"Thy house!"--still nearer the appeal is brought by this expression. "Thy house!" "I will go home with thee," says the Master always in his Word, and his search-warrant has never lost its power. There is something in every heart that shrinks from public gaze, and every family justly cherishes the privacy of the household. But God, if he sees us any where, sees us there, and we reverence Him, as we receive His Word as our household guest. There can be no serious faith or purpose until we come to this, and are ready to take religion home with us. It will very likely show things in a new, and sometimes startling light. We may, perhaps, pass a tolerably creditable examination, when tested by our manner in street, or church, or general society. Sometimes the deference of good breeding may wear the look of inherent kindness, and refinement of address may seem like spirituality of character. It was a severer trial for the publican, "To-day I must abide with thee," than the mere summons to "Make haste, and come down." * * * * * It is a trial that we must all undergo the moment we begin to think seriously for ourselves; a trial, too, that cannot be shunned without losing the best blessings of life. Let the household be examined according to the standard, which we do honestly regard as reasonable and religious. What are the household gods? We have not, like the Romans, the custom of setting up images in our homes, and keeping a votive flame always burning before them. Yet the sentiment which the Roman custom expressed, we must in some way entertain. Every household has its idols, the emblems of its faith or infidelity. It has many associations peculiar to itself, and makes its own choice moreover among the associations that prevail in the neighborhood, or world, or age. It has its own Manes, or its especial remembrances of the departed;--it has its Lares, or favorite family standards;--it has its Penates, or its own selection from the idols or authorities of the people. These influences exist in the highest home and in the humblest--are to be traced in the old nobilities, whose caste, party, and creed, are fixed by the allegiance of a thousand years, and in the unpretending villager who thinks himself highly favored in ancient lore, as he reads in his family Bible the name and birth of his grandfather. Nor are the same influences wholly wanting to those who wish to repudiate their ancestry, the spendthrift upstarts of fortune, whose crest, manufactured to order, is but an attempt to hide the only honorable fact in the family history, that one ancestor was a plain, industrious man, with energy enough to earn by his trade the wealth that heirs squander in folly. Generally, it needs little antiquarian study to learn the ruling genius of the house. It is not only in the house of Atreus or Oedipus, or in the line of the Stuarts and the Bourbons, that family