divine justice, as superintendents of the natural world, they are constantly brought before us to remind us that we are the citizens of two worlds, and that there is an invisible creation as full of the glory, and wisdom, and power, and majesty of God, as all the wonders of the material world.

It is true, objectors have always been found who have much to say against the belief in the existence of angels. One class will refer to the Deos and Izeds of Zoroaster and similar phenomena of the Gentile world, and say that the Jews borrowed their ideas from them, assimilating these notions only to their somewhat purer religious conceptions; with assiduity they will point out the degree of similarity of the Scriptural doctrine to the silly conceits of the Rabbins or the unrestrained flights of poets. With such objectors, of course, as we have no common standard of ultimate appeal, reasoning would be futile.

Another class, taking for their basis such passages as that where Christ foretells his great power under the figure of "angels ascending and descending upon the Son of man," or appealing to the gorgeous drapery of the great Epic of the Church, the Apocalypse,

would say that in the Bible the angels are a mere picturing forth and embodiment of the glory or providence of God, and that all passages which speak of angels are therefore to be understood as mythical or figurative. But in view of the multitude of passages in the historical, as well as in the doctrinal portions of Scripture, speaking of the real appearance and the actual deeds of angels, who does not see that such a theory rests altogether on most forced interpretations and the greatest violence of exegesis?

A third class refuse to take cognizance of the doctrine respecting angels, because, say they, it is utterly valueless to the Christian, and to them there is nothing that should determine them to decide for rather than against the existence of such beings. But according to the canon that the Bible contains nothing superfluous, it may be asserted that this doctrine is of great practical utility. It enlivens our consciousness that through the Mediator of the New Covenant we are brought into fellowship with "an innumerable company of angels," that "there is joy in the presence of the angels of God" over one of us, if he repenteth, and that one day we shall be like unto them.

To him who loves his Bible and delights to study it, this subject is worthy of diligent search and devout meditation, as placing before us in a clearer light the example of those lofty beings,

"Who wont to meet

So oft in festivals of joy and love
Unanimous, as sons of one great Sire,
Hymning th Eternal Father."

I. L.

Bousehold Choughts.

HOUSEHOLD RELIGION.

THAT the household of David was controlled by his religious faith and practice, is testified by the word of God to Solomon, after the dedication of the temple, when it was said to him, If thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, in integrity of heart and uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep my statutes and my judgments, then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel forever, as I promised to David thy father, saying, there shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel. He ruled his household in the fear of God; and he resolved to rule his kingdom as he ruled his house. Both as the head of a household, and the head of a nation, he maintains all the exercises and forms of religious culture and discipline required by that dispensation of the grace of God under which he lived.

We learn from this, that religion, even from those early times, is an ordinance of the family, and has, in the family, the centre and seat of its social life. And of the exercises of religion which are proper to the household an indispensable part consists of the daily reading of the Scriptures and united prayer. For the sake of those Christian families where these exercises are maintained, as well as those in which they are not, it is our duty to consider often the grounds on which the practice rests, and to show how much the prosperity of Christian truth and righteousness depends, and ever must depend, on the right performance of religious duty by the heads of families, and particularly of daily prayer.

We shall illustrate first the duty of the Christian head of a family to maintain the daily exercises of devotion with his family. 1. The duty arises out of the domestic relations of the Christian parent.

Every Christian must apply his religious principles in all the relations of his life. Whatever he does he must do in a Christian way. His Christian heart must shine in and through all the works of his life. Least of all should a Christian parent omit any means of instilling his own faith and hope into the minds and hearts of all in his house. And how can this be better done than by giving utterance to his faith and hope in God, in the hearing of all whom he is bound to lead in the way of Christian truth and duty? And let him do this in the solemn manner of religious devotion. Such are the relations of the head to the members of the household that

their hearts naturally become one in other things: and they would just as naturally become one in religion, where all do as they ought. In temporal affairs, the members join their interest with the interest of the head. They become jealous for his reputation with his neighbours-anxious for his success in his profession,-interested in his opinions and principles on all important subjects; and why should not this union of interest prevail among them, in regard to religion. It always will with proper means; and the head of the family has the natural desire that it should be so; and of all the means for bringing such unity about in the dear home of his earthly interests and affections, the most effectual will be this: to have his own heart right with God, and then exercise his right affections daily in the devout reading of the Scriptures and in prayer in his family. How can a Christian householder answer a good conscience before God and his brethren, who does not do so much as this, to guide his household in the fear of God, and the faith of Jesus Christ.

2. The obligation to maintain Christian devotion in the family arises out of the great fitness of the practice to promote religious culture. And first and chiefly will the master of the house himself find profit in it. More than in any other way, will he thus strengthen his faith, clear his views of truth, settle his Christian habits of life, and quicken his purifying hope of heaven. While he will also save himself the painful self-reproach in the dying hour, when he sees his children around without the faith and practice of Christians, that he has not led them to the Saviour by his own example of devotion.

