But let us ask, whether there are not pa- mily a place in the city which hath foundarents, who, after they have carried the work tions, will he spurn all the maxims and all of discipline thus far, forbear to carry it any the plausibilities of a contagious neighbourfarther; who, while they would mourn over hood away from him. He knows the price it as a family trial should any son of theirs of his Christianity, and it is that he must fall a victim to excessive dissipation, yet are break off conformity with the world-nor willing to tolerate the lesser degrees of it; for any paltry advantage which it has to who, instead of deciding the question on offer, will he compromise the eternity of his the alternative of his heaven or his hell, are children. And let us tell the parents of ansatisfied with such a measure of sobriety as other spirit and principle, that they are as will save him from ruin and disgrace in this good as incurring the guilt of a human salife; who, if they can can only secure this, crifice; that they are offering up their chilhave no great objection to the moderate dren at the shrine of an idol; that they are share he may take in this world's conform- parties in provoking the wrath of God ities; who feel, that in this matter there is against them here; and on the day when a necessity and a power of example against that wrath is to be revealed, shall they hear which it is vain to struggle, and which must not only the moanings of their despair but be acquiesced in; who deceive themselves the outcries of their bitterest execration. with the fancied impossibility of stopping On that day, the glance of reproach from the evil in question-and say, that business their own neglected offspring will throw a must be gone through; and that, in the deeper shade of wretchedness over the dark prosecution of it, exposures must be made; and boundless futurity that lies before them. and that, for the success of it, a certain de- | And if, at the time when prophets rung the gree of accommodation to others must be tidings of God's displeasure against the peoobserved; and seeing that it is so mighty ple of Israel it was denounced as the foulest an object for one to widen the extent of his of all their abominations that they caused connexions, he must neither be very retired their children to pass through the fire unto nor very peculiar-nor must his hours of Moloch-know, ye parents, who in placing companionship be too jealously watched or your children on some road to gainful eminquired into-nor must we take him too ployment, have placed them without a sigh strictly to task about engagements, and ac-in the midst of depravity, so near and so quaintances, and expenditure-nor must we forget, that while sobriety has its time and its season in one period of life, indulgence has its season in another; and we may fetch from the recollected follies of our own youth, a lesson of connivance for the present occasion; and altogether there is no help for it; and it appears to us, that absolutely and totally to secure him from ever entering upon scenes of dissipation, you must absolutely and totally withdraw him from the world, and surrender all his prospects of advancement, and give up the object of such a provision for our families as we feel to be a first and most important concern with us.

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness," says the Bible, "and all other things shall be added unto you." This is the promise which the faith of a Christian parent will rest upon; and in the face of every hazard to the worldly interests of his off spring, will he bring them up in the strict nurture and admonition of the Lord; and he will loudly protest against iniquity, in all its degrees and in all its modifications; and while the power of discipline remains with him, will it ever be exerted on the side of pure, faultless, undeviating obedience; and he will tolerate no exception whatever; and he will brave all that looks formidable in singularity, and all that looks menacing in separation from the custom and countenance of the world; and feeling that his main concern is to secure for himself and for his fa

surrounding, that, without a miracle, they must perish, you have done an act of idolatry to the god of this world; you have commanded your household after you to worship him as the great divinity of their lives; and you have caused your children to make their approaches unto his presence—and, in so doing, to pass through the fire of such temptations as have destroyed them.

We do not wish to offer you an overcharged picture on this melancholy subject. What we now say is not applicable to all. Even in the most corrupt and crowded of our cities, parents are to be found, who nobly dare the surrender of every vain and flattering illusion, rather than surrender the Christianity of their children. And what is still more affecting, over the face of the country do we meet with such parents, who look on this world as a passage to another, and on all the members of their household as fellow-travellers to eternity along with them; and who, in the true spirit of believers, feel the salvation of their children to be, indeed, the burden of their best and dearest interest; and who, by prayer, and precept, and example, have strenuously laboured with their souls, from the earliest light of their understanding; and have taught them to tremble at the way of evil doers, and to have no fellowship with those who keep not the commandments of Godnor is there a day more sorrowful in the annals of this pious family, than when the course of time has brought them onwards

