turn from the jealous mound and stone which hide them from us, animated with increased and holy eagerness to follow in the path which leads to the undisturbed peace of the blessed dead; and beseeching with our fervent prayers, that "He who is the Resurrection and the Life, may shortly accomplish the number of His elect, and hasten His kingdom, that we, with all those who are departed in the true faith of His holy Name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in His eternal and everlasting kingdom."

1 Office for the Burial of the Dead.

ILLUSTRATION XI.

THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE.

"THE CHURCH THAT IS IN THEIR HOUSE."-Rom. xvi. 5.

THE morning's prime! How fresh and life-full is the hour-buoyant and up-buoying-scattering its coolness and elastic joyousness around the outgoings of the young day. The morning's prime! Nature's sweet orchestra is atune betimes. From the wood and brake, from the valley and upland-slope, amid the spangled leaves, and in the light of the clear sky-we hear the gushing, grateful, love-inspired music of ten thousand quiristers. The lordly sun "coming as a bridegroom out of his chamber," his beams of glittering but ungarish light — the liquid ether, cool and clear, not yet bedimmed with the hazy sultriness of the summer's noonthe blended incense up-issuing as the breathings of a silent ecstasy and adoration to God, from the vestal sisterhood of flowers- the inexpressible exhalation of sweetness, which, like a pure atmosphere of the dayspring, floats around-the soft

breeze, bland but invigorating-the mountain-tops, unhooded from their mist-mantles, soaring into the

keen skies the diamonded hedge-rows - the crystal dew bending the wet grass-the placid lake, which all night long had been the mirror of the soft stars, now quivering and dancing beneath the winnowing wing of the matin breeze-all these stealing into our spirits and into our being, lift up our souls to God, and seem to whisper calmly, but irresistibly-"It is the hour of praise and prayer!" Happy thought! that while universal Nature is at her orisons without-from many a public sanctuary, from many a family altar, from many a secret closet, the voice of prayer ascends to Heaven! Is it the smile of God, approving this universal adoration of things animate and inanimate which makes the morn so lovely, and its influence so hallowed?

Connected with this hour of prayer, will be our present theme. The domestic influence of the Gospel shedding through Christian households blessedness and peace, from the sacred duty to which it calls them of Family Devotion.

In the tenth Illustration of this series, I instanced to you the characters of Aquila and Priscilla, as "The believing husband and believing wife;" our text now calls our attention to them as an example for

home religion. In St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians we find him sending to that Church a salutation from Aquila and Priscilla, "with the Church that was in their house." This Epistle to the Corinthians was written from Philippi, at which place we learn that these two pious persons kept up Family Devotion. Yet again, in our text, when St. Paul writes from Corinth to Rome, he sends salutations to the same Aquila and Priscilla, and likewise "to the Church which was in their house" there, at Rome. From whence we gather, that so consistent was their piety, that go wherever they did, this piety went with them. That whether they were exiles for the Truth, as they were at Philippi; or whether, in a rest from persecution, they returned to Rome-the removal of their home could not remove the presence and practice of Religion from that home. Like Abraham, wherever they pitched their tent, there they built an altar. And, whether wandering or rest awaited them, this seems to have been their unchanged resolve-"As for us, and our house, we will serve the Lord."

In calling your most heedful attention to the Christian duty of Family Worship, we will first review the reasons for it; and secondly its benefits.

I.-As families we are dependant on God's providence and mercy, and therefore as families

Irre

we are bound to make acknowledgments. spective of the love of God which watches over us as individuals, there is a further love which unites us in families, and makes our interests common interests. Some of us can look back, probably, and say with the Psalmist :-"We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us what thou hast done in their time of old." From hereditary hearsay we can declare that for three and four generations the God of mercy has always visited our families with love—that he has fixed his name there that the dew of his blessing has been on them from generation to generation-that he has held them together not only as families, but as Christian families, that he has partitioned them out and kept them as a seed to serve to him. And if our families, as families, have long been dependant on his goodness, and his preservation, and his love, I ask you, descendants of a heaven-blest ancestry, what should be our hereditary gratitude, and heir-loom piety, as families? How should we labour that that blessing which has been so long upon us should be continued to us! How earnestly should we seek that the same reverential holiness and religious influence, which has been as a Palladium in the homes of our forefathers, or rather as the sacred Ark of the Covenant resting there,