expected that they will pray extemporaneously with their families. How often does business call your husband from home; and is it well to desert your family altar till his return? Shall the sacred fire which has been kindled there be quenched at the very time, when your loneliness gives you more need of its warmth and light? Shall your children and domestics suppose that God is forgotten, and is no longer to be worshipped-shall they believe that he dwells no longer in the house, because the voice that usually spoke to him in gratitude and devotion, is gone? If God has taken your husband from you, and left you in helplessness and affliction at the head of a household, I would address these remarks to you with still more tender interest. Will you have less need of the blessed comforts of family religion, when your house is thus left unto you desolate? Will you have less want of God's presence, when you are left alone in that house, by the removal of your best earthly friend? In whom can your widowed affections find a solace, if you fail to look for it in God, who is the support of the widow and the fatherless? O leave not these dear children, from whom an earthly parent is gone for ever, to grow up without knowing, and loving, and worshipping, with united affections, their Father in heaven. Let them daily see, that you place your confidence and hope in God; that you seek protection under his sheltering power; that you find your happiness in his service; that you feel his overshadowing presence in your loneliness; and rejoice in your hours of devotion, when his spirit comes over your heart in peace and in power. Let them see that you are a true and constant disciple of Jesus; and you may then teach their young affections to stretch outward and upward from the circle of domestic love, and gather round the kind Saviour, who took little children in his arms, and blessed them. There is more, a great deal more, to be said on this interesting subject, but I cannot say it now. This is a duty of unspeakable importance—not to yourselves only, but to your children, your domestics, and even to remote generations, whom the breathings of your own pious spirit may successively reach. Time may not limit the good effects of this practice; they will extend from age to age, and be fully known in eternity. I might tell you, as an encouragement, of the order, harmony, and happiness of a family, which habitually refreshes every kind, generous and pious sentiment, by holding communion with the God of peace and love, in morning and evening devotion. It is a blessedness which none ever sought in vain. You may look through earth and heaven-you may look through the wide universe of God, and you cannot find one who has sought it in vain ; you cannot find one who has devoutly performed the service to which you are now persuaded, without drawing from it a rich reward. C. S. 1. SELECTIONS FROM THE SCRIPTURES, designed as Lessons in Reading. For the use of Children. 2. SELECTIONS FROM SCRIPTURE, designed as Lessons in Reading. For the use of Adults, with Lessons in Spelling. It is a great gain, when the time spent in learning to read, is made in any way subservient to the moral improvement. There is every reason we can ask, for selecting as instances to be read and spelt, such sentences as have meaning, and a useful meaning, instead of a mere set of words in proper places, but either senseless or quite frivolous. All that the art to be acquired demands, is secured as well by a properly expressed moral sentiment, as by any other instances. And why should not the preference be given to sentences which contain some useful lesson ? The care and deliberation, with which the mind is compelled to pass through a course of elementary instruction, tend to fix firmly in the memory whatever is in that manner presented to it. If we can give the learner a principle of the highest importance to be familiarly recollected, in such a way as almost to compel him to remember it, we confer a far greater benefit than merely teaching him to read. These selections are entirely from the Bible with the exception of a few brief sentences. Texts which clearly relate to some great truth or duty, are put together without regard to their place in the Bible, and so as to give an impressive view of the subject itself, but the words are not altered. And it is therefore a series of Scripture maxims connected by their subject, which is placed before the reader. He will gain a distinct and full apprehension of what the Bible teaches and requires on the most important topics, while he is learning to read. As with very many adults, to read the Bible is the principal object of learning to read at all, this has a great advantage over any other plan. For they are at once introduced to the book, for the sake of which they are willing to be taught, and which is to reward their labor. The difficulties to be overcome in their task, are those which they most wish to have removed, and which they will most readily strive to con quer. The edition for children is in very large type, and contains selections a little varied, to meet their case Both books are printed in the most careful manner, with all proper attention to the division of words, and similar particulars; on good paper, and with a type which gives. the clearest impression. We can safely recommend them as excellent helps to elementary learning. A DISCOURSE delivered before the Middlesex Bible Society April 30. By Rev. Convers Francis, Minister of Watertown. Boston, Bowles and Dearborn. ALTHOUGH this discourse has such merit as claims our warmest commendation, we notice it for another purpose. It shows on every page how false is the charge so often brought, in sheer ignorance or from a worse motive, against Unitarianism, that its spirit produces a want of proper reverence for the word of God. Let any candid man read this appeal in behalf of the Bible cause, and he can never believe that it came from a heart which We ask what bet holds the scriptures in light esteem. ter proofs are to be found in any, the most orthodox writers, of a deep reverence for the Bible, and an immoveable faith in all its truths and promises, than are manifested in such sentences as these. "If there were no other encouragement, yet this a.one would be sufficient, that the Bible is the inspired guide to religious knowledge and improvement, the powerful instrument appointed by God to enlighten the mind, and to sanctify the heart with the truths pertaining to life and godliness. Here we may take our stand; for this fact alone is a rock of defence and strength to The seed which we are to sow, is the word, not us. of man, but of God: and it is not more certain that the grain we reap will be the same as that we sowed, than it is that the instructions of the Bible, if they fall upon the soil of an honest and good heart, will bring forth the precious fruits of holiness. They are adapted to the nature and the aspirations of that undying principle within us; which, when the stars of heaven shall have been quenched, and the motions of systems, of worlds shall have ceased, and the glorious universe have been hushed in silence,-shall still be travelling onward in the path of eternity, and find no limits, but those, which God himself shall set to its acquisitions and improvements. It is here, and here only, that the wants of man, as a moral agent, as a sinner, and as a candidate for eternity are met and satisfied; it is here, and here only, that all the length, and breadth, and height, and depth of everlasting things are made known to us." "Men may frame theories of morals, may discuss the principles of right and wrong, may describe the action and influence of the different passions, may analyze the various emotions and affections which warm and agitate the heart, may point out the lines and the shades by which one virtue is distinguished from another, or one vice from another. But all this, though very useful in its place, is something quite different from speaking divine truth with an authority from which there can be no appeal. It is one thing to speculate ingeniously, and another thing to make the principles of holiness sink into the heart. The first is like the ray of light, which glitters and breaks on the surface of the water: the other is like the ray, which penetrates in a direct line to the bottom, and illumines every object on which it falls. Men have too |