to the departure of their eldest boy-and he | the spirit of this world's morality, are not must bid adieu to his native home, with all sensibly arrested in this career, either by the peace, and all the simplicity which the opposition of their own friends, or by abound in it-and as he eyes in fancy the the voice of their own conscience. Those distant town whither he is going, does he who have imbibed an opposite spirit, and shrink as from the thought of an unknown | have brought it into competition with an wilderness-and it is his firm purpose to evil world, and have at length yielded, have keep aloof from the dangers and the profli- done so, we may well suppose, with many gacies which deform it-and, should sinners a sigh, and many a struggle, and many a offer to entice him, not to consent, and look of remembrance on those former years never, never to forget the lessons of a fa- when they were taught to lisp the prayer ther's vigilance, the tenderness of a mother's of infancy, and were trained in a mansion prayers. of piety to a reverence for God, and for all his ways; and, even still, will a parent's parting advice haunt his memory, and a letter from the good old man revive the sensibilities which at one time guarded and adorned him; and, at times, will the transient gleam of remorse lighten up its agony within him; and when he contrasts the profaneness and depravity of his present companions, with the sacredness of all he ever heard or saw in his father's dwelling, it will almost feel as if conscience were again to resume her power, and the revisiting spirit of God to call him back again from the paths of wickedness; and on his restless bed will the

Let us now, in the next place, pass from that state of things which obtains among the young at their outset into the world, and take a look of that state of things which obtains after they have got fairly introduced into it--when the children of the ungodly, and the children of the religious, meet on one common arena-when business associates them together in one chamber, and the omnipotence of custom lays it upon them all to meet together at periodic intervals, and join in the same parties, and the same entertainments-when the yearly importation of youths from the country falls in with that assimilating mass of corrup-images of guilt conspire to disturb him, and tion which has got so firm and so rooted the terrors of punishment offer to scare him an establishment in the town-when the away; and many will be the dreary and frail and unsheltered delicacies of the timid dissatisfied intervals when he shall be forced boy have to stand a rude and a boisterous to acknowledge that in bartering his soul contest with the hardier depravity of those for the pleasures of sin, he has bartered the who have gone before him-when ridicule, peace and enjoyment of the world along and example, and the vain words of a de- with it. But, alas! the entanglements of lusive sophistry, which palliates in his hear-companionship have got hold of him; and ing the enormity of vice, are all brought to bear upon his scruples, and to stifle the remorse he might feel when he casts his principle and his purity away from him-when, placed as he is in a land of strangers, he finds, that the tenure of acquaintanceship, with nearly all around him, is, that he render himself up in a conformity to their doings-when a voice, like the voice of protecting friendship, bids him to the feast; and a welcome, like the welcome of honest kindness, hails his accession to the society; and a spirit, like the spirit of exhilarating joy, animates the whole scene of hospitality before him; and hours of rapture roll successively away on the wings of merriment, jocularity, and song; and after the homage of many libations has been rendered to honour, and fellowship, and patriotism, impurity is at length proclaimed in full and open cry, as one presiding divinity, at the board of their social entertainment.

And now it remains to compute the general result of a process, which we assert of the vast majority of our young, on their way to manhood, that they have to undergo. The result is, that the vast majority are initiated into all the practices, and describe the full career of dissipation. Those who have imbibed from their fathers

the inveteracy of habit tyrannizes over all his purposes; and the stated opportunity again comes round; and the loud laugh of his partners in guilt chases, for another season, all his despondency away from him; and the infatuation gathers upon him every month; and a hardening process goes on within his heart; and the deceitfulness of sin grows apace; and he at length becomes one of the sturdiest and most unrelenting of her votaries; and he, in his turn, strengthens the conspiracy that is formed against the morals of a new generation; and all the ingenuous delicacies of other days are obliterated; and he contracts a temperament of knowing, hackneyed, unfeeling depravity; and thus the mischief is transmitted from one year to another, and keeps up the guilty history of every place of crowded population.

