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express all affection for their children, | which he received from his mother,

before he could yet read, by means of some Dutch tiles, upon which Scripture stories were represented, which were in the chimney of the room in which they used to sit, and which she would explain to him as one in whose heart the stories were, as well as upon the tiles. From his experience of what he had thus learned himself, he would often recommend to mothers like modes of early instruction.

are far from teaching diligently, often, alas! do not teach them at all, what they owe to an unseen parent. There are others, who, while they do not neglect the religious instruction of their children, yet do not make it acceptable to them; teach them diligently, it may be, but do not teach them graciously. The consequence is, in the former case, the child grows up self-willed, self-indulgent, as if there were no such thing as religion; in the other, with a distaste for it, and pre- In the humblest cabin are you not rejudiced against it. But when "the mouth minded, as you see the hen upon your speaks out of the abundance of the heart," | floor, employed, the day long, in diswhen the assiduity in teaching has all the tributing whatever food falls in her way sweetness and tenderness which belongs to the little brood around her, that it is to Christianity to recommend it, at the for you to be in like manner crumbling same time that the child's mind is in- the bread of life continually to the young formed, his affections will be engaged. souls under your care? And is there not, at the same time, suggested to you, as what your child can understand and feel as well as yourself, the application of that sweetest expression of divine tenderness, that, as the hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, there is one who would gather you and yours under His?

But the directions are yet more particular: "Thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thon | walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." There are parents who teach their children religion, as they would teach them French or music. As soon as the lesson is over, the subject is altogether laid by, till it comes round again in its turn as a lesson. How different this from the course commanded here, "Thou shalt talk of it when thou sittest in the house, when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." As different as salt when it is in a heap in the salt-cellar, and when it is sprinkled over all your food. We are not to teach our children religion, as one of the circle of sciences; but it is to be mixed up with every other it is to be mixed up with all the events of life, with all the engagements and occurrences of the day, and to be applied to them all.

"Thou shalt talk of it when thou sittest in thine house." It is told of one, who afterwards beeame eminent for his Christian attainments-the well-known Dr. Doddridge that he used to trace his first seeds of piety to the instructions

"And when thou walkest by the way, thou shalt talk of it." And does the walk afford no opportunities of such familiar instruction? Does the garden afford uone, and the field? When at this season of the year you see the hayharvest in progress, and as soon as the grass is cut, the weeds which grew up with it gathered out, and raked into heaps by themselves" and it will be thus," could you not say touchingly to your child," as soon as the scythe of time shall have mowed us down, that many and many, whom the long suffering of God is now sparing, will be gathered out from among the rest, and burnt like those weeds?"

Can the mother, who is not herself insensible to the goodness which breathes around her in the rich variety of the simplest garden, in all its beautiful tints, and in the odours which perfume it, fail

to draw the attention of her children to that goodness, thus supplying all things so richly to enjoy ? Oh! will she not thus turn their thoughts to Him, who, while the world sees no beauty in him that it should desire him, would help us in nature also to some faint conception of what he is, by the comparison of himself to the lily of the valleys and the rose of Sharon ?"

What is meant is this; that it is not by lessons at stated times, kept apart, and distinct from the other engagements of the day-that it is not by bringing truth before the young mind in a chapter or in a catechism, unconnected with the life, parents can hope to fulfil the sacred trust reposed in them, or that they will be taking the prescribed means of fulfilling it. The question suggested by the directions here given is this, whether there be Christianity in the atmosphere that is arouud your children? You may have seen a child, after having passed some time in the unhealthy air of a city, though it might not have wanted for its regular meals while it was there, yet returning from it a sickly child.

It is when the Bible not only has its place in the succession of lessons, but when its golden thread is twisted with the thread of the whole life-when it is still referred to, as occasions arise, as the rule of life, and as the balm of life-as the balance in which all actions are to be weighed, and as the spring of all goodness, and of all happiness-then it is, we may hope to see character formed, as well as knowledge acquired-to see the soul cast in the mould, as well as the head instructed in the doctrines of the Gospel.

I have heard the difficulty lamented of awakening in a child a real sense of sin. But if, not only in the school-hour, but at other times also, as often as any bad temper breaks out, or if the child has been looking about during church-time, for instance, or when any thing occurs that calls for correction, the Bible be then made to charge the conscience, and

while the opposite to what is reproved is to be seen in her, who, while she has the Bible upon her lips, has it in her heart also, let those say, who have made the experiment, according to these God's own directions, and in dependence upon his own convincing of sin, whether they have found the difficulty insurmountable.

There is one thing more to be observed, and which has been now glanced at, which is, in order to any success whatsoever, the necessity of a consistent example. With a view to which, father, mother, "thou shalt bind these words as a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and upon thy gates.

