too late to be saved!* The only truly wise or safe preparation for death, is, to be always living a faithful christian life-the only sure preparation for retribution, to be glorifying God in every part of probation, and improving it all,in loving and serving him. And the flight of time admonishes us to be always diligent in doing this, for we know not when the Son of Man may come! In view of our subject, again,

3. It is no wonder that this world does not satisfy the soul. Every thing in our moral nature, and in the structure of our earthly state, proclaims that we were made for immortality; and we cannot be fully satisfied with any thing short of it. The world cannot feed us, any more than the husks could the prodigal. If we fail to grasp it-if our plans are blighted, and our schemes overthrown by the swiftness of time's flight, then we are dissatisfied through the want and disappointment; or, if, on the other hand, we grasp to the full, all we have desired, then we are like the Macedonian, weeping for other worlds to conquer-feeling that the utmost we have, does not satisfy and feed the soul; does not meet the cravings of our immortality, which like an undying hunger or thirst are ever upon us.

Such being your nature, if you have never sought your portion in God and his service, it is no wonder that in your thoughtful hours, you are often sad, and feel within you a void that the world can never fill. And forever you will feel it—for it is the instinct of your immortality-forever you will feel it till in God's favor you find that bread of heaven that shall satisfy your hunger, and that water of life that shall quench your thirst. Yes-my immortal hearer, away from Christ and holiness, you must, from the very structure of your nature, be wretched, like one forever dying of famine, but never dead-like one tormented by an ever increasing thirst, and yet without one drop of water to quench it. Here, in this world, I grant that you may partially, and for a season, meet these wants. You may keep from utter starvation by feeding on the husks of time and sense; or in part slake your thirst at the impure fountains of sin, though it will be like drinking from the poisoned cup, which satisfies for the moment, to destroy in the end. But when you pass to eternity, and there find even these streams cut off, and these husks torn from you, then will you not hunger forever, with no bread to feed you, and thirst forever, without one drop of water to cool your tongue ? Will not these desires, ever gathering strength, and never-never satisfied, be the unquenchable flame, and the undying worm to you? Finally,

4. If time is so fast flying, and life so fast speeding away, then your probation will soon be ended, and your retribution soon begun. Now you have sabbaths, and sermons, and communion

* See Whately's Future State, Lecture xii.

seasons, and all the means of grace, each, by the love of Christ, appealing to you, and each waiting, like some commissioned angel of mercy to bear you to the skies. Every one of them God has given for your salvation. By them, through his grace in Christ Jesus, you may live; and in them all, find the life of your spirit. But soon they will be over; and soon out of them, by your improvement or misimprovement, you will have made life or death eternal for yourself. Soon will all these means be gone. The flight of time will have borne them away, as on the wings of the wind. And then results-results-RESULTS, will be all that remains to you forever! Now, means are yours, and possibilities yours, either for life or death-for heaven or hell. But soon unchanging certainties shall come-results which must be the atmosphere of your endless existence-the robing of your spirit forever! See to it-O see to it, through the offered grace of Jesus, that they are such, that in them you shall rejoice, and not mourn to endless ages!

BY REV. GEO. DUFFIELD, JUN.,

PASTOR OF THE COATES ST. PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA, PENN.

FAMILY REFORM.

"And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hands, and all the earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem."-GENESIS XXXV. 4.

THE Patriarch was now on his way to Bethel. More than twenty years had elapsed, and these the most important of his life since he bade it farewell. Of all places in the world, this to him was the dearest. Neither the valley of Gerar, nor Beer-sheba, nor Padan Aram itself, had equal power to awaken in his heart such profound and grateful recollections. There he had beer made to feel that the great Jehovah was not only willing to be the "Sun," and "Shield," and "exceeding great reward" of Abraham, and of Isaac, but of JACOB also. He himself had given to the place the name of "Bethel," and well did he remember the heavenly dream and apparition-the ladder stretching from earth to heaven--the angels ascending and descending upon it-that made to him this highly favored spot, "none other than the house of God," and "the gate of heaven."

Time had wrought great changes with Jacob, and changes in many different respects. Then he was a fugitive from his brother Esau, who for his unworthy and unpardonable duplicity, in twice robbing him of his birth-right, was ready to pursue him to the death. Now, in answer to the prayer when he wrestled with God and prevailed, he, and his deeply offended brother had been reconciled. That affection which once lost, is harder to be won than a strong city, he had again recovered, to enjoy its protection and delight in its most cordial manifestation. Then he had taken of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and there on the cold hard ground, unprotected alike from the passing robber and the wandering beast of prey, he had found himself in circumstances as truly desolate and forlorn, as it is possible for the mind to conceive. Now God hath "set the solitary in families." The wanderer has found a home. Then, with all the anxieties of a young and inexperienced man, entering on the world for himself, "he had vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God." Now, God has been to him all, and more than all that he desired. The "has increased exceedingly, and has much cattle, and maid-servants and men-servants, and camels and asses." Then as a memorial of his vow he had set up a stone for a pillow, and said, "This stone which I have set for a pillow, shall be God's house, and of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee." Now he comes once more to Bethel-only because God had reminded him of his vow.

