describe the present character and daily obligations of the Christian, which apply with peculiar force to the Christian parent or head of a family; one borrowed from what is civil, and the other from what is sacred. These are king and priest, and to these that of a prophet might be added; but I notice at present only the two former. By his Saviour, even in this life, the Christian is made a king and a priest unto God. These high favours, once bestowed, are to be carried about with him as robes of office and obligation, which he cannot lay aside. Now, in the family-circle, there is provided, by God, one of the most interesting and important fields for the exercise and display of both characters. There he may, and there he does reign as a king, in sovereign and undisputed authority; and there, too, as a priest, he is to officiate on behalf of others as well as himself. By the exercise of the former character, his veneration for God is advanced, while he remembers, that, as a "king unto God," an account must be rendered of the daily exercise of his authority: by his priestly character, compassion and sympathy are greatly promoted; since it is impossible for a man to pray often for his family, without feeling increasing tenderness for it. Anderson's Domestic Constitution.

DUTY TO SERVANTS.

WHEN I consider the many thousands of hired servants, who dwell in the houses of the Christian people of America, I see in them so many objects upon which holy beneficence may terminate with results of unspeakable importance. If all professing Christians were faithful to their domestics, the relation of master and servant would lead to the conversion of many souls. Leaving out that portion of American society which individually performs its own labour, we have left a very large body of persons, each of whom has one, two, three, or more, employed in household work; for we will for the present omit apprentices and out-door labourers. Already, then, we have arrived at some thousands who are under the watch and care of religious families. The point to be considered is, that all these ought to be under some means tending towards their salvation, and that they are in a most favourable condition for the application of such means. It is to be feared that among all neglected duties, there is none more neglected than this. And yet God will bring us into judgment for the way in which we have dealt with those fellow-creatures whom we have at service. A strange and fatal neglect has crept over the Christian community in this respect. Our religion has not yet adapted itself to the transition-period of society. In the Northern States, we have neither the bondage of the South, with its good and evil, nor the established relations of England and the Continent; but are in a mixed condition, highly unfavourable to a just and generous performance of obligation. In old times, the servant was second only to a son. He was taught in the house. On the Lord's Day he went to church with his master's family, and was catechized with them in the evening. He was expected at family worship; and if a communicant, he often sat down with them at the Lord's Table. How little of all this takes place now, is well known to every reader. Whatever remnant of these good customs there is, we must seek in districts remote from the luxurious civilization of cities and commercial marts.

None can deny, that a separation has taken place between master and servant. It is a part of that disorganizing process, which is going on, to the alarm of Christian moralists and politicians. Other parts of the same process are beheld in the loosened ties between parent and child, and the direful attempts in certain quarters to detract from the sacredness of wedlock. The mortar is decaying among the stones of the family wall. A generation is growing up, who look upon servants in a light very different from that of Scripture. In their view, servants are persons employed to do certain work, without resulting connection or responsibility. My servant-such is the tacit apology—is hired to labour for me,

just as my carpenter or blacksmith is hired; and I am no more concerned for his training or his religion in one case than in the other. But see the consequence of such reasoning; a consequence which ought to convince every conscientious mind of its fallacy. Here are these thousands of persons, as before estimated, responsible to nobody, cared for by nobody, and for whom nobody has any accountability. This system says to all these, "Go, serve other gods!" Acting on this hypothesis, it is feared that many Christian people give themselves very little trouble, as to where their domestics go to church, or whether they go at all. This cannot be a normal condition of society. Something here must be sadly out of joint. And this is an abuse which sound evangelical principles, if fairly acted out, must modify, correct, and eventually remove. We need not be so tender in our consciences, about the sins of our slaveholding neighbour, while we have such an enormity in the bosom of our social life.

Some will find an excuse in the fact that many of our domestic servants are Papists. That some of them are such, is a fact to be admitted and deplored. But not to say, what nevertheless is solemn truth, that Papists have souls, and that we are bound to care for them; there remain the hosts of Protestants, to whom our foregoing observations apply. All these, dispersed through our American Christendom, are within our reach for the good of their souls. Viewed together, they present a vast missionary field, and one in which the facilities for labour are extraordinary. Let there only be a disposition and purpose among Christians to benefit their servants, and no persons will be found more accessible. Are they not within our walls, and at our very firesides? Do they not form the retinue of our children? Are we not our brothers' keepers?

It strikes us, that what is wanting is not so much any indication. of the particular means to be employed, which are sufficiently obvious, as the recognition of the bond, as existing, as divinely ordained, and as inferring certain obligations. Shall we live for years under the same roof with people, who have no other teachers and guardians, and yet never approach them upon the concerns of their souls? Is this consistent with religion, or even with humanity? If we do not look after their spiritual interests, who will? The prevailing negligence in this particular will not stand the test of gospel rules. No one is nigher, and therefore no one is more neighbour to us, than our servant; and we must love our servant as ourselves. Hence, we must seek to promote his knowledge of God's Word, his conversion, and his growth of grace. Under the pressure of motives belonging to a better era of reformed Christianity, there are no doubt many householders, especially in remote rural congregations, where the servant still comes in for his regular daily share of the Word and worship; but in proportion to the mass, such cases appear unfrequent.

