Then let the Master be welcome to the household. We cannot do without him. We need him to keep us in God and with one another. Let the atmosphere of the home have the fragrance of his heavenly spirit. It was one of the trials of the early Christians, that they could not live in pagan households without being constantly pained by symbols and usages hostile to their faith. The Greek or Roman wife, if converted to the Gospel, was scandalized by the idols on the hearth-stone, and often brought to death for refusing to join in the idolatry; whilst in the camp and court, paganism was constantly thrusting its pageants upon the follower of the cross. Our modern life is not much troubled with many such tests of faith, and most of our more showy households are utterly innocent of any signs either of Christian or Pagan import in their furniture. From what is seen in some parlors, whether in books or periodicals, or in pictures or statues, we might infer the fondness of the dwellers, now for the battle or the chase; now for the shows of fashion, or the haunts of dissipation; now for the wonders of science and art; now for the shipping interest and the stock market. But too rarely does the household have a true and expressive representation of the ideas most precious to a Christian mind. An ostentatious vulgarity is too much the rule in constructing and adorning the dwelling, and a Christian taste is the exception. How many of our showy dwellings, instead of impressing a cultivated foreigner with a sense of the owner's refinement or spirituality, would only make it clear that the owner had money in plenty to spend, and knew not how to spend it wisely. Let these things be looked to. Let the economy of the household be of itself a confession of faith. Let there he something to show that they who dwell here are God's children, and live within his kingdom. Let not gold be lavished upon unmeaning articles that show rather the capacity of expense than the capacity of meditation, or which, like the mirrors that are the chief ornament of so many houses, favor no reflection beyond that of the vanity which they multiply. If we care for art, let Christian art be not slighted, and with the landscape that portrays the beauty or grandeur of creation, let there be some expressive token that the Father has watched over men by his Providence, and blessed their homes by his Word. We are changing people, almost a nomad race. One of the oldest inhabitants of this metropolis lately remarked, that within his knowledge, not one man now keeps house in the dwelling occupied by his father. Of this fact I know nothing, yet sure it is, that we need in the frequent change of abodes, to build more deeply and securely the spiritual home, and live more among the memorials of things eternal. In the absence of ancestral homesteads with their hallowed scenes and memorials, we should seek to transmit some lasting tokens of our mind, and not make our