FORGIVENESS*. "FORGIVE US our trespasses," we pray, as we forgive them that trespass against us." Only think what this means in the mouth of one who is implacable; whose heart has borne any ill-will against his neighbours. Dost thou not forgive thy brother, when thou sayest, "Forgive, as I have forgiven"? Lo, then, thou callest aloud for wrath and everlasting destruction. Dost thou forgive but imperfectly, and not from thine heart? Lo, then, thou askest that God may deal so with thee also; and, unless he utterly forgive thee, where shalt thou be? Cast out of his presence for ever, and dwelling in outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Yet how little impression does this petition of the Lord's prayer, so often repeated, make upon many! Do you all say your prayers night and morning at the least? God forbid that it should not be so! But has none of you, my brethren, ever been full of anger against a brother for two or three, yea, many days, for one offence? How often, then, hast thou prayed in the very words, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us," rather for a curse than for a blessing! Thus do the very prayers of the closet, the solemn duty without which you can hope for no blessing and no forgiveness, condemn you; and your secret words to the Lord shall witness against you, when that which hath been whispered in the closet shall be proclaimed in judgment. And your associated devotions, your family or public prayers, do not they too witness against you more strongly? Have you never left bickering and anger, to come to the throne of grace together with those with whom you have been angry, and then returned to bickering and anger again? Have you never come with flushed cheeks, and with eyes glowing with malice, and with tongues scarcely bushed an instant before, and, in such most unseemly, most wicked guise, joined in the words of the Lord's prayer? and, when you have retired, have not the smoothness of the face, and the momentary softness of the voice, been converted again into what angels would not delight to see and hear? If it be so with any of you, tell me, is it so that you would stand before the Lord in judgment? and, if not, is it so that you ought to meet him in the household worship, or in the divine service of the church? Take heed lest your very prayers, which it would be wicked to omit, be turned into sin! But let me beseech you always, before you kneel down to make your own confessions to God, and especially at your private evening devotions, when the business of the day, with all its irritations, is past, to forgive from your heart all who have offended you, and to make, in solemn intention, as before God, apology and restitution to all whom you have injured or angered. Do not approach God in prayer until you are, as far as depends on yourselves, at peace with all men. And this is a proper exercise for all, young and old, rich and poor, and of whatever temper and disposition. The very child is irritated daily to little bursts of passion and From "Sermons on the Holy Communion." By the rev, G. A. Poole, M.A. impatience, which require to be repented of, and to be forgiven. The passionate man is apt to say that his passion is soon over, and that then he is the best-tempered man alive; which is only so much as to say that when the fuel of his anger is exhausted he is angry no longer; that when he has already satisfied his fury he is peaceable. But this will not stand in judgment before God; nor yet, if he get into a habit of self-examination, will he be satisfied with it himself. Again, one who is hardly provoked to express anger, but nurses his ill-temper in morose silence, perhaps thinks that none has any right to complain of his unforgiving temper, since it is so little suffered to escape in any act and expressions of wrath; but will such a man dare to say that he is prepared to pray, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,' till he has cast off the dark cold temper, and been enabled to look with the smile of real peace on those who have offended him? The rich and polite, again, may think that because their piques and resentments are somewhat differently expressed from the passions of those who are less restrained by conventional habits-that because the current of their anger is rather deep than violent, rather sullen than noisy-they may be excused: but how sadly are they mistaken! Religion regards no forms of society, and has no blessing for smothered anger: it is only anger subdued that she regards with a favourable eye, and injuries forgiven from the heart. It is not the face, and the tongue, and the hand only, but the heart and the spirit that God will have restrained; and he exacts this restraint of all. But what made a city residence almost necessary, and conWe lived in London. My husband's profession fined him very close to his office. signified this? There are happy hearts, and unspeakable enjoyments, in the closest and most crowded streets of a city; and ours was a happy home. For ten years after our marriage we had never tion. Would that we had never thought of leaving left London, except for an occasional day's recreait! But at that time we had two children-boys; and I, foolish as I was, thought that they were delicate that they pined for fresh country air. I said so, and urged my husband; for he, too, I self so close to his office. I urged him to retreat