But let not afflicted parents seek consolation in vain in the filial bosom. Let them be comforted, not irritated; nor be obliged, for want of sympathy at home, to carry their grievances abroad, or to brood alone under their sorrows,—a species of suffering which the human mind can rarely sustain.

But to return to parents, to whom this part of the subject is more exclusively addressed; let it be observed, that the future prospects of that family are very unenviable who have lived in habitual discord: strangers to domestic peace, they will not be skilful in promoting it wherever they may go, nor be solicitous to plant a tree whose fruits they have never tasted. Probably it will not suffice them to have repaid the humours of their parents by obstinacy and rebellion, but they may retaliate the sufferings of their early days on the heads of children yet unborn; and their future families may reap the bitter fruits of those unhappy dissensions which now disgrace the domestic circle.

Perhaps your children will shortly quit the paternal roof, and enter on the busy scenes of life with principles and habits ill

adapted to promote their own happiness or that of others; in that case, the remaining opportunities are comparatively few in which they can derive benefit either from paternal precept or example: or should they remain at home, you must shortly quit it; every passing year reiterates this warning, "set thine house in order" by aiming at that general excellence, which can only result from the religion of Jesus. True religion furnishes its possessors with arguments the most numerous, weighty, and solid, for the preservation of domestic peace. "Peace on earth, and good-will towards men," was one of the first messages promulgated by the Gospel. So far as its divine precepts gain access to the heart, they will be apparent in the life, and prove blessings to the house, as well as to the church; for they are as essential to the private and individual Christian, as to the great body of which he is a member.

It is true, that conduct the most circumspect cannot always ensure domestic felicity: unerring Wisdom has warned us, that in the world we shall have tribulation; but unchangeable Love has bid us be of good cheer

notwithstanding, because our divine leader has overcome the world. When we can take this comfort, it is that we prove the value of religion. Then we say, "Though my house be not so with God, yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure; this is all my salvation, and all my desire." A Christian parent under the various trials peculiar to his relation, can yet say in the darkest hour, " What am I, and what is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto?" That thou hast given me such consolations, and afforded me such hopes? For "thou hast spoken of thy servant for a great while to come;" and shall I expect also to find in this wilderness some unexplored path, decorated with perpetual verdure, and where neither briars nor thorns infest the ground? Shall showers of sorrows fall around me, and shall I, like Gideon's fleece, remain secure and dry? Have I maintained such an uninterrupted rectitude of conduct in all my relations, as to be authorised to expect no breach of duty should occur towards myself? Rather can I, " a living man, complain,-a man for the punishment of his sins?" O here is not

my rest!-it is polluted-I have helped to pollute it. "I am a pilgrim and a stranger, as all my fathers were. I travel towards a better country; and I will employ all the means with which, as a parent, Providence has invested me, to conduct my family into the same path,-to point them to the same goal.

CHAPTER IV.

SELF-WILL.

"And in their self-will they digged down a wall."

GENESIS, xlix. 6.

ALTHOUGH it is true that an enlightened system of education has done much, and it is hoped will do still more in restraining the violent and obvious actings of self-will; yet, experience, no less than revelation, proves the inefficiency of the most perfect system of human discipline, to eradicate any one of the diseases of our depraved nature. Besides, improvements of any kind make slow progress among the middling classes of society; because, only the well-informed and intelligent are capable of estimating their value. A few remarks on the subject may not therefore be inapplicable.