SERMON XVII.

DOMESTIC LIFE.

PSALM 1xxviii. 6.

GOD SETTETH THE SOLITARY IN FAMILIES.

He is as much Of the various more striking

MAN was made to live in society. a social as a moral or rational being. ties of our social nature none are than those of natural affection; and of the various forms of social connexion none is more interesting than that of domestic life. It is the appointment of God. God setteth the solitary in families; and in the blessings which result from it, in the advantages which it supplies during the helplessness of infancy and the dependence of old age, in the aid which it gives to virtue, in the motives which it presents to exertion and improvement, and in the sources of consolation, and happiness, which it furnishes, there is no stronger example of the divine goodness Indeed if there is in the wide and brilliant sphere of his beneficence, one spot brighter than the rest, where its rays are concentrated in their efful

gence, if there is indeed any heaven on earth, you may find it in the bosom of an innocent, virtuous, and pious family.

Of the blessings of domestic life too much cannot be said. We pity those, who have no heart for them. There is a magic in the word home, which at once touches the feeling soul; and comes to the imagination encircled with innumerable interesting associations. We must extinguish many of the best feelings of our nature before we can become indifferent to it. Let it be humble and obscure, let it even be dark with affliction and sickness, it is only rendered the more dear to a kind and generous heart. Let it be distinguished only by its poverty and peopled with various forms of dependence and wretchedness, it is the centre around which our thoughts and affections are prone to hover; it is still the object to which our attachments cling until death loosens them, or profligacy or dissipation, or some unworthy or absorbing passion extinguishes within us every virtuous sentiment. The long-absent child comes back to it, with an eye that glistens afar off, and a heart whose quick pulsations are felt through his whole frame. The traveller, in the most distant regions, finds his thoughts and affections continually directed towards it as the faithful magnet to the pole; and he, who falls amid the tumult of battle, or sinks in the waves of the ocean, or lies down to die under the inclemency of a foreign clime, finds the last emotions of his heart directed to the home, which he is leaving forever; and the last objects that glimmer on his fading twilight are those, whom, in the bosom of his family, he called his own.

We must look upon domestic life then as the institution of God; natural affection as a sentiment, which he himself has implanted in the human breast; and it is for

us to inquire what are the purposes for which God designed this institution, and by what means these purposes may be accomplished.

1. The first object of natural affection and domestic attachment and connexions is to make provision for man's subsistence and aid. This requires no illustration. There is no more striking example of utter helplessness and dependence than human infancy. The human race could not subsist had there not been made in parental affection provision for years of feebleness, and wants, which of himself man has no power to supply. In parental affection, there is a provision the most abundant and beneficial; a provision always ready, gratuitous, disinterested, cheerful; and by this constitution that is accomplished, which human laws by the most numerous and severe pains or penalties could not effect. Parental affection is often far stronger than any attachment we feel to our own interests or our own lives; and there is no severity of labor or suffering, through which it will not carry men.

But man's helplessness, and dependence is not confined to the period of infancy and childhood. It lasts as long as life lasts; and though at some seasons and under some circumstances more obvious and apparently greater than at others, yet always sufficient to induce us to keep the chain, by which we are fastened to each other, bright and unbroken.

We always need friends; the co-operation, the counsel, the aid, the relief which others can afford us; and where shall we look for them but among those with whom the ties of family connexion have associated us. Fraternal affection is almost as strong a bond of union as parental affection; and a kind Providence has so ordained, that associations in domestic life, sharing in

the same employments, pleasures, and trials, and the habits of intimate intercourse to which they give rise, become the foundation of some of the strongest attachments in human society. We feel that there exists between us a tie of the most interesting character, when we acknowledge the same parents and the same home; and that we have a right to look to those for kindness and sympathy, with whom we hold a relationship so near. Sickness and old age likewise bring with them seasons of weakness and dependence. What providence designed should be done for our children when they were helpless and wholly thrown upon our care, it designed that they should do for us, when in the progress of advancing years, we become dependent upon their sympathy and aid. Age is often a season of extreme dependence; and in the decline of life, when the ravages of death have removed from us our earthly friends and contemporaries, we find the society of those, who feel an interest in us particularly valuable; and who should feel that interest if not our children; and as we perceive our own powers gradually sinking, we seem to be extending our lives and securing a kind of immortality on earth in those who have proceeded from us. It is then in the ties of domestic life that God has made provision for our support in infancy and childhood, when but for this provision man would often be left to perish; to afford us friends, who should feel a strong interest for us, when we come into life and lend us their aid in its duties and their support under its trials; and to train up those, who should stand fast by us in the decrepitude and solitude and feebleness of old age and by their affectionate assiduity brighten the evening of our decline; alleviate our hours of sickness and decay; and aid and comfort us in nature's last struggle.

2. In the second place, domestic life affords the best provision that could be made for human improvement; I mean man's intellectual and moral improvement. It entrusts the care of the human mind and character, when it is most susceptible of impression, to those who feel the liveliest interest in their welfare, and who are most deeply concerned in every thing that befals them. It is obvious what great advantages such a provision has over one which might leave them to the care of those who feel no particular affection for them, whose interest in them would be only casual or accidental, and whom it would not materially affect except as members of the community at large, whether the result should be well or ill. As there is on the one hand a strong parental affection to prompt to the cultivation of the minds and characters of our children, this kindness is usually met by a reciprocal kindness on their part; and so parental influence is much increased; they themselves early discovering the deep concern which their parents take in their character, and how much the happiness of their parents depends on what they, the children, become, are induced also by gratitude to endeavor to satisfy the anxious wishes of those, who love and labor for them. As the parents are impelled by affection to instruct their children and form their characters, children from gratitude, respect, and natural deference and kindness, are strongly disposed to receive instruction from them; and thus parental influence becomes strengthened and acquires a commanding power.

Domestic life presents the best opportunity of observ ing and understanding the character. The parental relation in this respect affords peculiar advantages, and gives opportunities of access to the character, which could not otherwise be found. In the privacy and freedom of