thought, was wearing himself away by keeping himfrom business and London for a few weeks, and take us all in the country for a change of air. I had never proposed any plan to which Mr. Percy was not willing to accede; and he now took pains to gratify me. He could not leave London entirely, he said; but he would look out for a cottage a few miles in the country, to which I might * From "The West Jerseyman." take the boys; and he would come and see us as often as possible. Well, we went into the country; I and my children. It was a pleasant village (at least I thought it pleasant then), about eight miles from our London home; and two or three times a week my husband left business early in the afternoon, to spend the evening with us, and returned early next day. One day-O, I never shall forget that day!I received a note from a friend who lived three or four miles from our cottage, inviting me to spend the day with her. That friend was the mother of our dear LucyI determined to go; and, after the lunch with my boys, I prepared for the walk. I preferred walking there; and my friend had engaged to see me home at night, in her carriage. I had no expectation that my husband would visit us that day. Indeed I believed it impossible that he could, as I knew he had an appointment to keep with some committee that very evening. I had given directions to my servant, and told her that I should not return till late, but had not said whither I was going, and was leaving the door of our cottage, when my youngest boy (a dear little fellow not quite five years old) ran up to me, and asked-" Mother, where are you going?" I evaded the question; for I feared the boys would wish to go with me, if I should mention the name of Mrs. and I had made up my mind to go alone. But Willy clung to my hand, and in his winning way said: "You must not go, mother, without telling me where you are going." And his brother ran out, and put the question in another way: "Are you going to London to see father?" Unguardedly, thoughtlessly, and yet, O how criminally! I answered, "Yes, yes, to be sure; I am going to London." Little did I anticipate the train of miseries which followed on that answer. How could I? More than once during my walk the thought obtruded itself that I had deceived my children; and I felt ill at ease. Had I even then listened to the reproofs of conscience, foregone my anticipated pleasure, and returned to undeceive them, all would have been well. But I quieted myself with some wretched sophistry: I have not told an untruth: I am going to London, but not to-day: I did not say I was going to-day. I had my pleasure-the last day of pleasure I ever enjoyed in this world, or shall enjoy, even though I live a hundred years; and I then returned. It was about nine o'clock. I found my boys out of their beds; and the first question they put to me was, "Did father find you?" "Father find me? Father find me? What do you mean? and why are you not in bed ?" I replied. The story was soon told. My husband had arrived at the cottage about an hour after I had left it, and was told that I had gone to London; that I was walking thither even then; that I had received a letter that morning which I put into my pocket, and that I seemed in a great hurry to go after the letter came. On hearing this, my husband, according to our servant's account, seemed troubled, and instantly, without waiting for refreshment or rest, returned, leaving word that he would be back with me, and that our boys might sit up till we came, if it were not very late. All was mysterious to me except that part of the account which related to my deception. I could understand that, alas! too well. But as to why Mr. Percy had come so early in the day, or how he could have come at all, I could not understand, or why he should be so anxious to see me. I did not wait long in suspense. The sound of wheels was soon heard: a hackney coach drew up to the door, and my husband sprang out. His first exclamation was one of thankfulness that he had at length found me. His first question was, "Dear wife, where have you been?" My account was soon given. "But," said he, "the boys told me that you had gone to London.' "Oh," I said, "that was a mistake." "But mother," interposed Henry, our eldest boy, you did say you were going to London." I did not reply; for I saw that my husband looked terribly fatigued, and very anxious; and I busied myself in doing something for comfort, and then put the boys to bed. And then came my husband's explanation. He, too, received a letter that fatal morning, of far more importance than mine-a letter that he thought required my consideration, as well as his own; and, setting aside all other business, he hastened to consult me. There was no available mode of conveyance to the village at that time unless he had chosen to hire a coach; and, had there been, perhaps he would have preferred walking. At all events, he did walk, and that hastily. It was a hot summer's day; but this would not so much have mattered had he found me at the cottage, or even had he known certainly where I was to be found. Even if I had left no message as to whither I was going, no harm might have arisen, for then he would have thought of our friend and have sought me at her house. But, my unhappy, my wicked deceit. O it was that did all the mischief! The instant he was told that I had received a letter, and had almost immediately