restraint was employed as it ought, whole families of children preserved from the prevalent degeneracy, and brought to be the happy sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty.

My

I am assured of the benefit of restraint from my own experience, and I have seen strong proofs of its salutary power in many families of my acquaintance. A neighbour of ours had a family about as large as my father's, and he was as lax as my father was strict. He would allow his children their walks on a Sabbath, and enable them, by supplying them with a little money, to enjoy the society of their neighbour youths. He seldom spoke to them but in gentle tones, and I never knew him correct a child with severity. My father would never allow us to run loose on the Sabbath, in search of our own pleasure, nor would he allow us any money to spend with our companions. We were taken to the school and chapel on the Sabbath, and as money is the principal passport into dissipated company, we were kept from that great danger through the rest of the week. father's voice could awe us when occasion called for it, and he chastised with severity, when he saw it needful. Both my father and our neighbour were members of one church, and in point of education, our neighbour had the advantage over my father. But my father's course was most successful with his children. My eldest brother died in his twenty-first year, after having served his Maker devotedly for more than eight years, and preached the Gospel five or six. Of his ten children now living, two are ministers of the Gospel, and most of them are walking in the ways of God. But how was it with our unhappy neighbour! He had about the same number of children as my father, but all his sons found premature graves, and I know not that any of his daughters found the Way of Life. The father and mother, both alike lenient to their offspring, were reduced to poverty, and overwhelmed in sorrows.

1

To me it appears that little less than a miracle would be requisite to bring that child to obey God, who has not If the will of a

been taught obedience to his parents.

child be allowed to play in complete freedom from his infancy to manhood, I can see little ground to hope that it will afterwards be reduced into subjection to the will of God. As the benevolent affections must be awakened and formed in domestic society, before they can be extended to the whole human race, or raised to objects invisible and divine, so the habit of obedience must be acquired by subjection to the will of parents, before it can be extended to God. The parent must occupy the place of God, during the youthful years of his offspring, or he must expect God to be robbed of his honour afterwards. The parent does occupy the place of God in reference to his child, and he is entrusted with authority resembling the authority of God, that he may form his child to habits of obedience, and so prepare him for an easy and cheerful compliance with God's will. And though there be much self-will in children, and much repugnance to authority, yet so admirably has the Deity formed the domestic relations, that the parent who knows how to avail himself of the advantages of his situation, may, without much difficulty, have his children in subjection to his will.

And when children are once brought into subjection, it is easy to keep them subject; and if they are rightly accustomed to obey in their youth, they will find it difficult to throw off the habit of obedience when they are older. It is hardly possible for them to lose that filial reverence with which they have been once duly inspired, without some kind of serious misconduct on our part. Should the child who has been well instructed in his duty to God and his parents, attempt to throw off the yoke of parental authority, he will have severe and distracting conflicts with his conscience. He will often

look at himself with horror when he thinks of his impiety, and he must be reckless indeed, and assailed with violent temptation, if he attempt to rebel a second time. Whatever the pleasure may be for which he rebels against his parents, it will be as bitter as gall and wormwood to him; and he will sigh when he thinks of the peace and pleasure of mind which he has sacrificed for the false gratifications of sin. It may at times be pain

ful and difficult to obey, but he will feel that it is much more painful to rebel. If reverence be once rightly planted in the heart of a child, it will rather grow with his growth than wear away; and if obedience be once properly taught, the habit will not only remain, but become more easy and natural as his years increase.

No one knows how hard the way of transgression is found, when well trained youths sin against the laws of their parents on earth, and the will of their Father in heaven.

MARRIAGE.

(Continued from No. 35, Vol. 2.)

