Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1845-02-21
THE FIRE-SEDE.
THE FAMILY CIRCLF,

Precious, indeed, are the Joys of happy fam
y; but oh how feet How soon must the cir
Gle be broken up; how suddenly mag it be-
What scenes of delight, resembling gay visions
of fairy bliss, have unexpectedly been wrapt in
shadow and gloom by misfortune by sickness,
by death. The last enemy has entered the par
adise, and by expellmg one of its tenants, has
imbittered the scene to the rest the ravages of
death have been in some cases followed by the
desolatons Of poverty, and they who once dwelt
together in the happy enclosure, have been sep
arated and scattered to meet no more But re-
ligion-true relgion-if it be possessed will
gather them together again, after this destruction
Of their earthly ties, and conduct them to ano-
Their paradise, into which no calamity shall enter,
and from which no joys shall ever depart
Happy then would it be, for all who stand re-
lated by those household ties if the bonds of ma
ture were halowed and rendered permanent by
those of divine grace To found our union on
any basis which does not contain religion in its
formation, is to erect it on quicksand, and to
expose it to the fury of thousand pillows, each
of which may overturn the fabric of our comfort
in moment; but to rest it upon religion, is to
found it upon rock, where we shall individual
ly still find refuge when the nearest and the
dearest relations are swept away by the tide Of
dissolution.
1t is pleasing reflection, that the domestic
constitution depends not for its existence its
awe, its right administration, or its rich advan-
tages, either upon family possessions, Or the
forms of national policy. ltmay live and flour
sh in all its tender charities, and all its sweet
felcties, and all its moral power, in the cottage
as we'll as in the mansion under the shadow of
liberty, and even under the scorching heat of
tyranny. Like the church, of which it is in
some respects the emblem, it accommodates it.
self to every changing form of surrounding So
ciety, to every nation and to every age. Form
inc with the church the only two institutions
ever set up by God as to the frame work, like
its kindred institute, it remains amidst the ruins
of the fall the lapse Of ages, and the change OF
human affairs, the monument of what has been
the standing prediction Of what shall be. Ty'
rants, that crush the liberties of state, cannot
destroy the constitution of a family: and ever
prosecutors, that silence the preacher, and scat
ter the congregation, cannot hush the voice o
parental instruction, or extingush parental inhu
ence. Religion, hunted and driven by human
power from the place of public concourse, would
! still find retreat, as it often has none unde
" such circumstances, in the household of faith
and there would keep alive upon the family altar
> that holy fire. with which the sacrifices of thu
temple, under happier auspices, shall be offered
y Neirther families nor the church of the rcdeeme
sIi2Il ever be entirely lost, whatever changes TIN
: world may yet have to pass through but, bles
: sing and being blest, will of themselves alon
one day introduce the millennium"