power; or, at least, whether it would not be better | submitting to him meekly. We regard this as true to give up prayer entirely, until they can secure godliness, and try to make it holy submission. more time and composure, than to continue it in the very imperfect way they are now compelled

I know well that there is no parallel between our work and the work of Christ; but still, our sphere, and its duties and hardships, are the appointment of God, as well as Christ's were so. It is not by accident that one mother has much to do, and another much to suffer, and a third much both to do I am not pleading for what is called "mixing up and endure; these heavy crosses are as really religion with every thing," if by that is meant talkheavenly appointments as the cross of Christ was, ing about religion whilst transacting the business although not for the same purpose. Accordingly, of life, or giving a religious turn to every converin some things, we recognise, and even act on this sation. This is ueither necessary nor wise, as it is principle, in express imitation of the Saviour's ex- usually conducted by those who try it most: indeed, ample. When the cup of bereavement or affliction they are thus often guilty of "casting pearls before is put into our hands, we try to say, like him, "The swine," and more likely to create prejudices against eup which my Father hath given me, shall I not religion than to commend it. Even their own piety drink it? Not my will, but thine be done." Thus is in danger of being suspected of sinister design or we really attempt to turn what we suffer much of sanctimonious pretence, by this forced intermixfrom, into an occasion of serving God well, and for ture of sacred and common things. So far, there

fore, as speaking perpetually about religion, or about every thing in religious phrases, is concerned, I have no sympathy with the habit, and see none of the beauty of holiness in it. I have, however, quite as little respect for both the vulgar and the sentimental proverb-" Business in its place, and religion in its own place." That really means, in the lips of those who use it most, "they are distinct things, therefore keep them separate;" a maxim equally treasonable and untrue! They are, indeed, made distinct things; but who made them so? Not God: he joins with the injunction, "not slothful in business," the commandment "Be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." He says, "Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." It sounds ill, and looks ill, therefore, when men, professing to be Christians, say that they give themselves to business and relig on in turn, and never try both at once. Such men do not understand the spirit of true religion, whatever adepts they may be in business.

I say this, however, far more in pity than in blame; for, as many godly women have grown up in the habit of going through their domestic duties, without ever imagining that there is any godliness in performing them well, so, many men, who have the root of the matter in them, have grown up in the habit of regarding their public duties in trade as no part of their religion. They, too, count nothing piety but what is done in the closet of devotion, and in the house of God, except what they may occasionally do in visiting the afflicted, or in relieving the poor; and thus both sexes confirm each other in the pernicious opinion, that ordinary duty is no proof of vital godliness.

when he quits his closet and the family altar; and certainly these are things which cannot be much combined with worldly affairs. I will even readily grant that it would not argue much good sense, to attach much importance to the hasty glances or the passing thoughts of divine things, which may take place in the course of the day; these should not rank very high in the scale of evidences by which a Christian tests the reality of his conversion, or the safety of his state for eternity. Yea, I will go farther, and allow that if he cannot prove his faith without the scanty items of such evidence, he cannot prove it with them: they are too few and feeble to lay much stress upon them.

These concessions do not, however, militate against my argument: it is just because they prove so little, that I advocate the necessity and propriety shall make it all one embodied proof of true holiof going to business, day after day, in a spirit which

ness.

Now, it would be so, by going to it and through it, as a penitent before God, as a debtor before Christ, as a dependant before the Holy Spirit. A Christian man is all this; and by a little pains he might carry the consciousness of all this as regularly into the world as he carries his honesty or his integrity. He need no more lose sight of what the hope of eternal life lead him to be and do, than of what his credit and subsistence require of him. It is just as possible to act as a redeemed man, as to act as an honest man. And here would be the advantage of acting in this spirit-instead of coming home from business with all its deadening and distracting influence aggravated by the suspicion of having been serving the world only, he would have This is a pernicious opinion, however well meant the consciousness that he had been "doing service as by some who hold it. Wherever, indeed, there is unto God, and not as unto man ;" and thus the conno devotion, nor any relish for divine things, or, viction that neither the time nor the thought he had when the soul and salvation are neglected through given to his public duties, had lessened his hold the attention given to worldly things, no diligence upon the divine favor, or drawn any judicial veil nor honor in business is religion in any sense. The between him and the divine presence. Whereas industry of the bee, or the economy of the ant, the Christian who really leaves the spirit of relimight as well be called piety. It is, however, equal-gion at home, because he deems it useless or imposly true, on the other hand, that idleness and dis-sible to mind any thing but business during the honesty disprove all pretensions to godliness: there must, therefore, be something in the very nature of the ordinary duties of life not unfavorable to vital godliness, seeing the conscientious discharge of them is thus essential to the proof of its sincerity. Why, then, should a pious man allow himself to think that he is only serving the world during the hours and bustle of business? Why should he ever speak or dream of leaving his religion at home when he goes out into the world? He does not leave behind him his conscience, nor his sense of accountability, nor his regard to truth, nor his respect for his good name, nor his holy fear of disgracing his profession: these follow him, like his shadow, into all the walks of public life. Not all the anxieties nor distractions of his business can make him lose sight of his great moral principles; and yet he says that he "left his religion at home." He means, of course, his penitence, his spirituality of mind, and his devotion; these are what he drops

