But wherever a parent has felt the value of a soul, and loves it --wherever he has found out the good way of the Lord, and tried to walk in it--his guiding inquiry at every step will be, How does the God of all our families instruct us to act? What is his mind at any given point? That once ascertained, it becomes our only rule; and where it is not our only rule, religion in that home is not supreme--all besides is sin. "The nurture and admonition of /the Lord/"--"The fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom" --"The way in which they ought to go"--These, and similar portions of God's revealed mind, point at once to the sovereign rule. True, difficulties innumerable meet us in that way. The iniquity that is bound up in the heart of the young--the love of folly, and the hatred of wisdom--devotedness to baubles--indifference to things eternal and divine, with all the array of evil influences which assail or ensnare the young in a world where God is unknown, dishonoured, or forgotten, may augment the godly parent's difficulties. But difficulties are not the rule of duty. They are only a call to prayer, to dependence on the heavenly Teacher, and, in his strength, to steadfast opposition to all that is wrong, and affectionate encouragement of all that is right and true. The Word of God is thus our only rule; to consult another is to listen to the evil heart of unbelief. THE PRAYERLESS HOME. It has no doubt come to pass in our day, that that standard is set aside by many parents who dislike the holiness of the Bible, and would prefer some freer scope to sin than it will tolerate. They overlook the holy requirements of God, and there are many homes where He is never worshipped. There are children who never heard their parents pray. There are domestics whose souls never drew forth one anxious thought from their employers. The religion of home is, in short, a discarded thing, and souls are trained in ungodliness by those who should watch over them as over their most precious possession. Now, it is needless to add that Christianity is exiled from such homes; the truth, the Spirit, the love of God, are not presiding there. There may be individual Christians under these roofs, who sigh and cry for the reigning ungodliness; or who, in some retired place, have set up an altar where God in Christ is worshipped, as has been done in a miserable cellar, in a home where no other place of prayer was allowed. Such homes, however, are not Christian homes. The practice of Abraham is there reversed: "The way of the Lord" is not observed; and when men wander from it, what can the end be but labour and sorrow? THE WAY OF THE LORD.