And let us here speak one word to those seniors in depravity-those men who give to the corruption of acquaintances, who are younger than themselves, their countenance, their agency; and who can initiate them without a sigh in the mysteries of guilt, and care not though a parent's hope should wither and expire under the contagion of their ruffian example. It is only upon their own conversion that we can

speak to them the pardon of the gospel. It will not say what new object he is running is only if they themselves are washed, and after. It may be wealth, or ambition, or sanctified, and justified, that we can warrant philosophy; but it is nothing connected with their personal deliverance from the wrath the interest of his soul. It bears no referthat is to come. But under all the conceal-ence whatever to the concerns of that great ment which rests on the futurities of God's relationship which obtains between the administration, we know that there are de-creature and the Creator. The man has grees of suffering in hell-and that while withdrawn, and perhaps for ever, from the some are beaten with few stripes, others scenes of dissipation, and has betaken himare beaten with many. And surely, if they self to another way-but still it is his own who turn many to righteousness shall shine way. It is not the will or the way of God as the stars for ever and ever, we may be that he is yet caring for. Such a man may well assured that they who patronize the bid adieu to profligacy in his own person. cause of iniquity-they who can beckon But he lifts up the light of his countenance others to that way which leadeth on to the on the profligacy of others. He gives it chambers of death-they who can aid and the whole weight and authority of his conwitness, without a sigh, the extinction of nivance. He wields, we will say it, such an youthful modesty-surely, it may well be instrumentality of seduction over the young, said of such, that on them a darker frown as, though not so alarming, is far more danwill fall from the judgment-seat, and through gerous than the undisguised attempts of eternity will they have to bear the pains of those who are the immediate agents of cora fiercer indignation. ruption. The formal and deliberate conspiHaving thus looked to the commence-racy of those who club together, at stated ment of a course of dissipation, and to its progress, let us now, in the third place, look to its usual termination. We speak not at present of the coming death, and of the coming judgment, but of the change which takes place on many a votary of licentiousness, when he becomes what the world calls a reformed man; and puts on the decencies of a sober and domestic establishment; and bids adieu to the pursuits and the profligacies of youth, not because he has repented of them, but because he has outlived them. You all perceive how this may be done without one movement of the heart, or of the understanding, towards God that it is done by many, though duty to him be not in all their thoughts-that the change, in this case, is not from the idol of pleasure unto God, but only from one idol to another--and that, after the whole of this boasted transformation, we may still behold the same body of sin and of death, and only a new complexion thrown over it. There may be the putting on of sobriety, but there is no putting on of godliness. It is a common and easy transition to pass from one kind of disobedience to another, but it is not so easy to give up that rebelliousness of the heart which lies at the root of all disobedience. It may be easy, after the wonted course of dissipation is ended, to hold out another aspect altogether in the eye of acquaintances; but it is not so easy to recover that shock, and that overthrow, which the religious principle sustains, when a man first enters the world, and surrenders himself to the power of its enticements. Such were some of you, says the Apostle, but ye are washed, and sanctified, and justified. Our reformed man We, at the same time, have our eye perknows not the meaning of such a process; fectly open to that great external improveand, most assuredly, has not at all realized ment which has taken place, of late years, it in the history of his own person. We in the manners of society. There is not the

terms of companionship, may be all seen, and watched, and guarded against. But how shall we pursue this conspiracy into its other ramifications? How shall we be able to neutralize that insinuating poison which distils from the lips of grave and respectable citizens? How shall we be able to dissipate that gloss which is thrown by the smile of elders and superiors over the sins of forbidden indulgence? How can we disarm the bewitching sophistry which lies in all these evident tokens of complacency, on the part of advanced and reputable men? How is it possible to trace the progress of this sore evil, throughout all the business and intercourse of society? How can we stem the influence of evil communications, when the friend, and the patron, and the man who has cheered and signalized us by his polite invitations, turns his own family-table into a nursery of licentiousness? How can we but despair of ever witnessing on earth a pure and a holy generation, when even parents will utter their polluting levities in the hearing of their own children; and vice, and humour, and gaiety, are all indiscriminately blended into one conversation; and a loud laugh, from the initiated and the uninitiated in profligacy, is ever ready to flatter and to regale the man who can thus prostitute his powers of entertainment? O! for an arm of strength to demolish this firm and far spread compact of iniquity; and for the power of some such piercing and prophetic voice, as might convince our reformed men of the baleful influence they cast behind them on the morals of the succeeding generation.