hours of business, cannot so easily resume that spirit after the tear and wear of the day. He feels as if all he had been doing was somewhat sinful in itself, because it is so deadening and carnalizing in its influence. The consequence is, he is often afraid to go alone with God, after having been long and much absorbed in the world.

These remarks, although a digression in one sense, are not at all so in another. They will account in some measure for the false view you have taken of domestic duties. You have so often heard a pious father, husband, or brother, complain of the unhinging and deadening effect of the cares of business on their minds, and have so often felt that family duties and cares had precisely the same effect on your own mind, that you, like them, are too much in the habit of considering the duties of life as drawbacks or hinderances to godliness. I am, therefore, very anxious to lead you into the Scriptural views of this subject, not only on your own

account, but for the sake of those whose spiritual | self looking all around heaven for them, reveals to welfare is dear to you; for, without saying a word you how dear their eternal safety is to your heart, in the way of counsel, or even of explanation, you and how much their presence would heighten your may so illustrate the great truth that "all things happiness, even in the presence of God and ins may be done to the glory of God," as to convince Lamb. What fine preparation these glimpses of your father, your husband, or your brother, that bu- | the great white throne of judgment, and of the glosiness may be made the handmaid of religion in the world, as well as at home.

These are solemn considerations. Do not, however, shrink from them; they may become equally sweet and sublime. Even already, they have thrown your spirit in upon your maternal responsibilities, and far out amongst your parental prospects in both worlds. That glance of solicitude you darted through the assembled universe, in search of your children, when you realized the judgment-seat, proves that you are not "without natural affection," nor destitute of spiritual sympathy. And that breathless pause you made, whilst supposing your- its truth.

No. II.

A DAUGHTER'S PRINCIPLES ANALYZED.

In addressing you, "I will (first) incline my ear unto a Parable; I will open my dark saying upon the harp" of ALLEGORY. And, should I close my appeal in the same way, you will forgive me. Both Rachael and Miriam are real characters, and will, I fear, recognise themselves: but you, I hope, will try in vain to identify either.

nature; but not because it was fallen from the moral image of Jehovah. The loss of intellectual power, not the loss of holy feeling, grieved her. She felt all the mental elevation of a rational being; and deeply mortified, because she could not maintain she thought her mortification, humility! She deplored the weakness and waywardness of her mind, because her mind disliked secret prayer and selfin the strongest terms of self-abasement; but not

examination. She lamented that she had so little communion with God; but it was not the communion of a child with a Father, nor of a penitent with a Saviour, but the communion of a poet with the God of nature-of a finite Spirit with the Infinite Spirit-that had charms for her. She admired the prophets; but not for the holiness which rendered them temples meet for the Holy Spirit to dwell in, and speak from; but because of their mysterious dignity, as the ambassadors of Heaven. She gloried in the altars and mercy-seat of the temple; not as they were types of salvation by the atonement of the promised Messiah, but as they were the seat and shrine of the cloud of glory and the sacred fire.

