that they had no subject of common interest, and no mutual love nor confidence. They could converse and be happy with strangers, but not with one another. And I have seen this in families where there was a form of family worship, a pretence, a semblance of prayer, but never where there was the reality. If yours be such family, before peace and affection visit it, you must say, "Come and let us seek the Lord.". If you would see the dawn of blander days on that clouded circle, you must cry, "Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us, and so we shall be glad. If you could only persuade them to take into their hands the volume that speaks good-will to man, and then as they bowed before the mercy-seat, in their common name you said Our Father, and confessed their common sins, returned thanks for any mercies which the day had brought, and ask such blessings as all need, this process could not be long persisted in till you would see its softening and harmonising influence. The dew of Hermon would begin to come down, and you would exclaim as you saw the difference, "Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" But, perhaps, your family dwells in unity, but it is not a holy unity. It is not sanctified by the word of God and by prayer. You are happy in one another. You are never at a loss for the materials of a cheerful intercourse. But amidst all the sprightliness, and cordiality, and kind feeling which encompass your fireside, one ingredient of gladness is wanting. God is forgotten ! In the morning you meet and give one another a joyous greeting, and, the morning meal despatched, rush away to the day's engagements without a word of acknowledgment to that God whose sleepless eye guarded your midnight pillow, without one word of prayer to bespeak His upholding and guidance in this day's untrodden path. And when the evening hour of intercourse is over, and you have discussed the pleasant and prosperous incidents of the day, you hie away, cheerful but unthankful, to a prayerless slumber, perhaps to wake in the eternal world, and find that the Lord is not with you. Your family is united, but it is a shortlived union. Your family love one another, but God is not in it, and therefore heaven does not follow after it. How it would give tone and intensity to the affection of your smiling circle, if you could be brought to love one another in the Lord! With what new eyes you would learn to look upon yourselves, if you came to regard one another as brethren for eternity! And how it would heighten bliss, and take the sharpness out of sorrow, if "for ever with the Lord," were the thought which joy and grief most readily suggested. Were it manifest of all the members of a family that God is their Father, Christ their elder Brother, and the Holy Spirit their Comforter, such a family would possess a joy which the removal of no member could take away. That joy has often come into households through the channel of domestic devotion. For, 2. Family worship is an ordinance which God has often blessed to the saving of souls. In houses where it is conducted with life and feeling, it has often proved a converting ordinance. A few years ago, an English gentleman visited America, and spent some days with a pious friend. He was a man of talent and accomplishments, but an infidel. Four years afterwards he returned to the same house a Christian. They wondered at the change, but little suspected when and where it originated. He told them that when he was present at their family worship, on the first evening of his former visit, and when after the chapter was read, they all knelt down to pray, the recollection of such scenes in his father's house long years ago, rushed in on his memory, so that he did not hear a single word. But the occurrence made him think, and his thoughtfulness ended in his leaving the howling wilderness of infidelity, and finding a quiet rest in the salvation wrought out by Jesus Christ. Some years ago, an Irish wanderer, his wife, and his sister, asked a night's shelter in the cabin of a pious schoolmaster. With the characteristic hospitality of his nation, the schoolmaster made them welcome. It was his hour for evening worship, and when the strangers were seated, he began by reading slowly and solemnly the second chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians. The young man sat astonished. The expressions, "Dead in trespasses and sin," "Children of wrath," "Walking according to the course of this world," were new to him. He sought an explanation. He was told that this is God's account of the state of man by nature. He felt that this was exactly his own state. "In this way I have walked from my childhood. In the service of the god of this world we have come to your house." He was on the way to a fair, where he intended to pass a quantity of counterfeit money. But God's word had found him out. He produced his store of coin, and begged his host to cast it into the fire; and asked anxiously if he could not obtain the Word of God for himself. His request was complied with, and next morning, with their new treasure, the party, who had now no errand to the fair, returned to their own home. Perhaps, by this time the pious schoolmaster has met his guest within the gates of the city, outside of which are thieves and whatsoever maketh a lie. Many servants have been awakened at family worship. And children have there often heard truths, which, when the Spirit brought them to remembrance in after-days, perhaps in days of profligacy, and when far from their father's house, have sent home the prodigal. It is not only of Zion's solemn assemblies, but of Jacob's humble dwellings, the little fireside sanctuaries, that the Lord shall count when He writeth up the people, "This man was born there.” " "THE LORD BLESSETH THE HABITATION OF THE JUST." Prov. iii. 33. MAKING THE