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Each day, O Father, is a life,

Each the great whole's epitome, With passion stirr'd, with action rife, Prank'd with capricious pain and glee. Hours fly for years, nor growing age Lacks here its monitory stage.

Morn from thy hand's renewing power
Brings me as from the womb again,
Fresh as the babe in natal hour,

Unsoil'd as yet with worldly stain.
My heart is calm, my breast is clear,
And lively to thy voice, my ear.

Then Noon, like manhood bears along,
Ah! far from innocence and home,

To push amid the worldly throng,

'Mid scenes of bustling guilt to roam, And toil and care, and guile and sin, O'erpower thy voice with deafening din.

Then Eve, meet type of mellowing age, 'Mid dying sounds, and growing calm, Calls me to home, and musings sage.

Cool as her dews, thy spirit's balm Pours on my fever'd heart, and full, Thy voice on ears no longer dull.

Then Night, like death, as in the grave, Lays down my aching head once more; Blessing the bounteous hand which gave, Praying the taker to restore,

I close upon the world my sight,
And sink amid surrounding night.

Great Giver of this mortal breath, Which thou hast rous'd again to sing, Oh, thro' a daily life and death,

Conduct me still, Almighty King!, Death to some sin my shame of yore, Life to some grace unfelt before.

CHAPTER IX.

THE FAMILY CODE.

I was walking with my friend one day, and we had seated ourselves upon a turfy swell to enjoy the view. On rising up, we found that we had been trampling down a colony of ants, whose train was hurrying to and fro in apparent dismay at their calamity. My friend viewed silently, for some moments, the grievous havock which we had made in their little community, and then exclaimed, How thankfully ought we to feel the blessing of our station among God's creatures! See how hourly we trample beneath our feet, in ignorance or recklessness, millions of our inferior fellow-creatures. Perhaps every motion of ours is fatal to some one or other of them, and the lower world looks up in horror as we pass. But we can look up, and see no

tramplers on our heads. Our superiors are good and guardian angels, whose every motion is directed to our preservation and happiness by an all-present Saviour.

Notwithstanding the strong association which I had perceived in my friend's mind between things natural and spiritual, I could not help wondering at this rapid transition. I suppose a smile upon my countenance betrayed me, for smiling, as in return, with a look of extreme good nature, he said: I know that you are amused with the singularity of my observation, and verily believe have put me down for an enthusiast of no common stamp. Nevertheless, if I am singular now, I was not formerly; for this habit of thought I derived, with all the rest of my family, from my father, and not by passive inheritance, but by direct instruction. It was what he was anxious above all things to instil, making it the main support of the moral code which regulated the constitution of our household. Every household requires, for its very existence, some moral code, and I fear that the spirit of the codes which most generally prevail savours of little more than the adjustment of the dispositions and interests of the members. Such grow indeed with their growth, but it is

by continually taking in the loose and vague principles of the world with which the members daily enlarge their commerce, until at last they assimilate their system in every feature to its corrupt code, and the children are but too truly the children of this world. In other families, this code may be placed on a strictly moral basis, but unless this also rest on one wider and firmer still, it will fail in the day of trial to support the weight imposed upon it. No! the father must be father not only of their bodies, not only of their minds, but of their spirits too. His moral code must be an essential part of the religion of his household, must be the body of which this is the soul, a daily practical comment on the spiritual exercise of daily prayer, and by inculcating motives superior to the paltriness of worldly interests, produce that loftiness of thought, and firmness of moral nerve, which alone can carry the Christian victorious to the conclusion of his career. Such was my father's system. He would allow no one principle of those which were daily rising up among us on our mutual dealings to remain in the frail and corrupt nature which produced it, amiable though that nature may oftentimes appear. He was never satisfied till he had

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