the church
have not had their birth at the fireside of a good man. At that
fireside the child grows up religious, because he loves religion. It is
kind and good to him. His shrine is at home. And where can we ever build

SO HOLY AN ALTAR

as at that sweet spot where life has come in upon us, and love been
wrapped around us! Burns sees the humble cotter finish his family
service in the presence of his little ones, and then, to show a further
duteous regard for the souls intrusted to his care, kneel again with the
wife:

The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
That he who stills the raven's clamorous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flowery pride.
Would in the way his wisdom sees the best,
For them and for their little ones provide;
But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside.

"From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs," sings the sweet
poet, and this very poem has touched a chord in the hearts of all
humanity, in every clime, and nearly every tongue, that has almost
doubled that Scotia's fame. "A house without family worship," says
Mason, "has neither foundation nor covering." "Measure not men by
Sundays," says Fuller, "without regarding what they do all the week
after." "Educate men without religion," said the Duke of Wellington,
"and you make them but clever devils."

THE IRON DUKE

was forced to fight one of the cleverest of this kind, and his victory
was earned so hardly that he remembered it. "The dullest observer must
be sensible," says Washington Irving, "of the order and serenity
prevalent in those households where the occasional exercise of a
beautiful form of worship in the morning gives, as it were, the key-note
to every temper for the day, and attunes every spirit to harmony." "It
is for the sake of man, not of God," says Blair, "that worship and
prayers are required; not that God may be rendered more glorious, but
that men may be made better--that he may acquire those pious and
virtuous dispositions in which his highest improvement consists." How
can religion bear fruit so well as by daily instruction from God? How
can the family bear its burdens more easily than with God's help?

HOW CAN THE BROOD BE GATHERED TOGETHER

at night so surely as when there is an engagement with the Creator at
the hearth where life began? In all views, from all sides, this holy
custom is seen to be founded