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each other's faces - where the responsible providers distribute the liberal provision - where parental love lavishes itself upon its tender objects and where the children not only have their bodies nurtured, out their minds and manners cultivated?

A prayerless family meal is a most unchristian, a most ungodly thing; and seldom does that graceless spirit whose plainest name is Fashion, show her impiety more plainly than when, at a social entertainment, she whispers that, as the family table would be too narrow for so numerous a company, so the family custom of giving thanks at the table is too homely for so splendid an occasion; just as if the larger and costlier provision did not need the divine blessing, and did not call for thanks, as much as the ordinary meal; and just as if an unblest meal, partaken by a numerous company scattered through the ample spaces of a parlor, were any more Christian than the same thing at an ordinary table.

Nor is it only at the table that families should worship. Sheltered by one roof, the family have laid them down in peace and slept, and awoke in safety, because the Lord has sustained them. Coming from their several chambers, they meet and exchange their affectionate salutations, glad to feel

"We are all here." It is a common protection they have shared. They have together been kept from the assassin, from the fire, from the "pestilence that walketh in darkness." Should not they kneel together, and give thanks to their heavenly Guardian ? They are going forth, too, in duties, and to dangers, and they need a common guidance; shall they not ask for it together? And at the close of the day, have they not equal reasons for united prayer and thanksgiving? They have all been led and kept by one Providence, and they all need to commit themselves to one divine Guardian. On both occasions it is appropriate, besides the prayer, to read the divine word together, and to unite, if they are ablo, in sacred song.

There will, of course, be mornings when all have not come from their chambers in the glow and the joy of health; there will be evenings when tho family will sadly gather, returning from a new grave. Thenceforth, at the table, and at the fire. side, there will be "one vacant chair." All families must have these days of sorrow. What shall they do with this sorrow? To whom shall they tell it? On whose friendly strength shall they lay it? There is no such other place for a bereaved family to soothe and comfort themselves as their family altar.

Is it the father that is gone? Nowhere else will they find such comfort as kneeling, in their tears, at the family altar, and pouring out their prayers from their broken hearts, through the channel, perhaps, of a feebler and softer voice than that to whose manly tones they were accustomed.

Or has one of the little ones been taken? The table must henceforth lack the light of his happy face the house will no more ring to his merry laugh; but there is no sweeter memory, when you see the white hands laid together on the still breast, than that you had seen them folded on the edge of the table at the giving of thanks, or on the chair by your side at the daily worship.

In joy and sorrow, amid all the varieties of domestic experience, they who live together may most appropriately and beneficially worship together.

FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE.

FRIENDSHIP is sweet to those

Who know no purer gem;
"Tis like the blushing rose,
Blown from its tender stem;
Or like the queen of night,
That glistens in the sky;
Her ever-fading light

Forms but a transient tie.

Love is a theme that springs
Pure in the human heart;
"Tis friendship decked with wings,
A bond no time can part.
As the green ivy bowers
Around the old oak tree,

So Love outlives the flowers

That Friendship culled for me.

THE MIGHT OF TRUTH.

FROM out the little fountains
There swells a mighty tide,
Upon whose broad, elastic back
The broods of commerce ride;
And on the wingéd tempest

A little seed there flies,

Whose roots strike deep, whose giant arms Reach upward to the skies;

And so the little, slighted Truth,

At length more mighty grown, Shall fill the nations with its power, And make the world its own.

There is a flower, when trampled on,
Doth still more richly bloom,

And even to its bitterest foe

Gives forth its sweet perfume;

The rose that's crushed and shattered

Doth on the breeze bestow

A fairer scent, that farther goes

E'en for the cruel blow.

And so Truth's crushed and trampled flower,

By injury stronger grown,

Shall win its very foes to love,

And make the world its own.

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