While adults may not be neglected now, ought not our christian efforts to be directed more and mainly to the salvation of the young?"

The sentiment met with a response in my heart, as it doubtless will in the heart of every christian. It is philosophical. and true to the claims of human nature. Take care of the children, and adults will take care of themselves. And it exhibits, in the most comprehensive view, the importance of the relation which the family sustains to the militant church of God. See it, ye living heads of families, and know that God intended by the precious bond that makes your members one, to ally the household closely to his church. You number FIVE MILLIONS nearly in this land alone, cach one of which is an integral part of the aggregate of hatred and love for Zion. Ye have it in your power to say what shall be the character and strength of the visible church, when the next generation are obliged to sustain its ordinances, and perform its work.

One characteristic of THE FAMILY ON EARTH, which might have been cited before, deserves here a passing notice, by way of magnifying the importance of what has already been urged. It is not a DEPENDANT. Neither government nor possessions give it laws or existence. "It may live and flourish," says John Angell James," in all its tender charitics, and all its sweet felicities, and its moral power, in the cottage as well as in the mansion; under the shadow of liberty, and even under the scorching heat of tyranny. Like the church, of which it is in some respects the emblem, it accommodates itself to every changing form of surrounding society, to every nation and to every age, forming with the church, the only two institutions ever set up by God, as to their frame work. Like its kindred institute, it remains amidst the ruins of the fall, the lapse of ages, and the changes of human affairs, the monument of what has been, the standing prediction of what shall be. Tyrants, that

crush the libertics of a state, cannot destroy the constitution of the family; and even persecutors, that silence the preacher, and scatter the congregation, cannot hush the voice of parental instruction, or extinguish parental influence. Religion, hunted and driven from the place of public concourse, would still find a retreat, as it often has done under such circumstances, in the houscheld of faith; and there would keep alive upon the family altar, that holy fire, with which the sacrifice of the temple, under happier auspices shall be offered. Neither families nor the church of the redeemed shall ever be entirely lost, whatever changes the world may yet have to pass through; but, blessing and being blest, will, of themselves alone, one day introduce the millennium.''

If a correct view of the FAMILY ON EARTHI has been presented, the duties which grow out of the important relation deserve to be carefully studied. They cannot be esteemed too sacred or important. They cannot be revolved too long, or too prayerfully. They cannot be discharged with too much concern or fidelity. To neglect or trifle with them do not issue simply in personal detriment, but in disaster to state and church. In the following chapters these duties. are discussed as they naturally issue from remarks already made. The sentiments of this chapter are considered a sufficient basis for all that follows.

If the truth is contained in the foregoing paragraphs, SOCIALISM is an enormous sin. It abolishes the family, to group the sexes together in large communities. Under the pretence of reform or social improvement, it annihilates tho family relation, and thus mines away at the very foundation of the social organization. It destroys the germ of tho state and the nursery of the church. It blasts the brightest hopes of the nation. It denies the material of which to construct a prosperous commonwealth. It "nips in the bud" the expanding affections of the soul. It quenches the

flow of the heart's sweet charities. It removes one of the most powerful motives to toil and industry. It tempts the lusts of depraved human nature, and provokes the passions to wanton exercise. Socialism is thus the plotting antagonist of a pure and peaceful society, and its adherents are the ene mics of mankind.

There is a delightful inheritance in the relations of an unbroken FAMILY ON EARTH. Before the dire hand of misfortunc or necessity has scattered abroad the members, or the scythe of the fell destroyer cut them down as the grass, when the reciprocal flow of love causes hearts,

"Like kindred drops to mingle into one,"

and, especially, when the spirit of true religion pervades and regulates the entire fellowship, the FAMILY ON EARTH presents a scene of the purest social enjoyment this side THE But how frail the tie that

WHOLE FAMILY IN HEAVEN.

"makes the members one!"

How weak the "carthen

vessel" which contains such joys! How soon this cup of joy is dashed in fragments at our feet!

"Heaven has confirmed the dread decree,

That Adam's race must die;

One general ruin sweeps them down,
And low in dust they lic."

A few fleeting months and years pass, and how changed! Yea, in the very morning of the blissful union, sudden as the lightning's flash, death lays his finger upon one warm heart, and it is motionless as marble. A vacancy occurs, and the household is wrapped in gloom! The destroyer only lifts his wand, and the bright vision of delight vanishes as "a thing of air!" In a moment the carthly Eden is overshadowed with a cloud of sorrow, and a period is put to unbroken fellowship, till grace reunites the severed family in

the Paradise above, where necessity dissolves no union, and death trifles not with a tie.

THE

CHAPTER II.

CONJUGAL

RELATION.

"Then come the wild weather-come sleet or come snow,
We will stand by each other, however it blow;
Oppression, and sickness, and sorrow and pain,
Shall be to our true love as links to the chain."

LONGFELLOW-from the German.

Ix the lighted parlor gathers a joyous company, and none more clated with hope than he who is about to take, and she who is about to become a bride. Important era in the life of the youthful pair! What years of joy or sorrow, what chapters of hope or despair, what unfolding destinies. are hung upon the utterance of these brief words! - You have now presented yourselves, as the partners of each others' decided choice, to have scaled your marriage vow. And, in the presence of Almighty God, and these witnesses, you promise to receive each other in the mutual relation of Husband and Wife-to love, cherish, and respect cach other in all the vicissitudes of your carthly toil-in sickness and in health, in prosperity and adversity the samerejoicing with each other in joy, and sympathizing with each other in sorrow-thus remembering your plighted vow till these bands are broken by the hand of death.

TILL THESE BANDS ARE BROKEN BY THE HAND OF DEATH! In five flying minutes is consumated a union for a life-time of weal or woe! What responsibilities crowd this conjugal relation as we think of the marriage scal thus set for LIFE! None but God himself can sunder the tie thus suddenly created! Even though the union be blasted by the blight of misery, and riving discord tear the heartstrings as spider webs, it is done for LIFE.

Ponder it, ye BRIDES and BRIDEGROOMS at the altar of God! Ye make a choice that compasses the whole of your