after started for London, he became troubled, anxious lest some bad news had arrived from a quarter unknown to him, and hurried back still more hastily than he had walked from London, hoping to reach the city as soon as myself. He wondered that we had not met; but it was possible we had taken different paths on some part of the journey. When my husband reached London he found himself exhausted and unwell with the very hot, long, and fatiguing walk; and he became nervously excited when he found that I had not reached home before him. He waited impatiently for some time, too much disturbed both by the pressing business which had caused his unexpected visit, and by my unaccountable absence, to take the refreshment he so much needed. After waiting for some time in great and increasing suspense, he went to another of our London friends, imagining the possibility of my being found there nothing doubting the reality of my journey to London. How was he to doubt it? he asked. Had I not explicitly told our boys that I was going thither? and had I ever deceived him or them? At length, distressed beyond measure by the joint effects of disappointed anxiety, business engagements, and bodily fatigue and sickness, my husband once more reached his office, and, finding that I did not make my appearance, determined to take a coach, and returned to the cottage with the vague hope that he had misunderstood me. Thus ended this terrible day-terrible at least in its consequences. I must pass over, continued Mrs. Percy, the remainder of my history as briefly as I can. I dare not dwell upon it. That night, instead of enjoying the rest he so much needed, my husband complained of pain and weariness. The following day his sufferings increased: we sent for a physician. It was putrid fever. The infection might have been taken from the coach in which Mr. Percy travelled. We never ascertained whether or not it was so. But were this the case or not, mine was the guilt, and mine has been the punishment. My husband died. Poor little Willy was the next victim, and then his brother. In less than a month from the day of that vile falsehood, I had neither husband nor son. DUTY OF PARENTS TO CHILDREN.* LET us turn to the duty of parents towards their children, which is the burden of the words of my text. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it " Here, then, we have from this same book of divine wisdom a principle laid down for us, which we all of us, I am sure, at once acknowledge to be the only right course for a parent's dealings with his children; and yet how often are these lessons of wisdom sacrificed by parents to the feelings of the moment! "Train up a child in the way he should go." How much is implied in these words! The whole education of the child, the training and fashioning and moulding of the heart and mind of that little child, whom God Almighty has given us as a precious trust, an immortal being, a being that shall never die eternally, given into the parent's hands, for them to cherish and to train its body and its soul too, a task difficult indeed, and from which the parents might indeed shrink, had not God implanted in their breast that affection and that love which makes their children's happiness their happiness, their children's misery their misery, which renders them ready to make any sacrifice, if they may but advance what is dearer to them than any earthly enjoyment-the good, the temporal and eternal welfare of those little ones, whom God has given them. But, alas! it is to be feared that this latter branch of a parent's duty, this that should far outweigh every other consideration, the care of the eternal welfare of their children; it is to be feared that this is not attended to by many parents as it ought the worldly good of their children they are zealous enough to secure, because they From a sermon, preached in the parish church of Silverton, at the opening of the Silverton National Girls' School, on the Epiphany, 1848. By the rev. H. Tripp, M.A., fellow of Worcester college, Oxford. Exeter: Henry John Wallis. 1848. themselves so highly value it; but the spiritual good of the child, its eternal welfare, they cannot indeed but take some steps to promote; but do they as diligently watch over it, as earnestly labour to secure it, as they do, zealously indeed, endeavour to secure its worldly happiness? And yet it is a work which should always be had in view throughout the whole course of infancy, childhood, and boyhood; through all its tender years should the child's character be trained as carefully and as tenderly as the happiness of an immortal soul is precious in our eyes. Remember, that "the child is father of the man," and that the evil propensities and vices of the man, be it avarice, or selfishness, or other vices, will, more or less, show themselves in the child; and it is the parent's duty to endeavour to expel them, or counteract them, ere they have struck too deep a root. "Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right" (Prov. xx.). "Chasten thy son while there is hope," says Solomon; "and let not thy soul spare for his crying." "What son is he," says St. Paul, "whom the father chasteneth not?" "Indulge thy child," says the wise son of Sirach, "and he shall make thee afraid: play with him, and he will bring thee to heaviness." The future good of the child both in this world and in the world to come, must be