See Psalm cxxxvi.

Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity. He retaineth not his anger for ever, because He delighteth in mercy.-Mic. vii. 18.

God is Love.-1 John, iv. 8.

Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down his life for us.—1 John, iii. 16.

He that spared not his own son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?-Rom. viii. 32.; see also verses 38, 39.

Immediately Adam received the penalty of his transgression, the Lord gave him the promise "that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head," referring to Jesus Christ, who destroyed the power of Satan by dying on the cross.

How precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them they are more in number than the sand.-Ps. cxxxix. 17, 18.

We challenge the most miserable, or the most querulous man living, to produce causes of complaint at all proportionable to those of thanksgiving. He that has the greatest stock of calamities can never vie with the heaps of benefits. The disproportion is greater than that of the armies of Ahab and Benhadad, whereof one was "like two little flocks of kids," and the other" filled the whole country."-Dr. Allestree's Whole Duty of Man.

The valley of Achor is not without a door of hope.— Hos. ii. 15.

Perhaps you may have missed some few nights' sleep, but what is that to a twelvemonth's enjoyment of it? "Tis possible your stomach and meat have not always been ready together, but how much oftener have they met to your delight?.... But how critically and nicely do we observe every little adverse circumstance, while a whole tide of blessings flow by without our notice. Like little children, our fingers are never off the sore place till we have picked every light scratch into an ulcer.-Dr. Allestree's Whole Duty of Man.

Aristippus, being bemoaned for the loss of a farm, replied with some sharpness upon his condoler, "you have but one field, and I have still three left, why should not I rather grieve for you?"

CONCLUSION..

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THEME CXXI. No Place like Home.

INTRODUCTION.

....

1ST REASON. No place like home to humanise the temper and disposition. If any thing can soothe the tumultuous passions of the soul, or calm that turbulence of feeling which the din and bustle of the world excite, it is the soothing influence of a beloved and cheerful home.

2ND REASON. No place like home to develop the purest affections of the heart. There alone you will find warm sympathy, and overflowing kindness, love without dissimulation, and benevolence without selfishness.

3RD REASON.-No place like home for virtue and goodness.

(1.) Negatively. The state of mind unavoidably cherished by the influences of domestic life is totally at variance with the envyings, jealousies, ambition, and covetousness of the gay and busy world.

(2.) Cohibitively. The wisdom of God is most manifestly exhibited in the restraint which home almost inevitably exercises. You can hardly find an abandoned man who has not abandoned the joys of domestic life. There is something in the very atmosphere of the family hearth which will not allow vice to luxuriate there.

(3.) Positively. "Love is of God," home is the house of love, and "he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God." There is no mere earthly influence so calculated to preserve from sin and to build up the heart in purity

Some portions of this Theme are borrowed from a work published by the Rev. J. Abbott, of America, entitled "Love of Home."

and virtue as that of home. If, therefore, you would find the noblest specimens of human nature, love harmoniously blended with unyielding integrity and manly independence you must seek them in domestic life.

4TH REASON.-No place like home for the purest enjoyments. The excitement of illuminated ball-rooms, of midnight clubs, and of travelling from place to place, is most transient, and always leaves blackness and grief behind. Our own fireside is our only sanctuary and covert from the storms of life. If there be kindness any where, it must be found at home; if obedience to every wish, it must be found at home; if the thousand delicate attentions which render life sweet, they must be found at home; if true sympathy, if a feeling of independence and security, if liberty without restraint, they can be found nowhere except they be found at home.

5TH REASON.-No place like home to rest and invigorate the jaded mind. The disappointed find there a solace, the weary a recreation. The more a man loves home the more labour he will be enabled to perform, and the more his spirit will be renewed from day to day for fresh efforts and achievements.

6TH REASON. No place like home for holy communion and the duties of the sanctuary-to fortify the spirit against temptation, and to prepare for another and better world.

SIMILES.-Home is like a bee-hive; there may be much toil, there must be much order, but there will always be a honeyed sweetness.

As a plant thrives best in its native soil, and suffers by being transplanted into a foreign clime, so the mind is more healthy, vigorous, and "fruitful in every good work" at home than in the gay and giddy world.

As Noah's dove could find no rest for the sole of her foot except in the Ark, so a man can find no rest for his spirit from the troubles of the world and of business equal to a peaceful and pious home.

A man who has no home is like the cuckoo which has no nest, or the butterfly which has no hive; the one is

proverbial for selfishness and folly, the other for levity and worldly-mindedness.

A cheerful domestic heart, like a kaleidoscope, sees every thing within its own small arch arranged in harmony and beauty.

No clothes fit the body so agreeably and gracefully as those made for its daily use, and no place becomes a man or woman so well as the domestic fireside.

The heart is like a parasitic plant which can never grow and thrive except it has something constantly to cling to, and round which it may freely unfold itself.

The domestic heart may be likened to the parent hen or insect bee; the one emblematical of affection, and the other of frugal industry and the social virtues.

HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS.-By far the most virtuous and illustrious of the ancient Roman heroes were remarkable for their domestic habits and love of home, as Cincinnatus, Dentatus, Fabricius, and old Cato. Soon after the Punic wars, when the Romans lost their domestic character, women as well as men lost their singleness of mind, and became ultimately so dissipated and demoralised, that few can believe the first chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans can refer to the "city of temples and the nation of kings."

Look at the homeless, heartless Byron. His imagination would bear him upon a wing like that of an eagle's. He was formed with capacities to drink in unbounded delight. He might have made his home one of the brightest and happiest on earth-but in his early life he had an unhappy home; became dissatisfied with domestic scenes; sought pleasure in excitement; plunged into vice; and has gone from the world like a fiery comet which leaves desolation and corruption behind.

Wilberforce was a remarkable instance of the ameliorating influence of a love of home. One day when George III. called for a paper which Wilberforce had mislaid, while he was busily engaged searching for the

lost document one of his children began to cry; the king, turning to Pitt, remarked, "Now we shall see our friend William in an ill temper;" but almost at the same moment Wilberforce exclaimed in an adjoining room loud enough to be overheard, "Bless that dear sweet voice, had it not been for that, I should be out of temper at this untoward circumstance !"

Look at Napoleon, heading the armies of Europe, gigantic in intellect, impetuous in passion, yet a man without a heart and without a home. A cheerful home might have given him a warm heart, and a warm heart would have led him to seek for a cheerful home.

The weather-beaten sailor, the child of danger and of storms, is proverbially dissolute. And why? Because he has no home. He is surrounded by no influences to foster virtue and elicit affection. When he returns to shore he has no wife and children to bid him welcome, no friends to meet him with joyful faces. He is friendless, homeless, and alone, cut off from every restraint which might preserve him from dissipation, and plunges into vice from the very desolation of his heart.

The poet Cowper shows in his poem, called "The Task," that his heart was warm with the relish of domestic joys. The delicacy of mind, the fervour of feeling, the expansion of benevolence, which characterise that interesting poem, could only have been cherished under the influence of fire-side scenes. Cowper was constitutionally sad, and it was only the domestic retreat which could soothe his nervous excitement there and there only had he comfort; and had it not been for the soothing influence of his peaceful home. Cowper, the beautiful poet of domestic affections, would probably have been a frantic inmate chained in the confinement of a madhouse.

George III. was one day galloping about the room upon all-fours with one child upon his back, and chasing another who was laughing at the top of her lungs at the gambols of her royal father. While thus engaged, one of his ministers was announced, "Come in (said the king) you also are a father!" and he continued his sport un