt who has studied his own heart, or the conduct of others. In no other way can we account for many violent and wide-spread excitements that have prevailed in the world, and for which subsequent and cool investigations could discover no just cause; or for the tenacity of the public, in retaining many barbarous and silly customs, the propriety of which each individual of that public, if questioned singly and by himself, would be ready to doubt. It is the seduction of public opinion which has led to the perpetration of many a wrong, and the dread of that opinion which deters many a coward soul from doing what is right.

sophistry of self readily persuades us to make a summary decision that 30 many cannot be in error, when a sober examination of the word of God would rebuke and abash us. The orator pleads for us, the wit makes our scruples contemptible, and the voice of conscience is hushed in the approving hum or acclamations of the crowd. It is fashionable to sin, and often do fashion's harlot arts paint the cheek of crime with the semblance of virtue's healthful bloom, and hide the diseased and loathsome form of corruption under gay and attractive robes. Yet of what is public opinion generally made? How many are there in the multitude, whose united persuasions gain our willing ear, to whom, as individuals, we would go, relying upon their candour, their good sense, and high principle, to ask advice in the regulation of our conduct? "Popular fame," says Cicero, "is the consent of knaves and fools;" and if we reflect how rare honest and wise men are, we must confess he is not far from the truth. It is obvious, also, that there are many depraved tendencies common to all men, and that, with the exception of those few who steadily and from principle resist those tendencies, the general voice will be given in palliation of their indulgence, so that by agreeing with public opinion, we are often only "following the multitude to do

evil."

Besides, men naturally associate with their like-the rich with the rich, the powerful with the powerful, the learned with the learned, the poor with the poor, the good with

the good, and the vile with the vile. What seems to be public opinion in one circle is not public opinion in another; what would be glorious in this, would be infamous in that; and in choosing our association, we choose what we wish public opinion to be, confirming ourselves in evil or good as our bias may incline.

There are many methods, also, of controlling and even making public opinion. A few may have the power by indirect bribery or intimidation to rule the rest, and the very talent which they thus display is cited as a proof of the value of their opinions. Hence we find instances of whole communities being led astray by some general though corrupt influence, until it becomes infamous to stand up for the right, and no man can insist upon the obligation of pure honesty without being written down a knave. The moral sense of the community becomes perverted upon other though kindred questions; and each man, seeing roguery upon a large scale justified and gilded, is less chary in venturing upon his petty personal deviations from the one straight path of true virtue.

PERSONAL EFFORT. THE principle of proxy is one of the most ruinous connected with religion or morality. The thing is unknown to the divine economy. Life, death, and judgment, all is stamped with the impress of personality. "Every man shall bear his own burden;" 66 every man shall give an account of himself unto God;"-"we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, and give account of the