"Thou shalt bind them as a sign upon thy hand." That "whatsoever thy hand findeth to do," you may seem to see written upon it, how God would have you to do it. In your dealings, for instance, that "no man go beyond or defraud his brother in any matter." if you meet with provocation, and be tempted to raise your hand, that you may see in large letters, as it were, upon that hand, "do violence to no man."

Or

"And they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes." That you may see every thing in the light in which God himself sees it that the world may appear to you, not in the false colours in which the god of this world decks it out, not through the golden mist, through which he would have you to see it, but stript of its disguise-that your children, when they perceive you to be thus dead to the world yourselves, may come to see it with your eyes, and may grow up as those who are not of it.

"And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and upon thy gates." That as often as you go out, whether to your business or into company, or though it be but to speak to one at your door, you may carry words with you, by which you may be kept yourself, and of which

others also may have the benefit. And reason, relax our exertions in other on your return home, that no tempers❘ matters ? If you had an infant danmay break out, contrary to those which you would desire to see in your children —that every thing within doors may be regulated by the one standard—that your table, and the conversation which passes at it, may be such, as that your children shall observe you in your hours of relaxation also, under the same all-pervading influence, by which you are governed at other times.

Let the instructions, such as have been described, be thus supported by our example, my brethren, and what nurseries for heaven will not our families be!

is one of several brothers, who are all brothers in Christ, as well as by blood, and are adorning the doctrine of God their Saviour at the Stock Exchange, and at the attorney's desk, as well as in the ministry. The mother being once asked, how she came to be so happy in her children, said, that she owed it, under God, to the rule with which she had set out, and which she had been enabled to carry through that there should be but one will in her family, and that that should be the will of God.

And let it be well observed, that every parent, be his situation in life what it may, and under whatever disadvantages of education he may labour, is yet expected to bring up his children thus. "Hear, O Israel," it is all Israel is addressed. Hear every Christian parent; you are expected, from the place which you hold in Christ's Church, to have such a knowledge of the Bible yourself, and so frame your life according to it, that your children shall be ever hearing it from your lips, and seeing it in your practice.

Oh! and let none make it a cloak for an indolent neglect of these directions, that, after all, they can only tell these things to their children, that they cannot give them grace, For do we, for such a

gerously ill, whose life, you were told, depended upon its getting sleep, though the mother, to be sure, could not herself give the sleep, yet would she, on that account, leave the cradle unrocked, or the lullaby unsung? Though the farmer cannot himself make his crops grow, does he therefore leave his fields unploughed, or his seed unsown? As if God would be wanting on his part, while we are faithful on ours.

Ah! dear brethren, has it then been so with us who are parents? Say, during the last week, have you been teaching these words thus diligently to your children while sitting in the house— while walking by the way with them? And have they seen you yourselves consistent with what you taught them?

As the promises fail, (do not apply to us, that is,) when in baptism itself we do not bring our children to the Saviour, as he commands us; they will no less surely fail, when we do not bring them up for the Saviour, as he commands us, after baptism. Then let every father and mother present lay their hand upon their heart, and say, whether the object which they have nearest it for their children be to bring them up for God. In other words, whether it be the object of every instruction you give them—of every accomplishment you seek for them-of every situation in which you place them, of every connection which you form for them, that they may thereby become the better qualified, or have the better opportunity, to serve the Divine Master to whom you have dedicated them. For is it not so, when to qualify ourselves for high places in this world is our object? A distinguished person of the present day, who fills one of the highest situations in the United Kingdom, upon the occasion of a late arduous discussion in the legis. lature, when he felt himself standing, as he said, upon the brink of the most a d venturous question that had ever been

submitted to the English peers, expressed himself to the following effect :- "that if he could have foretold in his earliest years he should ever have lived to stand in the place which he then occupied, and upon such an occasion, he would have devoted every day and every hour of that life which had passed, to prepare himself for a task, which he even felt as if he should then sink under, to gather from all the sources of ancient wisdom, lessons which might have served to guide him at so eventful a crisis, and have enabled him to correct every infirmity of mind, which might impede the discharge of the solemn duty which he had undertaken, of advising that house, and to eradicate from his mind every thing that might interrupt the most perfect candour aud impartiality of judgment."

And if the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus be the prize at which we aim for our children, if, that they may sit on his right hand and on his left in his kingdom, that they may shine as the stars for ever and ever, be our ambition for them, shall not we be gathering from all the sources of ancient wisdom-of that wisdom which was from everlasting from Him who is made unto us wisdom, lessons to form the character, to correct every infirmity of mind and temper; shall we not devote every day and every hour we can command, to make them meet to be partakers of that inheritance of the saints in light?