Before ending these cursory remarks, let me be allowed to suggest, that morality, humanity, amd religion have gained nothing, in domestic concerns, by the unreasonable and unscriptural repugnance which prevails to the words master and servant. The pretended equality of rank, which is involved in all the phraseology substituted, tends directly to lower the reciprocal obligation. Hence was the family tie more strong, and hence were household affections more tender, when this mutual accountability was recognized in terms. And no servants, of our acquaintance, are more truly respectable, than some good Presbyterians, who, though thoroughly schooled in orthodox doctrine, and perfectly well-bred, are at the same time ready to accept for themselves all that the Scriptures enjoins on SERVANTS. We know happy instances, in which true Christian fellowship and unbroken love are maintained between heads of families and their pious domestics. And would to God that every house connected with our communion were blessed with a relationship so fruitful of good! C. Q.

Biographical and Bistorical.

REV. EBENEZER ROGERS, whose portrait we give in this number, was born in the City of New York, December 18th, 1817. His father was Edmund I. Rogers, for many years a merchant in that city, a man of unremitting industry, great practical wisdom, sterling integrity, irreproachable moral character, and liberal in supporting the institutions of religion.

Mrs. Rogers was the daughter of Ebenezer Platt, Esq., of Huntington, L. I., where, for more than one hundred and fifty years, her ancestors had resided, and where her father was one of its most prominent and honoured citizens. She was a woman of rare excellencies of mind and of heart. She early became a professed disciple of Christ, in connection with the Rutgers Street Church, then under the pastoral care of the venerated Rev. Dr. Milledoler. Of this church a surviving brother, Ebenezer Platt, Esq., is now a ruling elder, while another brother, Rev. Isaac Watts Platt, has for many years been an able and devoted minister of Christ in the Presbyterian Church.

Dr. Rogers received his early religious training in the Associate Reformed Church in Pearl Street, New York, then under the pastoral care of the Rev. W. W. Phillips, D.D., now the esteemed pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Fifth Avenue, by whom he was baptized. He was trained up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; accustomed to all the religious influences of a pious household, and of the Church of Christ; the subject of constant parental prayer and instruction, and familiar from his youth with the doctrines of religion as contained in the Bible, and em

bodied in the standards of the Presbyterian Church. From early life, he always entertained a sincere respect for all the truths and institutions of Christianity; and often experienced deep religious convictions.

In 1833, being then in the 16th year of his age, Mr. Rogers entered Yale College. While a Sophomore in that institution, he was suddenly called home to attend, what was thought to be, his mother's dying bed. He obeyed the summons, and received what he supposed to be her last counsels. She, however, most unexpectedly, recovered; but the scene made an impression on the mind of her son that was never effaced. He returned to college deeply impressed with the beauty and value of that religion, such a powerful illustration of which he had just witnessed in the person of his mother. About this time the extensive and powerful revivals of 1835 occurred in Yale College; and Mr. Rogers, with about forty of his fellow-students, publicly professed his faith in Christ, and became connected with the College Church. It is a remarkable fact, that from his class (that of 1837), more than thirty young men devoted themselves to the Gospel ministry.

In 1837, Mr. Rogers entered the Theological Seminary at Princeton. After prosecuting his studies, during a part of the course, a dangerous illness which left him with a serious affection of the eyes, obliged him to leave the seminary, and relinquish his studies. By the advice of physicians he removed to the country, and engaged in active life. About this time he was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Caldwell, daughter of the late John Caldwell, Esq., of Hartford, Connecticut. After his marriage his health being greatly restored, he pursued privately his theological studies, and was licensed to preach by the Litchfield South Association of Connecticut, in June, 1840. In November of the same year, he was ordained and installed pastor of the Congregational Church at Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts. After labouring here three years, during which the church enjoyed a season of revival, he was called to the pulpit of "The Edwards Church," Northampton, Massachusetts, a branch of the ancient church, of which the great Jonathan Edwards was the pastor, a century before. He accepted the call, and was installed in May, 1843. In 1847 a severe attack of pulmonary disease induced him to seek a southern climate, and he spent the winter of that year in South Carolina and Georgia. While there, he received a call to the First Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Georgia, which he accepted, and removed to that place with his family in November, 1847. Six years of pleasant labor were spent with that large, intelligent, and prosperous congregation, during which additions were made to the church at almost every communion season. During his connection with this church Mr. Rogers published a Treatise on the Doctrine of Election; a volume of Discourses to Young Men, and a number of occasional sermons. In 1853 he received the degree of D.D., from the Trustees of Oglethorpe University, Georgia.

In November, 1853, Dr. Rogers received a unanimous call to the Seventh Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, which, after long and prayerful deliberation, he was induced to accept, and in which connection he is at present labouring. The church in Augusta, many of whose most useful members were brought into it during his pastorate, at first refused to accept his resignation, and only consented in compliance with his repeated request, and his conscientious views of duty. They expressed their sentiments of respect and affection in a series of resolutions, accom