purity of Christianity. Their equal regard to God diminished not one enjoyment in which a fond couple could share, but was on the contrary an additional source of pleasure. They delighted in God," and they delighted in the society of each other.

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Their unanimity, their visible though unstudied interchanges of kindness, their peace, and unaffected abstinence from whatever was immoral, had an assimilating influence on their family, and served to give considerable effect to that religious order which they had established. The invisible world being in a great measure habitually before them, they both, in their respective departments, attended to those who were under them (whether children or servants) as having the charge of immortals.

Such was their behaviour towards their children, that it seemed as if the training them for an eternal state was, in their view, the principal purpose for which Divine Providence gave them an offspring. And to this business they applied themselves with pleasure. They began early with the infusion of religious ideas into the minds of their children, wisely limiting themselves, at first, to those few great principles which are the foundation of all religion. On these points, simple as they are, they did not expect to produce conviction in the infant mind. Yet they conceived that one way to prevent the introduction of evil, was to pre-occupy the mind with that which is good; and it never once came into their thoughts,

that they should be blamed for enforcing a truth on children, because the disciples were too young to see that truth in as clear a light as their instructers did. They had none of the quirks and refinements of skeptics in their method of education. They went to work in a straightforward way; what they had learned, they taught; they trusted they knew "the way of salvation," and they endeavoured to lead their children in the same path.

Impressed with the infinite importance of this part of a parent's duty, they took pains in it. To conduct a business of such consequence, in a desultory way, was, in their opinion, but a smaller degree of that criminality which neglects it entirely. It therefore did not content them to inculcate religious ideas : they aimed, in dependence on God, to induce moral habits. The genuine Christian, as distinguished not more from "the children of this world," than from those equivocal religionists, who seem to belong neither to the church nor the world, was the model they kept in their eye. To see this simple character in their children; to see them avowedly on the side of truth, yet free from all affectation; evidently desirous of living a useful life, yet neither vain nor obtrusive, was a hope they expected not to realize without great pains taken on their part. They counted the cost, and determined to pay it. Hereby they hoped to obtain the Divine blessing upon their endeavours: for here they principally placed their hopes. This they

constantly prayed for, fearing, from what they knew of the depravity of human nature, that without it their labours might fail of success.

But this pious care was not confined to their children, it extended to every member of their family. It began to operate silently at the very first sight of a new domestic. Aware of the sordid ignorance in respect to religion, prevalent in the families of the poorer class, and knowing that in their own house there were better opportunities of learning divine truths, they seldom hired a servant without feeling an anxious wish that that person might know something more of God by coming among them, than he knew before. Through the desire which they habitually felt that this benevolent wish might be gratified, they would often waive that severe animadversion on a fault, to which a sudden attack on their tempers might urge them. They wished that a servant for his own sake might be led to reflect that religion rendered people not difficult to please, nor prompt to punish.

Thus honouring God, they were honoured by him. Their family was not a society of starched formalists, distinguished by some unnatural peculiarity of dress or language, but, while they looked like the members of other families, they lived differently. They were taught to reverence the word and ordinances of God. They were taught that the blessing of God, and the favour of their common superiors, were to be expected in fulfilling the duties of their stations,

and in the discharge of good offices toward each other. No mean parasite could thrive in this soil, for favouritism was conscientiously struck out of that system, which the heads of the family had adopted; every one knew that impartial kindness was the law of the house.

Thus taught, they repaid their teachers, by practising the lessons in which they had been instructed. The house was the abode of regularity, industry, uprightness, and peace.

It

was not exempt, indeed, from human infirmities, (for my scene is not laid among disembodied spirits,) yet it showed to what a degree of excellence human nature, under proper management, may be brought, and it produced social gratifications, untasted where the cultivation of religious principle is neglected. Nor was it easy to mistake the source whence all the regularity and comfort of this abode proceeded-the genuine religion of Evander and Theodosia. Their authority, their instruction, and their example, accounted for all that distinguished this happy society.

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They had the reward of seeing the fruit of their labours. That house, over which they ruled in the fear of God, was not exempt from the ordinary visitations of Providence. other houses, it was subject to the incursion of death and at length the event took place, but not accompanied with its usual horrors. The trial was softened by the manner in which it was met, both by those who departed, and those who were called to give them up; the

former, being enabled to die rejoicing in the truths of that gospel which had been inculcated in the family: and the latter, to find a relief under the painful stroke which separated one friend from the other, in the well-grounded hope of meeting again in a better world..

The person whom it pleased God, in his righteous dispensations, to take from this family, was one of its most important and most lovely members. It was Theodosia; the wife, the mother, the delightful companion of her husband, the nurse and instructress of his children, the discreet manager of his domestic affairs; whose unremitting attention banished confusion from the house, and whose sweetness of temper filled it with peace.

I need not detail every particular of her last illness an account of the concluding circumstances will be sufficient for my purpose:

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Her disease was of a lingering kind; a circumstance of peculiar advantage, for manifesting the influence of religion in death. Evander approached her bedside one morning as usual, to inquire how she had passed the night; to whom she replied, in the following. terms: "I should be glad for your sake, dear Evander, to be able to say, I have had a better night than usual. I know how such a report would gladden your heart; but I am not able to give such an account of myself. Indeed, I find myself going apace, and I had determined before I had the pleasure of seeing you this morning, to endeavour, before my illness ren