IRON SWIM. LAS, master, for it was borrowed!" exclaimed one of the sons of the prophets beside the river Jordan, when his axe-head flew off, and sunk in the turbid stream. And Elisha said to him, "Where fell it?" The young student showed him the spot. Whereupon the man of God broke off a stick and cast it into the stream, and, lo, " the iron did swim !" The student put forth his hand and took it up, and went on with his work to hew down timber for a log college to be occupied by the sons of the prophets. Here was a direct interposition of the Divine power. The honour of a company of good men was at stake; a loss had been met with; God repaired the loss in a miraculous manner. God, who is the author of all law in nature, acted directly on that bit of iron, and made it rise up from the bottom of the stream. just such a special display of the Divine power as that which sent the ravens to feed the famished prophet Elijah, and at another time made a poor widow's barrel of meal and cruse of oil hold out. It was These were very unlikely things to happen; but God constantly does unlikely things to reward the faith of His children. Elisha's heavenly Father is our Father. He is the Father of every faithful minister of the word, of every toiling missionary, of every true philanthropist who is struggling to turn the darkness into day, of every working Christian, and of every poor widow or orphan in in His huge earthly household. He still fills poverty's empty cruse. He still makes the iron swim! دو He Yonder, at Ashley Down, lives George Müller, the noble, godly-minded superintendent of the famous "Orphan Houses,' which shelter and educate hundreds of poor children every year. George Müller began that vast work of love in simple faith. goes on with his love-labour, and prays. God puts it into the hearts of liberal men to send him money, and Müller has already received and expended over two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Faith does its duty, and God makes the iron swim. Sometimes the Lord transmutes the hardest outbreaks of human wrath into instruments of mercy. That royal scoffer, Charles II., locked up John Bunyan in Bedford jail for twelve years. That padlock kept Bunyan there, shut up with his Bible, until he wrote the 66 Pilgrim's Progress "-and that iron is swimming yet! There is a prodigious leverage for our faith in the glorious doctrine of God's providential love. It enables us to remove mountains out of our way. It stimulates us to persevering effort in the face of every obstacle. A godly mother, for example, dedicates her only son to the gospel ministry. But how to educate him with a widow's scanty purse is a puzzling question. It seems a hard dilemma. But at the critical time the will of a deceased relative is opened, and a legacy for the widow's son is found in the will. The lad is sent to college, and he lives to-day to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ to a vast audience. So the widow's God made the iron swim! These are not miracles exactly; but the God who floated the prophet's axe at the Jordan yet lives, and He still loves to reward faith and to answer prayer. There is a rich encouragement in this truth for all who are earnestly labouring for the conversion of souls. An unconverted heart is often like to the young prophet's axe-head-it is heavy, and hard, and tending downward. But the Spirit of God can make the iron move. Know this, ye disheartened parents, who almost despair of ever seeing your ungodly children come to Jesus. Be not weary in your efforts to win them to the Saviour. Make your religion attractive to them. Pray for them without ceasing. A loving wife, who spent a whole Sabbath lately in most pleading petitions for her husband's soul, was joyfully surprised on Monday morning to see the man upon his knees. A longsuffering wife of a sad inebriate has just been into my study to tell me that her husband came home lately sober and penitent. For dark, weary months she has been praying for his reform, hoping against hope. It actually looks now as if the poor slave of the bottle would be saved; but I confess that I never expected to see that stubborn piece of metal float. With God all things are possible. During a period of revival in a certain town, a woman of devoted piety persuaded her sceptical husband to go with her once to church. He came home enraged. "I will never go again," said he; "that sermon against infidelity was aimed at me." She saw that the shots were striking him in a sore spot. So she prayed the more fervently. One evening the wife said kindly to him"I want you, my dear, to grant me one little request. Will you go with me to-night to the meeting?" He answered gruffly—“ I will go with you to the door." "Very well," she replied cheerfully; "that will do." He accompanies her to the door; he stays outside while she goes in to pour out her soul to God in importunate, believing prayer for that iron heart. Presently the door opens. A man walks in, and going to her seat sits down beside her. He listens quietly. The wife walks home with him, all the time talking secretly to God. The next evening, after tea, the husband rises and says, "Wife, isn't it about time for us to go to church ?" It is too early; but she snatches her bonnet and shawl, and hastens off with him to the house of God. A happy evening is it to her long-tried spirit, for the stubborn sceptic bows at the feet of Jesus. He comes home to set up a family altar. Faith wins its precious victory, and the love of Jesus makes the iron swim! C. DOMESTIC HAPPINESS. JOMESTIC happiness, thou only bliss Of paradise, that has survived the fall! Or too incautious to preserve thy sweets Unmixed with drops of bitter, which neglect Or temper sheds into thy crystal cup. Thou art the nurse of virtue; in thine arms Heaven-born, and destined to the skies again.-Cowper. |