where the keen axe of truth will be levelled at the roots of his stubborn sins. The mills are at rest on every hill-top, but their inmates have retired to their habitations to garner up the corn of heaven." "Turn next towards the great city, rearing its roofs, chimneys, steeples, monuments, and huge masses of masonry in an atmosphere less murky and impure, than that which broods over it on the other days of the week. The swarms of industry are now hived. The mingled hum of busy inultitudes, the heavy tramp of traffic, the rush of enterprise, the clamor of human passions, the noise of innumerable tools and implements of handicraft, the fierce panting of engines, the ringing of anvils, and the furious racings of machinery; the shouts of crowds, the brawls of drunkenness, and the plaints of mendicant misery, are all sunk into silence, and disturb not with a ripple the still Sabbath air. The tall ships at anchor in the harbor have furled their sails, closed down their hatches, and hid from all eyes. the merchandise treasured in their holds, whilst the Bethelflag waves amid a forest of masts, and they that go down to the sea, and do business on great waters, are below studying the chart of revelation, tracing the danger of their life's voyage, and anticipating the glad hour when, redeemed from every peril, and borne on the bosom of a favoring tide, they shall safely moor their bark in the haven of eternal life. The merchant has quitted the desk of his dusky counting-house, and is now in secret places, turning over the blotted leaves of his own heart." "The gates of the temple of Mammon are shut, and the gods of gold and silver are forsaken by their week-day de votees. The chiming bells, sounding alike across country and town, are calling upon all men to cut the cords of their carth-bound thoughts, and low cares, and go up to worship at the footstool of Jehovah; and the tapering spires, like holy fingers, are pointing significantly toward the sky." "And now the minister is descending from his study, his countenance impressed with a solemn sense of his responsibility; the saint is coming forth refreshed from his closet; the pardoned penitent is rising from his knees; the evange list is on his way to his mission work; the Sabbath school teacher is pleading with his class, and the christian matron is leading forth her children to the mountain of the Lord's house." "At length a new traffic fills the streets; a growing bustle stirs the air; a new scene expands before the eye, religious assemblies are grathering the major part of the population. They come from the spacious squares and the crowded lanes; they are seen issuing alike from the lordly palace and the plebeian hut." "Organs are pealing through the lofty roofs of cathedrals, and along the aisles of churches; anthems are swelling from scores of unseen chapels; the glad outbursts of thanksgiving and the hallelujahs of the happy are mingling in the air, and filling the clear vault of heaven with rich harmony. Then the holy breath of prayer goes up like fragrant incense, ascending to the sky; after which the manna of the word is scattered round the camp, and the doctrines of grace are distilled like reviving dew upon the parched hearts of men. Prayer and praise again succeed, and then-convinced by some cloquent Apollos, or conscience-stricken by some vehement Paul, or comforted by some consoling Barnabas, or melted by some fervent John- the assemblies break up and return, fervently ejaculating their gratitude for the priceless privileges of Sabbath rest." CHAPTER VII. THE FAMILY BIBLE. "Star of eternity! only star By which the bark of man could navigate "The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride." POLLOK. BURNS. THE SABBATH and the BIBLE, like the Siamese Twins, can live only in union. They are mutually dependent. The Sabbath is the "right arm" of the Bible; and the Bible is the "right arm" of the Sabbath. Destroy one, and you destroy both. They live in each other, or they die in cach other. The glory of the one is the glory of the other. The blessings of one are proportioned to the blessings of the other. And the neglect of one is usually succeeded by neglect of the other. A family with a Sabbath is not thoroughly furnished without a Bible, and vice versa. If it has the former, it needs the latter to hallow and sanctify it. If it has the latter, it needs the former to cherish and prove it a blessing. A family without a Bible is a family without a Sabbath; and a family without a Sabbath, although they may possess a copy of the Scriptures, is, in regard to all practical results, a family without a Bible. The gallant vessel fully rigged for the seas, and spreading its canvass to fair weather and a favoring tide, will nevertheless go to pieces on the rocks or quicksands, unless provided with a chart and compass. So, without a Bible, the family will make shipwreck of its purity and brightest hopes, before it reaches the high destiny for which the interesting relation was created. The Bible in the Family, then, is indispensable to its prosperity, and the blessing of God upon its members. Whenever it is properly appreciated, and placed side by side with the Sabbath in the household, there the loveliest virtues fructify as luciously as the plants once watered by the "dews of Hermon." As long as the ark of the Lord was deposited in the house of Obed-edom, the blessing of God rested upon it so as to impress the minds of all beholders. David, piously clated by a view of the bencdiction which fell upon that household, carried up the same glorious ark to his own loved city, that God might regard it with favor and make it a city to his greater praise. So every head of a family, beholding the moral beauty that unfolds at household altars beneath the light of the Gospel, may wisely bear away this Bible-treasure to his own home, sure that God will bestow His benison where the ark of His truth abides. The family in its complete domestic constitution has its origin in the Bible. This volume presents it in its primeval state, and surrounds it with all those guards and monitions which are necessary to promote its purity, and perpetuate its existence. It walls around this sacred institution with the most positive commandments, and threatens the extinction of natural affection with direful penalties. It would have mankind value their homes above all other carthly possessions, second only to a better home in the skies; the delightful sanctuaries where nothing that defiles shall the beautiful grounds of social fellowship where the buds and blossoms of affection and hope promise fruit for church and state. To this end, the Scriptures exalt woman to a proper dignity and honor in the domestic circle. They enter allot to the wife and mother a sphere of effort which no one else can occupy. They impose a weight of responsibility which at once supposes a high honor and importance to the place she fills. How different where the Bible is unknown! Really, a land without the Bible would be a land destitute of homes. There would be none of those little gatherings of trusting hearts, scattered along the hill sides and dotting the vallies which are the life and hope of a nation. All the horrid sights and scenes of Socialism and Polygamy would start up unblushingly at noonday. Lust would revel in unrestricted liberty, and modest virtue would expire in the streets. We speak thus positively of these dreadful issues, because such has ever been the exhibition where the Bible is unknown. Even learned and polished France, rejecting the Word of Life, rolled a tide of infamy over the domestic institution. Her language, it is said, is destitute of the word home, and rightly enough, since she has had few habitations that deserve the name. Wherever the Scriptures have not been circulated, woman has been degraded, and families, of course, wretched. She has been the subject of brutal wrongs, and has pined away in the most abject and cruel bondage. And now, in the nineteenth century, she is "hated and despised from her birth, and her birth itself esteemed a calamity-in some countries not even allowed the 1ank of a moral and responsible agent-so tenderly alive to her own degradation, that she acquiesces in the murder of her female offspring-immured from infancy-without cuucation-married without her consent-in a multitude of instances, sold by her parents-refused the confidence of her husband, and banished from his table-on her husband's death, doomed to the funeral pile, or to contempt that renders life a burden; such is her degradged and pitiable |