fluence of a parent to prepare them for usefulness, and for heaven. And that is no enviable feeling which attempts to flee from the responsibility, and devolve its duties on others. Besides, the Sunday School teacher has a responsibility of his own, quite enough for any human being to endure. After you have done your duty, still his work is as arduous as any mortal would willingly undertake. It is unkindness to your children, and to such a teacher, to ask him to bear your responsibilities. It cannot be done. He will not stand at the judgment bar in your place; nor will he meet there the doom which awaits parental neglect in the family. The other remark is this. It is, that one of the prominent effects of the instructions in the Sunday School, is to teach the duty of family devotion. That is a lesson soon learned. And your children return to you from those nurseries of piety, often deeply feeling, and greatly grieved, that their father's house is a place where no God is acknowledged, and where mercies are ever descending without any returns of praise. Each Sabbath shall deepen this lesson. And you are not to wonder if the lips of children should sometimes tenderly ask you why so plain a duty is neglected; or if they throw their arms around your necks, and intreat you to acknowledge the God of all your mercies in your habitation. I regard the Sunday School as one of the means prompting to family prayer, and not the least of its blessings do I esteem it to be, that it throws an influence back upon your families, and makes your children pleaders for God, and prompters to duty, in the business of family religion.

But while the duty of family prayer appears thus manifest and clear, while every parent would probably admit that he can see the propriety of the duty, and

that most important benefits would result from its observance, yet it has so happened that there is not probably any single duty against which so many objections are urged as this. To what this fact is owing, it is not now necessary to inquire. It may be remarked, however, that the fact of the existence of so many objections, is no small confirmation of the strength of the arguments in favour of family prayer. Men do not commonly invent and urge objections where a duty is not strongly and plausibly pressed. The amount of objection will be in proportion to the strength and frequency with which the argument is urged. When that occurs daily, as in the case of family devotion, where the duty is palpable and obvious, and yet from any cause there is an unwillingness to engage in it, then it is necessary that there should be some excuse always at hand, and sufficiently plausible to turn aside, at least for the present, the force of the argument. It is of importance to notice these objections.

The first and most plausible is, that the duty of family prayer is not expressly enjoined in the Scriptures. This I admit-and having frankly made the admission, let us advance to ascertain, if possible, the precise shape which this subject assumes in the sacred volume. This will be seen by the following observations.-1. One design of law, and especially of laws pertaining to morals, is to give general statutes, or injunctions, applicable to all the cases which may occur. It is not to specify each case, in which business there could be no end -but to advance general principles that can be readily understood, and applicable to all the cases which may

That you should relieve your neighbour when

manner? 5. There are injunctions respecting prayer, which imply the duty of family prayer as well as any other. Thus the command, Eph. vi. 18. Praying always (Gr. in every time-or at all times) with all prayer—that is, with all kinds of prayer, or offering it on all proper occasions. 1 Tim. ii. 8. I will that men pray every where. Phil. iv. 6. In every thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving let your requests be made known before God. 1 Pet. iv. 7. Be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer. Now if a question should arise, what kind of prayer was contemplated in these places, on the principle of the objector it would be impossible to determine; or rather the tendency of his objection is to nullify the whole precept. He objects that the commands do not imply the duty of family prayer. They do not distinctly specify it, and therefore it is not a part of the injunction. For the same reason I may object that secret prayer is not commanded here, and as it is not specified, it cannot be intended. A third person, with the same reason and propriety, shall remark that social and public prayer are not commanded, and he feels released from that. What is this but to trifle with the Scriptures, and to make them unmeaning? If the command to pray with all prayer does not imply family prayer, it implies nothing and means nothing. 6. The duty of family worshipand I may assume that there will be no worship without prayer-is often mentioned with approbation, and so mentioned as to show that it is acceptable to God. Thus of Abraham. I know that he will command his children, and his household after him, that they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment. Gen. xviii. 19. Thus said Joshua. As for me, and my house, we will serve the Lord. Josh. xxiv. 15. Thus

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Job offered daily worship in his house-by offering daily sacrifices to obtain the blessing of God, and to turn away the divine indignation from his sons. Job. i. 4. And thus also our Saviour with his apostles, and the apostles after his ascension, offered united prayer; expressed their common wants, and commended themselves to the common paternal guidance of God. That beautiful model of all proper supplication-the Lord's prayer-implies in its very structure that it is to be used daily, and in some community like a family. It is to be a daily supplication-"give us this day our daily bread." It is to be used not by an individual, but by a community. "OUR Father," not my Fatherwhich art in heaven. "Give us this day"-" forgive us our trespasses"-"lead us not into temptation""deliver us from evil." Yet there is no community that can use this but a family; none that are together each day, and none where the prayer would be so directly adapted to the wants of the petitioners, as in a household dependent on God, bowing down before him in the morning to ask the supply of their returning wants, and to implore protection and defence in the various trials to which the household would be exposed. "What a live coal," says Dr. Hunter, "is applied to devotion, when the solitary my Father and my God, is changed into the social our Father, and our God!" 7. God has expressly declared his abhorrence of the neglect of family devotion. It is given as a characteristic of those who know not God, that they call not on his name, and as classifying them with the heathen world. Jer. x. 25. "Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name." 8. I would only add here, that to a parent it would seem that there was no duty that less