you not call in the aid of family worship to strengthen this feeling? As it is with: the human body if one limb suffers pain, all the limbs share in it, or if one limb is hardened by exercise, the benefit reaches over the whole body-so it is in the members of a family. Whatever of good or evil happens to each, all partake of it. Surely then it may well be expected, that they who are closely bound together in interest and enjoyment, should offer, as it were with one voice, prayers and praises to God, in the name of their Saviour, every morning and evening of their lives. You are taught by Christ to call for a blessing on the food you eat together; for he, you may remember, is related to have blessed the bread which he brake and gave to his apostles. If this act of family worship is becoming when you sit down to partake of the bounties of Providence at your meals, is there not good reason to call for God's blessing each morning before you separate for the business of the day, and each evening before you retire to rest?

d Matt. xxvi. 26. Mark xiv. 22.

༞ ཝཱ

If any should say that they have not time in a morning, let such ask themselves, whether they are not ready to wait a few minutes for any neighbour who is going the same way, that they may walk and converse together? Now the time necessary for family prayer is so short, that it can hardly be any material hindrance to the business of the morning. Our Saviour has declared, that we must not expect to be heard on account" of our much speaking" a short prayer, earnestly addressed to God, where the heart joins with the lips, will always find favour with him. When requested by his disciples to teach them how to pray, he gave them what we therefore call the Lord's Prayer; this was to serve both as a prayer which we are daily to offer up, and as a pattern for us in our devotions: the Lord's Prayer, you see, is short, though it contains so much. What then should hinder the father or mother of each family from bringing their children around them every morning and night, and addressing themselves to their

Matt. vi. 7.

heavenly Father, for his blessing upon the small congregation assembled before him?

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The following prayer will be very proper for this purpose of family worship in the morning; it makes, you will easily remember, a part of our ordinary Church service.

“O Lord, our heavenly Father, Almighty and everlasting God, who hast safely brought us to the beginning of this day, defend us in the same with thy mighty power; and grant that this day we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger; but that all our doings may be ordered by thy governance, to do always that is righteous in thy sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

This should be followed by the Lord's Prayer; and you may conclude with those words of St. Paul, which closes our public morning and evening service.

"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore. Amen."

At night your first family prayer may

be the following, taken, as before, from the Prayer Book.

Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ."

This also should be followed by the Lord's Prayer; and the whole may close, as in the morning, with the words of St. Paul.

Now who will say that the two short prayers which I have pointed out for the family worship, morning and evening, with the still shorter blessing of St. Paul, would take up more time than they could spare? Yet can we doubt that this would be favourably received by Almighty God, when presented with "a humble, lowly, penitent, and obedient heart?" If there would be sufficient time for offering up the short prayers I mention in a morning, before the members of the family go out to their daily labour, there can be no doubt that there would be more leisure for joining in family worship, short as I propose it to be, in the evening: the work of the

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