All this Sheshbazzar saw and lamented. But Rachel was gentle, and he loved her; she had genius, and he admired her. Men of one idea thought her mad; and men with half a heart deemed her a mere visionary. Sheshbazzar regarded her as a young vine among the rocks of the Dead Sea, whose

and he hoped, by transplanting and pruning, to dis-
place its poisonous juices.
But the difficulty was,

to convince her, that even her virtues were like the
grapes of Gomorrah, unfit to be presented "before

Both young men and maidens venerated the aged SHESHBAZZAR, and vied with each other in honoring his gray hairs as a crown of glory." He was a second conscience to all the youth of Beersheba, who studied to maintain a good conscience towards God or man. When the young men looked upon the daughters of the Canaanites, and thought of allying themselves with "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel," they remembered that Sheshbazzar would not bless the forbidden union; and turned their attention to the daughters of the Covenant. When the maidens of Beersheba were fascinated by the garb and bearing of the sons of Belial, they felt that they could not meet the eye of the holy Patriarch, and drew their veils closer around them in the streets. Thus all the plans of the young had a tacit reference to his opinion, and the hope of his approbation and benediction mingled with their brightest prospects. "What will Sheshbazzar think of me ?" was a question, which, however simple in itself, disentangled whole webs of sophistry, and unmask-grapes are embittered by the bitumen of the soil; ed the most plausible appearances. It revealed the secrets of the heart to the conscience, and the frauds of the conscience to the judgment. It was, indeed, a simple question; but it searched the reins like "the candle of the Lord,”—because all who reflect-the Lord, in the waive-offering of the first fruits," ed, felt that the good old man could have no object but their good; and that whatever influence he had acquired over them, was won, not by stratagem, but by weight and worth of character. It was the spell of his fine spirit, which, like the mantle of Elijah, cast upon the plaughman of Abelmeholah, drew them after him as with "cords of love." Amongst the daughters of the Covenant, who listened to his wisdom, and loved his approbation, Rachel was the most enthusiastic. She was modest as the lily of the valley, but sensitive as the tremulous dewdrops which gemmed it. Like the clouds of the spring upon Carmel or Hermon, she wept and smiled in the same hour. Her spirit soared at times like the eagle of Engedi, until lost in the light which is full of glory; and, anon, it drooped like the widowed dove in the gloomy avenues of Heshbon and Kedron. She was alternately glowing and freezing; too high or too low. In all things, but in her modest gentleness, she was the creature of circumstances. Even in Religion, she had no fixed principles. She was feelingly alive to its beauties, but dead to its real spirit. Whilst it inspired thoughts which breathed, and words which burned, with immortality, she was enraptured with it: but when its oracles or ordinances led to thoughts of penitence, or words of humiliation, she had no sympathy of spirit with them. She wept, indeed, over her fallen

or to be mingled in "the drink-offering." They were, indeed, so; for, like the vines of Gomorrah, she bore fruit to herself, not to the glory of God.Her morality was high-toned; but only because she reckoned immorality beneath the dignity of female character. Her taste was simple; but only because she deemed follies unworthy of her talents. Her sympathies were prompt and tender; but they were indulged more for the luxury of deep emotion, than for the sake of doing good. What became her as a woman, and a woman whom Sheshbazzar reckoned "one of a thousand," was both the reason and the rule of her excellences. She never prayed for grace to sanctify or sustain her character: and as her tastes and pursuits were far above even the comprehension, as well as the level, of ordinary minds, Rachel never suspected that her "heart was not right with God." The Elders of the city had, indeed, often told her so in plain terms, made plainer by the shaking of their hoary heads: but, although she was too gentle to repel the charge, she only pitied their prejudices. Sheshbazzar, as she imagined, thought very differently of her; and his smile was set against their insinuations. He perceived this mistake, and proceeded to correct it. He had borne with it long, in hope that it would gradually correct itself. He had made allowances, and exercised patience, and kept silence on the subject,

service of the heavenly temple. Ah, my daughter! nothing but the blood of the everlasting covenant' keeps me from despair; and there is nothing else between you and Tophet,"

until his treatment of Rachel began to be reckoned weakness, and not wisdom, by his best friends.His plan had been to bear aloft his young eaglet upon his own mighty wings, until she breathed the air of spirits, and bathed in the light of eternity. Rachel trembled. She had never marked the and then to throw her off upon the strength of her humility of the Patriarchs, nor paused to consider own pinions, that she might, whilst he hovered near what the soul and sin must be-seeing they requir to intercept a sudden fall, soar higher in the empy-ed such an atonement. She retired weeping; and, rean of glory, and come down "changed in the for the first time, retreated into her closet to pray same image," and humbled by the 'exceeding for MERCY. weight" of that glory. But the experimert failed: she descended mortified because of her werkness, not humbled because of her unworthiness. He resolved, therefore

"To change his hand, and check her pride." "Rachel," said Sheshbazzar, "the first day of vintage is near at hand, and there is but little fruit on my vines; could we not send to the Dead Sea for grapes of Gomorrah, and present them before the Lord, as a waive-offering, and pour them out as a drink-offering?'