As to the members of the family, it calls their attention daily to their spiritual interest and duty. And this is never effectually done in any other way. How very lax must be the religious discipline of a family, where the members are left wholly to impulses from religious neighbours, or public meetings, or their own disposition move them towards Christian duty. No Christian parent expects his children to improve by such means, in any other good thing, and how can you thus look for improvement in religion? What a space is filled, what a want is supplied, by this one domestic usage! An altar in the house for the daily sacrifice! What is the house without it? What would the house be without a table which offers its refreshment at the proper hours? What, without the pillow for nightly repose? Above all, what is the house as a dwelling for religious beings, without this means of religious culture and growth?

If the Christian householder has the true religious concern for his family, and a warm heart of desire for their spiritual welfare, the hour of family prayer is his very occasion. He has no other opportunity like that to express his heart in their hearing; to make them feel his Christian piety. Then he can so read, and cause them so to read the Holy Word, that they shall all drink somewhat

of its spirit; and the more will they partake of its spirit, if he is careful and resolute and wise, in guarding them against the influence of the world without. Then in his simple earnest prayer for his house, he can show them his own devout heart as he cannot do in any other way. There is great power in such exercises rightly performed; and all the more, when the general tone of the domestic life prepares the way for the good influence of a religious service. What else can the head of the family do that could be a substitute for this? And where this practice is maintained, how much it adds to the force and usefulness of all other means. When a father is in the habit of praying with his children, he can talk with them, with the more ease and effect. And while his prayers express his desire for their spiritual well-being, they quicken that desire, and strengthen it. His own soul is inspired with a sacred impulse. His children become imbued with the same grace. A Christian family without prayer; it is like a ship at sea without her sails; a machine without its moving force. But how rich and constant the flow of spiritual family blessings which we may receive from the Lord while as families we acknowledge him! Let the household, as such, reach forth its hand of faith in daily prayer for the blessing of Heaven, and that blessing will as surely be received, as the cistern receives the water of the shower which falls on the roof and flows down through the channels prepared for it.

3. The obligation to daily devotion in the family, is involved in the command to Christians, that they should pray without ceasing. This means that Christians should always be ready to embrace suitable opportunities for devotion. And one class of these opportunities consists of the morning and evening convenings of the family. Surely these could not be omitted by the Christian householder, who desires a perpetual spirit of prayer. Let this be the great end of his life, to maintain the spirit of prayer, to keep his heart in the love of God, and to bring all those beloved ones who are under his immediate influence, into fellowship with his own faith and love, and he will feel the want of the family altar. The daily Christian offering of prayer and praise will come to him like a heavenly breeze to refresh, and to bear him along in his spiritual course; and without this he would soon become weary and faint. Pray without ceasing. But in the strong current of worldly occupation, what a struggle it seems to keep the face heavenward, and hold one's course. How it tires the strongest wing of Christian faith, to strive against the gale across some wide field of worldliness; and what a relief to enter the serene and quiet atmosphere of the domestic circle, where the spirit finds repose, and can breathe refreshingly, and where faith can rest in its easy and natural motions, and look steadily at its heavenly prize. If one does not pray there, how far must he have fallen from the spirit of prayer. The force of the command,-Pray without ceasing, is strong to

engage the Christian head of a family in religious exercises in his household.

4. A part of the obligation to family devotion is derived from the express regard of the God of grace for the family interest. The family is a little community, composed of immortal beings, whom the providence of God has thus bound together, that by his grace, he might bless them together. He feeds them all at one table of his bounty that he may feed them also together with the bread of life offered them through Christ.

For the same reason, the Lord has a form of the covenant expressly for the family; takes parents and children together under his dispensation of grace; calls the members holy when the head is holy, and requires the head to consider those whom providence has committed to his charge as the Lord's. The promise is to you and to your children. And he makes a broad and solemn distinction between those who thus stand in the covenant and all others: "Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name."

National blessings are properly sought by national supplication. When wide-spreading disease becomes fearful to the nation, the nation is called to fasting and prayer. When war is felt as a national calamity, the nation is summoned to fasting and prayer; and this is so natural a step, that it is always looked for in proportion as the persons in authority are governed by religious principle. And so in public doings. The chief magistrate, of true Christian principle, never fails to commend his country to the blessing of God, in all his public communications of any importance or solemnity. Legislatures and conventions for state or national purposes, just so far as the religious sense prevails among the majority of the members, solemnly commend their common interests to God, and implore his blessing on them, in their daily assemblies. It is not so, indeed, in bodies of irreligious men; but where a majority are controlled by Christian principle it is always so; and very frequently, perhaps even in most cases, the practice is upheld though but a small proportion of the body profess to be devout men. Now if religious solemnities are thus observed in opening the daily business of a body of persons who have a common interest at stake, which is to be secured by the blessing of God upon the united action of all the members, how much more should this be done in the family, a permanent body, which has the most vital interests at stake, to be secured by early religious impressions on immortal beings, on sinners to be redeemed by the grace of Christ; a body which has a special covenant of grace for itself, and particular laws by which the blessings of that covenant may be secured. Here is an assembly with a Christian head, to preside over all its proceedings; a head, not elected by the members but constituted by the providence of God; not to rule by laws and regulations adopted by the body, but receiving his powers directly from God,