Parents, has your education of your children been such? Nay, Christian parents, has yours? Or have you been like him rather, upon whose name as a father is left the indelible reproach, that instead of bringing up his sons for God, he honoured them above God, and thus drew down upon himself a sentence, to make every ear that heard it to tingle, that "all the increase of his house should die in the flower of their age that there should not be an old man in Eli's house for ever?" Has there been any like want of zeal for God, in the bringing up of your

children of zeal for the education of their souls? Have the words of God been heard only incidentally from you, as from Eli, instead of having been heard by them "when thou wast sitting in thine house, when thou wast walking by the way, when thou wast lying down, and when thou wast rising up?

Ah! and perhaps, parents, not only have these words not been made familiar to their ears by you, but words have been made familiar, which were, as if when your son asked for an egg, you gave him a scorpion. Perhaps, they have heard words from you, by which their young minds have been inflamed with the love of the world. Perhaps, some child here has heard her mother speak oftener, and with more interest, of the dress of the body, than of that of the soul. It may be, your children have heard more expressions of discontent from you, than what were your obligations to Him who withheld not his own Son from you; or that superiors have been spoken of in their presence with disrespect, and neighbours with unkindness; not to speak of the angry words, and the fretful words, and the quarrelsome words, and, perhaps, between the parents themselves; and must I not add, the filthiness and the profaneness, which it may have been the calamity of some to hear from those who were charged with teaching them the words of eternal life, when sitting in their house, when walking by the way, when lying down, when rising up!

And is it any wonder, then, that we hear the complaint so frequent, "I can get no good by my children ?" Ah! but is it not for them in all such cases to recriminate and what a sting will there not be one day in the recrimination, that it was they who could get no good from those from whom, of all others, they had the most reason to expect it—that hey have to thank ungodly parents for having lived themselves without God in the world—that it was they who mixed up for them that cup of the wrath of God

which they must now drink for ever and ever? Even in this world, what such spectacle of woe, (for it is one beyond the reach of Christianity-it is one of those few cases for which Christianity itself affords no relief for which "there is no balm of Gilead,") Oh! is their to be conceived such another case of blank woe, as to see a mother wringing her hands because one is not, for whom you dare not tell her "not to sorrow as others who have no hope," because he for whom she sorrows gave no ground for hope, and she has to thank herself he did not? Parents, parents! if you would not subject your selves to bitter anguish like this—if you would not plant such a dagger in your soul, to rankle in it to your dying hourif you would not go down with a load of sorrow insupportable to your grave; fail not, then, while you are yet able, to teach these words diligently to your children, while sitting in your house, while walking by the way, when lying down, when rising up. Dear children, that the hearts of those who love you may never be made thus to bleed for any of you! Thank God, there are those among you who are blest with that first of all earthly blessings-parents to whom, dear as you are to them, the words of their God are dearer; and who let you see that they are.

ment of the Bible.
Yes;
as though
you saw its sacred words upon your door-
posts when you come out, you will not
be seen idling and wasting your time,
throwing stones, playing mischievous
tricks, on your way to school, and as you
return from it and when you enter your
own door again, as though you saw over
it, "Children, obey your parents in the
Lord," you will be sweetly obedient to
them; as though you saw the words
there, "Be kind one to another, tender-
hearted," you will be kind and affectionate
in your intercourse and in your plays with
one another; and instead of seeking to
please yourselves, your constant endeavour
will be to be like Him of whom it is said, as
what of all other things the most distin-
guished him, that he " pleased not himself.

Ah! yes as though you saw upon your hand the words of the God of love, the complaint will not be made, when another is in tears, that it was that hand which was the cause of them-No; nor will an innocent bird be made unhappy by it-no bird, robbed of its young, will have to complain of that hand.

It will be with you, dear young friends, even as it was with him who said, "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? Even by ruling himself after thy word." That word, "when thou goest, it will lead thee; when thou sleepest, it will keep thee; when thou wakest, it will talk with thee."

And you have all of you opportunities of hearing his words from other teachers, in whose own hearts, I pray, they may take deeper and deeper root. And from this place you hear them again and again, Oh! and that you may so hear them, dear children, as to come indeed to know Him whose words they are, as to come to feel the kindness and love of God your Sa-ercised in our several schools. viour, as you can feel the kindness of a friend, and the affection of a parent and that the hope of the home which He has prepared in heaven for you, may be more to you than the enjoyment of the happiest home on earth.

I sometimes think, what a few young persons of such a stamp might not be the means of doing among the rest. And I think of it, not without the hope, but that we may see such an influence ex

Yes; notwithstanding what I know of the taint and poison that there is in one bad boy's conversation and example, yet when I think of Him who "came to destroy the works of the devil," and that he has those who are his among you, I venture even to hope, and shall we not have your prayers for it, mý brethren, that the little leaven may leaven the

Then we shall see you, dear children, as, I trust, we do see some of you already not the sport of youthful lusts and ungoverned passions, but under the govern- | whole lump.

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