Rachel was surprised at the question; for it was put solemnly, and betrayed no symptom of irony. "Grapes of Gomorrah!" Rachel exclaimed; "ask rather, if strange fire, or a torn lamb, may be safely presented at the altar of Jehovah? But Sheshbazzar mocketh his handmaid. The curse is upon all the ground of the cities of the plain; and, moreover, the grapes of Gomorrah are as bitter as they are beautiful. Even the wild goats turn away from the vines of Sodom. What does my father mean? The form of thy countenance is changed! Like the spies, I will go to Eshcol or Engedi for clusters to present before the Lord; for the Lord our God is a jealous God."

However the first discoveries of the beauty of holiness may be made, and whatever may be the first motives which induce any one to desire to follow holiness, neither its nature nor its necessity are rightly understood, until both the atoning sacrifice of Christ and the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit are duly considered. Until we look to the blood of the Lamb and the sanctification of the Spirit, as the only way of acquiring that holiness which constitutes meetness for heaven, no moral sentiments, however pure, and no sense of the beauty of virtue, however delicate, amount to "a clean heart" or 66 a right spirit" towards God. She who carries her inquiries after the principles of true holiness no farther than just around the circle of its duties, and over the surface of its proprieties, ill deserves the high privilege of possessing a Bible, and has no right to call herself a Christian.

It is, indeed, both proper and necessary to sit at the feet of Jesus on the Mount of Olives, learning morality from his precepts; but it is equally essential to sit at his feet in Gethsemane, where he trod the wine-press of the wrath of God; and on Mount Calvary, where he made his soul an offering for sin; learning there, also, the real evil of sin, and the infinite expense at which it is pardoned and taken away.

"True, my daughter," said Sheshbazzar; "and if it would be sacrilege to present the grapes of Gomorrah in the waive-offering, because they grow on In saying this, I do not forget nor undervalue the the land of the curse, and have imbibed its bitterness; sweet influence which holy example exerts over how must a jealous and holy God reject the homage some gentle and ingenuous spirits. The Shunamite of a proud spirit? The fruits of that spirit draw is not the only woman whose attention and good their juices from a soil more deeply cursed than the will to piety have been conciliated, in the first inAsphaltic, and of which Gomorrah, when instance, by the weight and worth of a ministerial flames, was but a feeble emblem."

character like Elisha's. Day after day, she saw the 'But, Sheshbazzar," said Rachel, "to whom does prophet moving about in his phere of public duty, this apply? Not to your spirit; for it is a veiled like a commissioned angei, with equal meekness seraph, lowliest in itself when loftiest in its adorn- and patience; happy in his work, and transparent ing contemplations. And my spirit-is too weak to in all his character: and this contrast between be proud. I feel myself a mere atom amidst infi- Elisha and hirelings, led her to cultivate his friendnity. I feel less than nothing, when I realize the In-ship. "Sue said unto her husband, Behold now, I finite Spirit of the universe." perceive that this is an holy man of God, which "It is well, my daughter; but what do you feel passes by us continually; let us make a little when you realize Him as the HOLY ONE who inha-chamber on the wall, I pray thee; and set there biteth eternity? Rachel! I never heard you ex- for him a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candleclaim, God be merciful to me a sinner! You have called yourself an atom in the universe-an insect in the solar blaze-an imperfect grape on the vine of being; any thing, but a sinner. It was not thus that Abraham, and Job, and Isaiah, felt before the Lord. It is not thus that I feel. You think me like the grapes of Sibmah and Engedi, ripe for the

stick."

In like manner, the lovely character of exemplary parents and friends, has often suggested the first idea of the beauty of holiness, and excited the first desire to be holy. The simple reflection, "I should so like to resemble them," has not unfrequently led to imitation. But imitation, whenever