regarded by every parent in his serious moments as inestimably of greater value than the short-lived pleasure the child may derive from some improper indulgence. How difficult then, how responsible is the task the parent finds before him! What a struggle of contending feelings, true deeply rooted love combating with present ease and present inclination, agitating the parent's breast! What a conflict must be waged in the parent's path of duty between those ever-clashing interests, the present and the future: the one appealing to all that is pleasant, and the weakness of man's nature, the other sternly bidding him look to the distant and the future; bidding him look beyond this world to interests which are eternal. And have the parents no help? Yes, God be praised, they have. Yes, my brethren, the cause that I advocate this day, the exhortation I am endeavouring to address to you now from this place, is, we may humbly hope, some proof to you that you are not left alone in your work; that you are not single-handed it shows you that God's providence watches over you, and is ever ready to help your infirmities: it encourages you to do your part, rich and poor, one with another; bids you go forward in faith and hope; bids you make your offerings to supply in some measure the earthly means whereby the children of this parish -those at least who have been hitherto but inadequately provided for, the little girls of this parishwhereby they may be trained up in habits of industry, and be taught their duty to God, and to their neighbour. Let not a parent think, however, that this care which will be taken of the child when under the school-roof is to supersede, is to render unnecessary the watchful care and superintendence of the parents when the child is under their roof; far from it: home and school must work together, must instil, must endeavour to implant in the child the same sense of duty, and to teach the same practical lesson, whether by example or by precept. Let the parent co-operate with, work with, support the teacher, as the teacher in her turn is strengthening the bands of parental authority by teaching the children to love, honour, and succour their parents, and basing that love, that honour, that succour upon the only sure foundation, upon religion, upon the word of God. And, as I said before, we should carry out this fifth commandment to its full extent in our teaching, for upon it depends not only our domestic duties, but all social order, and the happiness or misery of society; for the true happiness, the peace, the unity, the good order of a country, of a city, or of a parish, depends mainly upon this, upon the manner in which superiors and inferiors, those who are above, and those who are below, discharge their several duties towards each other. Let children be taught this, and not only taught, but taught to practise those duties which the catechism puts before them, and then what peace and order would be spread throughout the land! Would they not then be obedient to their parents, loyal to their sovereign, submissive to their spiritual pastors, and to their masters, ordering themselves lowly and reverently to their betters? Let it be our especial care then to train our children in this good old path, and we shall not then have failed to do good in our generation; and it is a well-ascertained fact that, in the case of the riots that took place in the manufacturing districts four or five years ago, not one person who had been connected with a churchschool was to be found among the rioters; for there, as in church, they would be taught to pray God to "deliver them from all sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion, from all false doctrine, heresy, and schism, from hardness of heart, and contempt of God's word and commandment ;" but, while we teach children to lead a sober, righteous, and godly life, we would likewise teach them those habits of industry, and those industrial employments, which would fit them for those situations which their parents might design or appoint for them. Let us not endeavour indeed to educate people above their station, but rather let us endeavour to furnish them with such sound instruction, and so to train them in good habits of industry and sobriety that they may "learn and labour truly to get their own living, and to do their duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call them." Poetry. THE RAGGED SCHOOL. Boy, of wan and abject look, Pause not there is nought to fear; Enter freely: 'tis for thee, Born sin's lowest haunts among, Train'd to falsehood, theft, and wrong; Taught the felon's course to take; Far away be doubt or fear : Fain to crouch 'neath desk or stool- Though poor outcast children they, List'ning while, with patience meek, Friends who practise kindness' rule SACRED SONNETS. (For the Church of England Magazine). ROSA. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth.”—JOHN iii. 8. MYSTERIOUS phantom! in thy wild career Rushing and bounding o'er the mountain's height, Making the foam-wreathed cataract more bright, Its course more glorious when thy power is near : Free spirit, wandering in shadowy flight Through pathless clouds, reckless and heedless how Thy viewless spell may in its fury biight And lay the glory of the forest low, We hear thy mystic music wildly shake The lofty trees, seeming a hymn to raise To the Most High, whose power alone can make |