they shall not return. Let us recollect that we are hastening after them: that we also are travelling to the house appointed for all living, and must shortly leave this vale of sorrow.

What shall we say as to domestic felicity? Of all sublunary enjoyments, we must confess it is one of the greatest. Marriage is honourable in all; and is an institution founded in paradise by God himself. When entered into, with proper views; when the blessing of the Almighty is implored; when affection is real and sincere, there can be little doubt of happiness, as far as that word can extend to temporal enjoyment. But still let us not deceive ourselves: it is not a state where there are no cares, no anxieties, no sorrows. Religion indeed sanctifies all. There she erects an altar sacred to the Most High; teaches us to bend the knee in bumble adoration and praise; wipes away the tears which flow; supports under all the changing scenes of life, and points to that glory and blessedness which shall never fade away. Where this however is not found, the domestic circle too often presents us with scenes of a painful kind. Intemperance, disorder, vanity, dress, pleasure, gam

bling, and prodigality, characterize too many families; and from thence arise poverty, disease, jealousy, bickerings, discontent, opposition, and sometimes death itself. Husbands and wives, parents and children, have risen up against each other, and been guilty of the most enormous cruelties; so that this state has not always proved a state of felicity, nor answered the end for which it was designed. What an incomparable wife had King Herod in his Mariamne; yet he caused her to be put to death. The usurper Richard III. through his unkindness to his wife, caused such an infirmity as brought her to the grave. What the conduct of the cruel Henry VIII. was, to his wives, is well known. So, on the other side: Semiramis, Queen of the Assyrians, desired her husband to permit her to reign with sovereign power for one day; and, after he had granted her request, she commanded him to be slain. Jane, Queen of Naples, caused three of her husbands to be put to death. Have not parents, also, proved unnatural? Brutus caused two of his sons to be put to death, only because he feared they were not true to the commonwealth.

Torquatus, a Roman general, slew his son for disobeying a command which he had given him. Soliman, Emperor of the Turks, caused his son Mustapha, who was a prince of great hopes, and the best of all the Ottoman family, to be strangled, only because he wished to see his father and his court. Mothers have been cruel to their children. How cruel and unnatural was Athaliah to destroy, not only all her grandchildren, but all the seed royal of the house of Judah. Irene, mother to the Emperor Constantine VII. caught him by policy, and caused his eyes to be plucked out of his head, that she might reign in his place. Children also have been cruel to their parents, and ill requited them for their kindness. "What a graceless son was Absalom to so gracious a father! He not only wished to take his crown from off his head, but endeavoured to take his head from off his shoulders."

Nero, that monster of mankind, caused his mother to be put to death; and afterwards to be ripped up, that he might see where he once lay.

Selim, the great Turk, and the first of that name, caused his father Bajazet to be poisoned, by the help of his janizaries.

The Emperor Henry V, by force deprived his father of the empire, and caused him to die miserably in prison.

The Emperor Frederick III. was miserably slain by his son Manfroy, after a reign of thirty years.

Adolphus, King of Geldria, led his father in the night five miles, in the depth of winter, to a miserable prison, where he confined him. And when the emperor offered him conditions to let him out, he answered, he would rather cast his father headlong into a well, and throw himself after him, than he would let him out on such terms.

Brethren also have sought one another's ruin. How did Esau hate his brother Jacob? He resolved to slay him; and on that account caused him to go into another country, where he continued twenty years an exile from his father's house.*

How did Joseph's brethren hate him! When they saw the anguish of his soul, their bowels did not relent, neither for his sake nor for the sake of his father.†

Gen. xxvii. 41, + Gen. xxxviii,

What a dreadful slaughter did Abimelech make of his brethren, the sons of Gideon! he slew threescore and ten of them upon one stone.*

Jehoram, the wicked King of Judah, a graceless son of a gracious father, King Jehoshaphat, slew all his brethren at one time.t

Romulus, that he might reign alone, slew his brother Remus, only for leaping over the wall of his new city.

Bassiarus, the son of Severus, the Roman emperor, that he might enjoy the sovereignty alone, slew his brother with a dagger, as he lay in his mother's arms!

The above are not selected as characteristic of domestic life, nor should these instances tend to make us disgusted with society; but they afford us awful specimens of human depravity, and shew us how evil principles, when indulged, violate all the laws of nature and reason; that happiness is not always to be found in near relatives, nor human friendship always to be relied on.

* Judges ix. 5.

+ 2 Chron. xxi. 4.