WE said that the pleasures of a virtuous pair will become more abundant. This is another point on which some men seem disposed to err. They think the satisfaction and delight which husband and wife have in each other's affections and society, must diminish as they grow older; that the first days of marriage are the best. This doc

trine used to be frequently preached to me about the time that I was married, and it made me very uneasy. It continues to be preached still, and I doubt not its effects are of a very mischievous description. The first time I ever heard a man preach the contrary doctrine, and say, that the first days and years of married life were not the happiest, was at Halifax: I caught the words with eager pleasure, and it removed a heavy load from off my mind. It quite delighted me, to hear a man with a number of little children around him, give expression to such a cheering sentiment; and I feel especially thankful that I have lived to prove the truth of this doctrine by my own experience. It gives me pleasure to be able to say, that every successive year of my married life, has been happier than the year that went before. I have no doubt but that the experience of religious people generally is the same as my own in this respect. I know that this is the case with many, for they have told me so, and I am not aware that I have ever met with one exception.

The doctrine, that the happiness of the marriage state diminishes with time, comes from the same quarter as the other heresies respecting marriage that I have already noticed. It is the offspring of lewdness and infidelity; and, like all similar errors, it is probably true when applied to lewd and infidel society. Carnal and ungodly men look no higher than fleshly gratification. The only happiness they look for is the happiness of brutes, and it is perfectly true that all merely animal gratifications lose their power and freshness, as the novelty of them passes away. It is therefore very probable that infidel and wicked people find very little satisfaction in marriage, after the first violence of their passions has subsided. Brutes are not formed for lasting friendships; marriage was not designed for brutes; it was meant for beings of a nobler order and if men will lay aside the proper dignity of their being, and reduce themselves to a level with the brutes, it is natural to expect that marriage institutions will not be suited to their degraded character. If men will bring themselves down to a level with the brutes in one respect, they must come down to the level of brutes in others. If they disown God, and lay aside humanity, it is but natural to expect that they must forget all the godlike and rational enjoyments of humanity. If men will act like brutes, they must be content with a brute's portion; and if they cannot enjoy even the pleasures of a brute, without many mixtures of misery to which brutes are strangers, let them regard it as the just judgment of God upon them, for the abuse of their superior faculties.

But if these men suppose that because they find the happiness of marriage diminishing as its novelty passes away, therefore other people must find it so, they are greatly mistaken. The case of a Christian pair and an Infidel pair are very different. Infidel men and women have no idea of true and spiritual friendship. They do not look upon one another as united by God, and appointed by him to help and benefit and comfort one another. They have no idea of God, of Providence, of future happiness, to unite them together by super

human and godlike sympathies. They have no idea of instructing each other in duty, or of ministering to each other's spiritual comfort. If they have children, they rather look on them as intruders and troublers, than as sent from God to be nursed for immortality, to be made a blessing to themselves, to their parents, and to mankind. Every thing with them is low and limited and brutal. Every thing is dark and cheerless. There is nothing to unite them in fixed and indissoluble bonds. There is nothing to destroy the seeds of discord. There is nothing to check those passions and propensities which tend to alienate their hearts. There is nothing to extinguish jealousy, to purify and elevate affection. Every thing in their system and in their habits and dispositions is groveling, debasing, corrupting and tormenting.

But with Christians the case is different They love each other with a nobler passion than brutes can feel. They look on each other as immortal beings; they regard each other as the children of God, and the objects of his providential care; and they respect and love each other with a nobler and more heavenly affection. They consider themselves as united together by God, and as placed in the intimate relations of husband and wife by him, on purpose that they might contribute to each other's improvement and enjoyment. They consider themselves as formed and joined together for each other's good, and they labour pleasantly and joyfully to help and comfort one another. Their animal affections are mixed with reason and religion, and they are elevated and spiritualized thereby. New sympathies are formed between them, sympathies of a heavenly nature, which bind them together with new and stronger cords. Their souls are married, and they become one spirit. The interchange of sentiment, the reciprocation of kind offices, the oneness of their views and feelings in reference to God, to heaven and all things spiritual, begets a oneness of their affection in other things. Every religious sentiment and feeling adds strength to marriage ties; adds tenderness to marriage love; adds sweetness to marriage pleasures; and permanence and purity to all the affections and enjoyments of the marriage state,