How course, and to them it is no difficulty to follow it. happy a thing it would be, if all had right habits in this, and found it easier to go the house of God whenever they are summoned, than to disobey, and rebel, and absent themselves! Happy would be the parish, and happy the minister, where this prevailed! He would at least have the opportunity to exhort and teach them, and give them the advice and counsel he intends for all, but can only now give to a part of his flock. He seeks them out in private in their own houses; but then he cannot always find them at home; it is impossible to attempt to visit them so often as every week. It is unjust to the clergyman, and ruin to themselves, to stay away as they do. They will not allow him to speak to them for their good, to bring to their ears weekly the gracious message of a crucified Reedeemer; and he cannot, therefore, hope to benefit them as he desires to do. It is ruin to themselves, because they disobey God, and "them that have the rule over them, and watch for their souls," and will have to give in a miserable account at the last day of the talents committed to them, when with agony and despair they are compelled to admit the awful condemnation, that "when they knew their Lord's will, they did it not." D. THE BARREN FIG-TREE. LUKE xiii. 6—9. WITHIN a vineyard fair Thus early planted I have been, The Blessed Church of Christ within. And, ever and anon, He came the seasons through; And kindred fruit He sought thereon; "Behold! these full three years, Seeking for fruit, but none appears Upon this barren tree :" Such, Lord, has Thy long-suffering been, 66 Why should it stand alone, "Lord, let the barren tree Yea, Lord, though long a cumb'rer found, "If so, though late, the store And Thou shalt cut it down:" HASTEN HOME. S. B. Ir is an old saying, and an old song-"There's no place like home." But how many are there who do not understand this! They seem to like any place better than home. When once this feeling is in the mind, the door is open for the entrance of many a misery. This dislike to staying at home generally brings poverty into a family, for every thing that is paid for out of the house costs many times more than what is needful for the supply of the wants at home where the whole family are together. This is true of the gentry who love the tavern, as well as of the poor man, who, as if he was not poor enough, makes himself poorer by spending his money at the beer-house, or the gin-shop. A man, and his wife, and his family, may sit down to their dinner together at as little expense as it would cost the master of the house to get his dinner by himself, at a public tavern. The absence of the head of the family from home is, too, a very great injury to a family in other ways. He ought to give his children the benefit of his instruction, and of a good example. If he neglect this, he is neglecting a duty to which, as a father, he is pledged. He is leaving his children without the check, and discipline, and rule and order, on which may depend the comfort of their after lives-their happiness, their success-and their clear perception of the difference between right and wrong. He is, above all, losing the opportunity of drawing them into a right course, by the powerful, but silent, persuasion of gentleness, of kindness, and of a religious regard to all duty to God and man; accompanied by the all-commanding influence of the Spirit of God in the midst of a family, who seek to serve Him. But besides the regard to children, is there not a duty to the wife?-A man is bound by his marriage vow, to love, and to honour, and to cherish his wife: if he neglects her, and leaves her in search of other company, he is breaking the law of truth and honour,--the law of God and man. And what can be more cruel and hard-hearted than to leave a wife in sorrow and solitude, and often oppressed by want, and burdened with care, when the husband is taking his ease,-hiding from himself his true condition, and his religious and moral obligations, for the sake of a selfish indulgence in habits and practices which he has solemnly pledged himself to renounce? There are bad wives, it is true;-but what can more tend to make bad wives than bad and neglectful husbands? We have often spoken of the duty of wives, and of the great interest they have in making home comfortable, by their industry, their attention to their husbands, and by the neat and cleanly arrangement of their habitation ;-but we have been led to the subject of husbands, and their neglect of home, by the following lines by Mr. Ragg. They are the petitions of a wife to a husband, to "hasten home." THE FEARFUL WIFE'S APPEAL TO HER HUSBAND. HASTEN thee home, love, when thy toil is ended, Hither too slowly oft thy steps have wended, What, after sunset, can illume our dwelling, When thou art absent ?-Friends may bid thee stay, With thoughts of thee, nor linger on thy way, Companions blithe and joyful may be near thee, The cup of gladness to thy lip be press'd; But sure, nor mirth, nor smiles, nor wine can cheer thee, Alas! Shun thou the tempter's flagon; shun the chalice Oh! I have dream'd of such a load of sorrow But hasten home! Think of the months of sickness, long and dreary, Doth music lure thee?-let thy children's voices Yea, thou dost love me! this fond heart were broken Cling with warm rapture to each tender token By all the vows that in our youth we plighted, V. EXTRACT FROM MY FAMILY BIBLE. MATTHEW xxi. 17-23. CHRIST, my dear family, looked for figs to satisfy his hunger; He found only leaves. He looks upon the children of men, and finds often only the cross upon their foreheads to show that they are Christians, as the leaves alone showed that the tree He caused to wither was a fig-tree. Most solemnly does this Scripture appeal to you who are all baptized. It says, "Be not content with mere outward signs of belonging to Christ; for, though you may thus be satisfied, Christ will not be. You must have fruit. You must bear the cross upon your hearts and lives as well as upon your foreheads. Christ has His eyes upon you. Anxiously is He looking for the fruit of your love to Him, the fruit of obedience to His commandments. May He not look in vain into each of your hearts and lives; but may He find deep faith in His precious blood, and perfect righteousness, bringing forth all the goodly fruit of His own most Holy Spirit, without which you can be none of His, but must wither away, and be altogether counted as good for nothing, as a barren tree, to be cast into the fire and burned. The disciples are astonished at the sentence executed upon the fig-tree. Our Lord repeats what He had before said (xvii. 19, 20, of this Gospel), that by faith they might remove mountains into the sea; or, in other words, do any thing however wonderful. He repeats also His declaration with respect to prayer (see chap. vii. 7), showing us by thus repeating it, that prayer is one of the most necessary parts of religion, as, indeed, reason points it out to be; for our religion being intended to make us like God, it is evident that the more we are in communion with Him, and delight humbly to converse with Him, the more we shall be like Him. But the special use of prayer is to procure us the grace of faith through the mercy and bounty of God in answer to it. Faith is, indeed, the foundation of all religion; but most especially of that of the Christian, who has to believe the most astonishing of all astonishing things, that God was made man, and died in man's nature to wash away his sins, and to obtain eternal and perfect righteousness for him. It is impossible to believe this in a right manner without assistance from God. It is altogether so wonderful, both as a display of love on God's part, and as a sign of the desperate state that man had fallen into, to require that God should be made man, and suffer all He |