same grossness of conversation. There is condition in society; and a high tone of not the same impatience for the withdraw-moral purity must be infused into the bosom ment of him, who, asked to grace the outset of many individuals; and their agency will of an assembled party, is compelled, at a effect through the channels of family and certain step in the process of conviviality, social connexion, what never can be effected by the obligations of professional decency, by any framework of artificial regulations, to retire from it. There is not so frequent so long as the spirit and character of society an exaction of this as one of the established remain what they are. In other words, the proprieties of social or of fashionable life. progress of reformation will never be sensiAnd if such an exaction was ever laid by bly carried forward beyond the progress of the omnipotence of custom on a minister of personal Christianity in the world; and, Christianity, it is such an exaction as ought therefore, the question resolves itself into never, never, to be complied with. It is not the likeliest method of adding to the numfor him to lend the sanction of his presence to ber of Christian parents who may fortify a meeting with which he could not sit to its the principles of their children at their first final termination. It is not for him to stand outset in life-of adding to the number of associated, for a single hour, with an assem- Christian young men, who might nobly blage of men who begin with hypocrisy, dare to be singular, and to perform the anand end with downright blackguardism. It gelic office of guardians and advisers to is not for him to watch the progress of the those who are younger than themselves— coming ribaldry, and to hit the well selected of adding to the number of Christians in moment when talk, and turbulence, and bois-middle and advanced life, who might, as far terous merriment, are on the eve of bursting as in them lies, alter the general feeling and forth upon the company, and carrying them countenance of society; and blunt the force forward to the full acme and uproar of their of that tacit but most seductive testimony, enjoyment. It is quite in vain to say, that he which has done so much to throw a palliahas only sanctified one part of such an en- tive veil over the guilt of a life of dissipation. tertainment. He has as good as given his connivance to the whole of it, and left behind him a discharge in full of all its abominations; and, therefore, be they who they may, whether they rank among the proudest aristocracy of our land, or are charioted in splendour along, as the wealthiest of the citizens, it is his part to keep as purely and indignantly aloof from such society as this, as he would from the vilest and most debasing associations of profligacy.

Such a question cannot be entered upon, at present, in all its bearings, and in all its generality. And we must, therefore, simply satisfy ourselves with the object, that as we have attempted already to approach the indifference of parents, and to reproach the unfeeling depravity of those young men who scatter their pestilential levities around the whole circle of their companionship, we may now shortly attempt to lay upon the men of middle and advanced life, in general And now the important questión comes to society, their share of responsibility for the be put; what is the likeliest way of setting morals of the rising generation. For the up a barrier against this desolating torrent promotion of this great cause, it is not at all of corruption, into which there enter so necessary to school them into any nice or many elements of power and strength, that exquisite contrivances. Could we only give to the general eye, it looks altogether irre- them a desire towards it, and a sense of sistible? It is easier to give a negative, than obligation, they would soon find their own an affirmative answer to this question. way to the right exercise of their own inAnd, therefore, it shall be our first remark, fluence in forwarding the interests of purity that the mischief never will be effectually and virtue among the young. Could we combatted by any expedient separate from only affect their consciences on this point, the growth and the transmission of personal there would be almost no necessity whatChristianity throughout the land. If no ever to guide or enlighten their understandaddition be made to the stock of religious ing. Could we only get them to be Chrisprinciple in a country, then the profligacy tians, and to carry their Christianity into of a country will make its obstinate stand their business, they would then feel themagainst all the mechanism of the most skil-selves invested with a guardianship; and ful, and plausible, and well looking contriv- that time, and pains, and attention, ought ances. It must not be disguised from you, to be given to the fulfilment of its concerns. that it does not lie within the compass either It is quite in vain to ask, as if there was of prisons or penitentiaries to work any sensible abatement on the wickedness of our existing generation. The operation must be of a preventive, rather than of a corrective tendency. It must be brought to bear upon boyhood; and be kept up through that whole period of random exposures through which it has to run, on its way to an established

