duct towards each other be consistent with truth; do not even seem, in jest, to be angry with each other; do not deceive one another, even in jest, even with a little craft, with a slight untruth. Speak not to each other without the fullest openness of heart: thus is your tranquillity of mind for ever secured, your conscience will be clear and peaceful. Thus can no third person thrust himself between you; thus the poison of tale-bearing cannot destroy the harmony of your souls; thus will not suspicion or jealousies divide you. Woe, if a man do not trust her on whose bosom he rests! When once the hell of jealousy and suspicion burns, it is never extinguished-and the scar of the burning cannot be concealed.

Even so, rob not children, through hastiness, of their confidence in you. Let them, with all their failings, be constantly open-hearted towards you. Form not hypocrites through over-hasty harshness. On what should children put their trust, if they must shut up their mistaken hearts from their father and their mother? If they have once lost courage to let you see into their hearts, they have lost their faith in the attachment of their parents.

Is it, however, your firm determination carefully to uphold a mutual confidence between husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters,

masters and servants? then do justice to the good qualities which they possess, honour their present praiseworthy conduct, and take care not to reproach them with a failing which has long clung to them. All confidence is lost where an unkind hand again and again points to a past occurrence which we ourselves would for ever hide from our own eyes. Banish, ye parents, from among you this upbraiding on account of past unpleasant circumstances; and suffer not the recollection of imprudences committed by your children and your servants to be revived.

The last bulwark of domestic peace which I shall name is, secrecy concerning all domestic affairs. Let it be one of the first regulations of every house, not to allow the secrets of the household and the family concerns to be known. Then is peace betrayed, when one reposes in strangers, it may be even relations, a confidence which is only due to oneself! Silence alone draws a firm wall and defence around the sanctuary of our domestic happiness when this wall is broken down, then rush inquisitiveness, wickedness, malice, and the gossip of the world, unresisted, into our doors; our secrets are treated of in the market and the streets; we stand as it were uncovered, a show to idle gapers and reproach follows us in all our steps, quickened with the laugh of scorn. Our secrets

being once in foreign hands, our

with ourselves, and strangers rule.

dominion ends

Our servants,

our children, should not trust to any ear even the most trifling, the most innocent thing that happens in our house. Not because danger is always connected with it, but that they may practise the art of silence, and be proved in it. Banish the tattler and tale-bearer from your sight; for the most insignificant tattler has often caused the most incurable dissension. But would you know that your secrets are respected, respect those of others. Do not search with eager curiosity after that which is said and done in another house, not after the circumstances of the married people, of the parents or children, amongst your neighbours.

In whatever station of life I may be placed, O my God, let me act so providently and wisely, that through me, DOMESTIC PEACE, this precious blessing to the race of mortals, may never be destroyed. Yes,-to Thee are the happiness and peace of Thy creatures most dear, O Father of all! They shall always be respected by me, that I may stand before Thee with a cheerful conscience.

And among my relations, my household, among those who are the dearest to us, will I myself be the first to promote universal love, heartfelt mutual confidence, and the happiness of concord. It is

my paradise on earth, which my hand can build up and may destroy. Shall I then desire my own misery! I will endeavour to cast off my failings, my evil habits; and supplicate Thy blessing.

Yes, Thou alone, Thou all-bountiful Father of the world, be also the Father and Director of my family. Lead Thou them with Thy wisdom. Sanctify Thou their conduct. Take Thou our concerns under Thy protection! Blessed by Thee, blessed in ourselves, we shall then have here below a sweet foretaste of heavenly beatitude.

V.

CONTENTMENT WITH OUR CONDITION.

1 TIM. vi. 6-9.

"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition."

A VERY common, but often a concealed cause of disappointment in civil life, and of misfortune in domestic affairs, is the disgust which many men feel with the situations into which they are brought by their calling and condition. Some, it is true, assume openly a very contented mien, that they may not disclose their secret weaknesses, and that their pride may not be humbled: but at heart they are far from being satisfied. To their confidential friends they will even rail at that, which before others they had the prudence to extol. They long, with impatience, for some other state, and often regard their present circumstances as intolerable.