familiar manner, nor say any thing that would lead others to think lightly, or to suppose that you thought lightly of them. If they are attacked in their reputation, you are with promptitude and firmness, though with meekness, to defend them, so far as truth will allow, and even if the charge be true, to make all the excuses that veracity will permit, and to protest against the cruelty of degrading your parents in your presence.

Reverence should extend to all your behaviour towards your parents. In all your conduct towards them, give them the greatest honour, let it be observed by others that you pay them all possible respect, and let it also be seen by themselves, when there is no spectator near. Your conduct should always be under restraint, when they are within sight; not the restraint of dread, but of esteem. How would you act if the

king were in the room?

Would you be as free, as

familiar, as noisy, as when he had retired, or before he had entered? I am of opinion, that parents let

down their dignity, and undermine their authority, by allowing the same rude and boisterous behaviour in their presence, as in their absence. This should not be. When reason is expanding in children, they should be made to understand and feel the truth of what I have already affirmed, that there is an outward respect due to the very presence of a parent. All rude and noisy rushing in and out of a father or mother's company is unmeet. It is the etiquette of our court, that no one shall enter the royal presence, when the king is upon his throne, without obeisance; nor in reti

ring, turn his back upon the throne. I do not ask for the same obsequiousness in families, but I ask for the principle from which it arises, a respectful deference for authority.

3. The next duty is OBEDIENCE.

"Children obey your parents," says the apostle in his epistle to the Colossians. This is one of the most obvious dictates of nature; even the irrational creatures are obedient by instinct, and follow the signs of the parent beast, or bird, or reptile. Perhaps there is no duty more geneally acknowledged than this. Your obedience should begin early; the younger you are, the more you need a guide and a ruler. It should be universal: "Children obey your parents," said the apostle, "in all things." The only exception to this, is when their commands are, in the letter or spirit of them, opposed to the commands of God. In this case, as well as in every other, we must obey God, rather than man. But even here your refusal to comply with the sinful injunction of a parent, must be uttered in a meek and respectful manner, so that it shall be manifest you are actuated by pure, conscientious motives, and not by a mere rebellious resistance of parental authority. Your obedience should have no other exception than that which is made by conscience: in your situation, inclination and taste are out of the question, both must be crossed, opposed, and set aside when opposed to parental authority. It should be prompt. As soon as the command is uttered, it should be complied with. It is a disgrace to any child that it should

be necessary for a father or a mother to repeat a command. You should even anticipate, if possible, their injunctions, and not wait till their will is announced in words. A tardy obedience loses all its glory. It should be cheerful. A reluctant virtue is no virtue at all.

Constrained and unwilling obedience, is rebellion in principle; it is vice clothed in the garment of holiness. God loveth a cheerful giver, and so does man. A child retiring from a parent's presence, muttering, sullen and murmuring, is one of the ugliest spectacles in creation of what value is any thing he does, in such a temper as this? It should be self-denying. You must give up your own wills, and sacrifice your own predilections, and perform the things that are dif ficult, as well as those that are easy. When a soldier receives a command, although he may be at home in comfort, and he is required to go at once into the field of danger, he hesitates not, he considers he has no option. A child has no more room for the gratification of self will than the soldier has; he must obey. It should be uniform. Filial obedience is generally rendered without much difficulty when the parents are present, but not always with the same unreservedness, when they are absent. Young people, you should despise the meanness, and abhor the wickedness, of consulting the wishes, and obeying the injunctions of your parents, only when they are there to witness your conduct. Such hypocrisy is detestable. Act upon nobler principles. Let it be enough for you to know what is the will of a parent, to ensure obedience, even

though continents laid, and oceans rolled between you and your father. Carry his injunction with you every where; let the voice of conscience be to you, instead of his voice, and the consciousness that God sees you, be enough to ensure your immediate compliance. How sublimely simple and striking was the reply of the child, who, upon being pressed in company to take something which his absent parents had forbidden him to touch, and who, upon being reminded that they were not there to witness him, replied, "very true, but God and my conscience are here." Be it your determination, to imitate this beautiful example of filial piety, and obey in all things even your absent parents.

4. SUBMISSION TO THE FAMILY DISCIPLINE AND RULE is no less your duty than obedience to commands.

In every well ordered family, there is a rule of government; there is subordination, system, discipline, reward and punishment; and to these, all the children must be in subjection. Submission requires, that if at any time you have behaved so as to render parental chastisement necessary, you should take it patiently, and not be enfuriated by passion, or excited to resistance. Remember that your parents are commanded by God to correct your faults, that they are actuated by love in performing this self-denying duty, and that it costs them more pain to inflict it, than it does you to endure it. Ingenuously confess your faults, and submit to whatever punishment their authority and wisdom might appoint. One of the loveliest sights in the do

mestic economy, next to that of a uniformly obedient child, is a disobedient one brought to a right sense of his misconduct, and quietly submitting to the penalty he has incurred. It is a proof both of strength of mind and of good disposition of heart, to say, "I have done wrong, and it is meet I should bear chastisement."

In the case of elder children, such, for instance as are fourteen and upwards, all other correction than that of rebuke and the expression by language of parental displeasure, is of course out of the question; but where this is necessary, such young persons as have merited it, should exercise profound submission. It is exceedingly painful when a parent in addition to the extreme pain which it costs him to administer reproof to such children, has to endure the anguish produced by their utter indifference, smiling contempt, sullen murmuring, or insolent replies. This conduct is the more guilty, because the authors of it are arrived at an age when they may be supposed to have advanced so far in the growth of their understanding, as to perceive how deeply laid are the foundations of the parental authority in nature, reason and revelation, and how necessary it is that the reins of parental discipline should not be relaxed. If then, you have committed one error in deserving reproof, do not commit another in resenting it. Keep all still within, let not your passions rebel against your judgment, but suppress in a moment the rising tumult of the soul. The conduct of some children after reproof, is a deeper wound on the heart of a parent, than that which preceded and deserved the