man

In no respect was he to blame for leaving Padan-Aram. It was right that he should wish to leave a father-in-law who had so cruelly deceived him in the object of his affections, who had ten times changed his wages, and who with all the tenderness he professed for his daughter, we have reason to fear had too much avarice in his heart to allow room for parental love. It was right that he should leave the neighbourhood of Laban's sons, whose envy and jealousy steadily increased just in proportion to their brother-in-law's greater prosperity. It was also right that he should be influenced by the indignant appeal of Laban's daughters. "Are we not accounted of him strangers? Hath he not sold us and quite devoured our money?" Above all, the reason assigned by Laban himself, "Thou wouldest needs be gone, because thou sore longest after thy father's house,"-who can fail to appreciate the excellence of this reason? But first, and most of all, and better than all other motives, would have been, a return to Bethel-to fufil his vow.

Alas! for the infirmity of our disobedient and ungrateful nature! Haran for the time seems to be forgotten, and Bethel too, for the pleasant city of Shechem. There he pitches his tent

and buys a piece of ground. It is said that he erected there an altar, and called it after the name of the God of Israel. But of little value is family worship, unaccompanied by family government. "Dinah the daughter of Leah which she bare unto Jacob," "has a disease in her eyes as well as her mother"-" and goes out to see the daughters of the land." Observing their manners, and customs, and fashions, and beginning in the seemingly harmless desire to see and be seen, her curiosity is at length indulged at the expense of her virtue, and her peace of mind for life.

One family affliction is added to another. "Ye have troubled me," said he to his sons (after they in their revenge for the dishonor done to their sister, had smitten the city with the sword) "among the inhabitants of the land, and I, being few in number they shall gather themselves against me, and I shall be destroyed, I and my house."

God, however, is better to him than his fears. "Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there; and make there an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau, thy brother."

But how startling and unexpected are the terms in which the patriarch repeats the order thus given him by the Almighty God of his fathers! Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, "Put away the strange gods that are among you and be clean, and change your garments, and let us arise and go up to Bethel, and I will make there an altar unto God who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went." "And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hands, and all the earrings which were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem."

With this introduction, which seemed necessary to our design, in giving a general description of the father of a family, we come now to the subject naturally suggested by our text, viz., FAMILY REFORM.

Other reforms, or at least pretended reforms, many of them, we have recently had in great abundance. National reforms! state reforms! municipal reforms! educational reforms! moral reforms! How multiplied their organizations! How eloquent their orators! How elaborate their reports! How prolific their presses! How short lived their glories! and how disappointing their results!

To so great an extent has the reforming disposition prevailed. among the community, determinedly and at once to amend that which is vicious, corrupt and depraved, that the favorite and most familiar name with many for the times in which we live, is "THE AGE OF REFORM." Even the Church itself, her holy nature, her original design, and her most significant history alike forgot

ten, has been regarded by them, simply as a great moral and political engine, for this especial purpose.

Very unfortunate however has been the disadvantage at which her power in this respect has been applied. One fundamental maxim with her is, that truth is an all essential pre-requisite to any improvement that is genuine or permanent. But the source on which they rely for truth is not that on which she relies, viz. Revelation. Her light is that of the Son: brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. Theirs, the doubtful radiance of some miserable ignis fatuus, its blaze more brilliant and active just in that proportion in which the morass is the wider, the more corrupt, and the deeper. A second maxim with her is that the church and the state alike are only to be reached effectively through the FAMILY, which is the true basis of each. But here again there is no agreement whatever between the followers of Christ, and those who hold that marriage is merely a civil contract; that a parent is not responsible for the religous education of a child, and that the true philosophy of society is that which regards it simply as an aggregate of individuals.

The very name of family reform therefore may appear to such persons as if we were suggesting a new reform, whereas this method is as old as the days of Seth, as the calling of Abraham : as old as Noah and his ark that outrode the deluge: the great method in which God has seen fit to reform the race from the very beginning. Other modes of reform begin at the topmost bough, where they are at least the most conspicuous. Here they strip a few leaves; there they lop a few branches; occasionally they may peel the bark from a goodly size bough: but seldom or ever do they even touch the trunk! Family Reform, however, goes at once to the lowest root. It lays its wise and divinely commissioned hand directly upon the germ of the evil that needs to be reformed. It does not devote all its time and attention to Simeon, and meanwhile forget Levi: or to Levi, and in the same manner overlook Dinah. It begins with the parental heart itself and developes from within, outward. It seeks out the strange gods: it takes away the effeminate and idolatrous earrings: it buries them where they will never be found again. Its reform is not an apparent healing on the surface, but a permanent cure. Where the family is safe, the state is safe, and the church also.

But to the case in hand. Jacob, we have seen, like many another, commenced the struggle of life under circumstances of great destitution and embarrassment. It was a long way to look forward to the time when he would have achieved a competence or gained an independence. Would a merciful Providence so far favor him as to give him bread to eat, and raiment to put on ? Would he enable him to come again to his father's house in such a manner as to need nothing from him but his affection? Would he prosper the work of his hands, and give him the desires of his