any mystery, or any helplessness about it, "What can they do?" For, is it not the fact, most palpably obvious, that much can be done even by the mere power of example? Or might not the master of any trading establishment send the pervading influence of his own principles among some, at least, of the servants and auxiliaries who

belong to it? Or can he, in no degree what- furnish us with a single hundred of such ever, so select those who are admitted, as houses in this city, where the care and chato ward off much contamination from the racter of the master formed a guarantee for branches of his employ? Or might not he the sobriety of all his dependents, it would so deal out his encouragement to the de- be like the clearing out of a piece of cultiserving, as to confirm them in all their pur- vated ground in the midst of a frightful wilposes of sobriety? Or might not he inter- derness; and parents would know whither pose the shield of his countenance and his they could repair with confidence for the testimony between a struggling youth and settlement of their offspring; and we should the ridicule of his acquaintances? Or, by behold, what is mightily to be desired, a line the friendly conversation of half an hour, of broad and visible demarcation between might not he strengthen within him every the church and the world; and an interest principle of virtuous resistance? By these, so precious as the immortality of children, and by a thousand other expedients, which would no longer be left to the play of such will readily suggest themselves to him who fortuitous elements, as operated at random has the good will, might not a healing water throughout the confused mass of a mingled be sent forth through the most corrupted of and indiscriminate society. And thus, the all our establishments; and it be made safe pieties of a father's house might bear to be for the unguarded young to officiate in its transplanted even into the scenes of ordichambers; and it be made possible to enter nary business; and instead of withering, as upon the business of the world without en- they do at present, under a contagion which tering on such a scene of temptation, as to spreads in every direction, and fills up the render almost inevitable the vice of the whole face of the community, they might world, and its impiety, and its final and flourish in that moral region which was oceverlasting condemnation? Would Chris-cupied by a peculiar people, and which they tians only be open and intrepid, and carry had reclaimed from a world that lieth in their religion into their merchandize; and wickedness.

DISCOURSE VII.

On the vitiating Influence of the higher upon the lower Orders of Society.

"Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come; but wo unto him through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones."-Luke xvii. 1, 2.

To offend another, according to the com- the word, when he speaks of your own mon acceptation of the words, is to dis- right hand, or your own right eye, offendplease him.-Now, this is not its accepta- ing you. They may do so, by giving you an tion in the verse before us, nor in several occasion to fall.-And what is here transother verses of the New Testament. It lated offend, is, in the first epistle to the were coming nearer to the scriptural Corinthians, translated to make to offend; meaning of the term, had we, instead of where Paul says, "If meat make my brooffence and offending, adopted the terms, ther to offend, I will eat no more flesh scandal and scandalizing. But the full sig-while the world standeth, lest I make my nification of the phrase to offend another, brother to offend." is to cause him to fall from the faith and The little ones to whom our Saviour alobedience of the gospel. It may be such a ludes, in this passage, he elsewhere more falling away as that a man recovers him- fully particularises, by telling us, that they self-like the disciples, who were all of are those who believe in him. There is no fended in Christ, and forsook him; and, call here for entering into any controversy after a season of separation, were at length about the doctrine of perseverance. It is re-established in their discipleship.-Or it not necessary, either for the purpose of may be such a falling away as that there explaining, or of giving force to the practiis no recovery-like those in the gospel of cal lesson of the text now submitted to John, who, offended by the sayings of our you. We happen to be as much satisfied Saviour, went back, and walked no more with the doctrine, that he who hath a real with him. If you put such a stumbling faith in the gospel of Christ will never fall block in the way of a neighbour, who is away, as we are satisfied with the truth of walking on a course of christian disciple- any identical proposition. If a professing ship, as to make him fall, you offend him. disciple do, in fact, fall away, this is a It is in this sense that our Saviour uses phenomenon which might be traced to