FAMILY PIETY.

JOSHUA xxiv. 15.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

I TRUST that thousands of parents in our happy land, have adopted this pious resolution; and are teaching God's word to their children diligently; giving them line upon line, precept upon precept; here a little and there a little. Oh listen to their teaching;

obey them while they command you after them; and say not Nay, to their pious resolution, "As for us and our house, we will serve the Lord."

Happy are your ears, which hear their sacred lessons; thrice happy are your eyes which see them in a living scene before you. That scene fixed your eye, and won your attention and perhaps touched your heart,

even before you could understand the lessons which your parents urged upon your ear. And it is not gone by-it is still passing a living scene before you, to awaken your attention, to excite your inquiry; to open your mind to the entrance of religious knowledge, and to recal your parents' teaching to your memory. See it as it passes

1. See the pious resolution of your pa

rents.

You have heard it with your ear-but you can see it with your eye. You can see it in their plans for themselves, and in their plans for you; because they are formed that your parents and you may be best able to serve the Lord. You can see it in their efforts to do what is right, in their care to avoid what is wrong; in their firmness, when other families set them evil examples; in their steadiness amidst all temptations; and even when wish them not to be so careful to serve the Lord. Yes, in their labour and in their rest; when they are sitting in the house, and when they are walking by the way; when they are lying down, and when they are rising up; you may see their

you

pious resolution in the living scene before you. Daily it shines in brighter and fairer colours to your eye, until you seem to see inscribed on every door-post and on every gate, on every employment and on every possession, "As for us and our house, we will serve the Lord.”

2. Behold the family gathered for instruction, prayer, and praise.

Your father's house is daily turned into a temple; and he becomes for your sake a priest of the Most High. He reads God's holy word, and urges it upon his family; he bends his knees with you, and leads you with the voice of prayer and praise; spreading before your heavenly Father his wants and yours, and praying that God would bless him, and the mother with the children. How near is now the family to God! They have come nigh, even to his mercy-seat; and they see him inviting them nearer and nearer to his throne. And now it seems as if they were raised up to his presence, or that he has come down to their little circle, while their knees are bended before him. He is shedding forth his Spirit on their hearts, and they have a

fulness of joy, because God is listening to them, and comforting them; and they are speaking with him as their Almighty friend. Oh, in the pious family, prayer sheds a brighter glory over the beauties of the morning, and brightens and cheers the evening gloom. Heaven gains a portion of every day; yea, every day seems a portion of heaven; for the knowledge of heaven, and the employments of heaven, and the enjoyments of heaven, adorn and bless the beginning and the end, and shed their peace and joy over all its hours.

3. See the bright and steady light of piety, amidst the concerns of life-a light shining brighter and brighter till the perfect day.

Oh, there have been and there are families, in which the love of Christ has sweetened the temper, calmed down the angry passions, and banished complaint and clamour from the tongue; where prosperity cannot bind the heart to this world, but permits religion to shed her far superior comforts on the soul; where trouble cannot sink the sorrowing mind, because God is a stay and staff-the helper and the friend of all who hope in him.

I trust it is so at your house; that in gains and losses, in health and sickness, in hopes and fears, in joy and sorrow, in life and death, the light of piety shines brighter and brighter that its steady and cheerful light wins the notice of your eye, and fixes the desires of your heart.

Blessed is that house where the scene of family piety appears in its distinct outlines, in its just proportion, in its fair and lively colours. Yea, blessed is that house, where even some spots and blemishes deface, but do not spoil the scene. Happy are those children whose first impressions, as they are coming up from tender and ignorant infancy, are made by the scenery of their Christian home; and who, as they grow up from year to year, look upon it impressed and profited; whose hearts are fashioned to its likeness, until they become parts and ornaments of the scene of family piety.

There is no one view of the family scene so interesting and so melting, as when a pious parent languishes and dies, in faith and hope; when the father who has always been showing forth his pious resolution, "As for me