life's brief and uncertain day. To her only surviving brother she said, "Soon shall I learn the' exalted strains The glowing seraphs round the throne." During the reading of several of these exquisite stanzas, and especially those of the hymn, "How happy every child of grace," &c.,she repeatedly exclaimed, "Praise God! praise God!" She then resumed her truly spiritual discourse. "Earth," said she, "is very bright and beautiful: I have had many friends, and innumerable blessings. But heaven is to me far more attractive." To her fondly attached relatives she observed, "You don't know how much I have loved you. I was so constituted that I could not show you how much." But Christ was nearer and dearer than father, sister, or brother. "My heart," she continued, "seems lately to have been greatly enlarged, and to have found new avenues for love. For some time Christ has been the magnet, and I have loved others for His sake." She touchingly referred to her class. "I have had many precious seasons with the members. Often have I felt painfully my own unworthiness; but Christ has been my sufficiency, and I trust that seed has been sown there which will yield fruit at the judgment-day." But the class was now to pass into other hands, and she gave it in charge (according to an arrangement which had been made) to a friend and fellow-labourer, saying, "I could have wished to lead it longer, had I lived: but I feel quite easy to leave it in Christ's care and yours. You will attend to the members; their souls are very precious. Give my love to them all, and tell them I prove the reality of religion,-its sufficiency to support in a dying hour; and bid them all so to live that we may meet in heaven." In the course of the evening she wished to be left quite alone for some minutes, during which she was earnestly engaged in communing with that Saviour whom she expected so soon to see face to face. On the return of her friends, it was manifest that she retained her unruffled peace of mind, and abounding joy in the Holy Ghost. Her heart and her flesh were now failing; but God was "the strength of her heart," and she exulted in the privilege of being thus early called to enjoy Him as her "portion for ever." After a brief silence, she said, quoting, in part, Dr. Adam Clarke's memorable words," I see at no great distance the dawn of a new day; the first of a spring that shall be eternal. Happy! happy! everlasting spring!" When visited on this night by her pastors, she replied to their kindly inquiries, “I shall soon realize the beatific vision. I am very unworthy, but Christ is very precious. He is my Saviour, now and for ever. His blood cleanseth me from all sin." At once she entered on the mortal struggle; but, undismayed, she recited,— "What, what is this, that steals upon my frame? Is it death? If this be death, I soon shall be I shall the King of glory see: All is well, all is well ! " As though the heavenly convoy were already in attendance, waiting to conduct her to the skies, she went on to repeat,— "Hark! they whisper; angels say, 'Sister spirit, come away!'" Then, in reply to the whispered invitation, she rejoined, "I come! I come! 'Lend, lend your wings! I mount, I fly; O grave, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?"" Just as the pearly gates were opening to receive her blood-washed spirit, a friend said, "Christ is precious to you now." She replied, "O, very-very! Praise God! Praise!" That glad and grateful exclamation, begun on earth, was completed in heaven. She saw Him whom, having not seen, she had loved; and, in tones which mortals might not hear, she sang His praise. Thus sweetly she expired, on Wednesday, February 20th, 1861, aged thirty-one years. By her decease, the circle of her immediate relatives has lost a light and ornament; the church, one of its most precious members; the world, a benefactress. But the regions of bliss have gained a new inhabitant. Another gem has gone to adorn the diadem of the enthroned Saviour, "the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God;" to whom "be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen." WHAT HINDERS THE SALVATION OF CHILDREN? REPLY BY THE LATE STEPHEN OLIN, D.D. 1. THE first obstacle is the want of such family government as is most favourable to domestic religion. In many families the parental authority is never fully acknowledged, and the daily life is spent in an endless struggle between coercion and resistance, or forced and reluctant obedience. The family institution is a Divine ordinance, obviously designed as a preparatory school for such a training of childhood as shall best fit it for the reception of religious truth, and the performance of religious duties. It is a period of physical weakness, and absolute dependence upon the parent; when the heart is impressible, and the mind plastic; when the powers of imitation are strong and active; and when unlimited confidence is reposed in the truth and propriety of parental inculcations. Over this period of human life, the laws of society, no less than the laws of heaven, make the parent's authority supreme....... Almost everything depends on pre-occupying the soul with right habits, of which none is so intimately connected with favourable religious development as the habit of obedience to legitimate authority.......Every parent who fails of establishing this unquestionable dominion over his child, does in the same degree entail upon him a curse of fearful omen. He fosters the inborn enmity of the heart to the claims of religion; and so strengthens its opposition to the government of God, that the usual agencies of the Gospel are very likely to prove ineffectual for the great ends of piety and salvation. That this dereliction of parental faithfulness is one of the most common as well as inveterate hindrances to conversion, all experience and observation offer their concurrent testimony. It may be laid down as a Christian axiom, that the rebellious spirit which refuses obedience to parents will be the last to render it to God. 2. The general tone and spirit of some religious families are such as to neutralize the influence of the parents' piety, and counteract their efforts to cultivate piety in their children. There is always some interest, or excitement, more prevalent and intense than religion. In some families, it is the pursuit of wealth; in some, vanity, or pride, or petty rivalries; a desire to out-do, or out-dress, or out-shine a neighbour; envy, or irritation, or hostility, provoked by the fair name and prosperity of others; a striving to lower or supplant them; a silly ambition to be intimate with the rich or fashionable, and to introduce the young people into what is called, often preposterously enough, good society, and to secure for them advantageous alliances. It makes little difference what may for the time be the dominant interest; every child in the house understands it, and learns to sympathize with it for childhood comprehends the parents' sentiments, passions, and antipathies, long before it can comprehend their moral teachings. Every one perceives and feels what is most thought of, most felt, by the parent; and that, whatever that something is, it is not religion. Now, it is in accordance with a well-known law of the human mind, that the stronger emotion, excitement, or interest, rules and expels the weaker. Two powerful sentiments cannot co-exist and operate upon the human mind at the same time....The spiritual achievements [we seek] require that the atmosphere of domestic piety be pure, and 'genial, and fervid; radiant with heavenly hopes, instinct with benevolence, redolent with charity. Religion must dwell serene and supreme in the bosom of the domestic empire. It must subordinate all other interests and aspirations, and have authority to say to every passion, "Be still." Then may it be able to come into the heart of childhood and youth with a graceful, grateful welcome. 3. Christian education is often thwarted in its aims by its want of sympathy with the church. We have no fellowship with much of the sentimental nonsense put forth so profusely now-a-days on this subject: still, we cannot say less of the church of Christ, than that it is a holy institution for the edification and training of all who look to Jesus, the Mediator, for grace and eternal life. Its teachings, its sacraments, its worship, its discipline, are, in the design of its great Founder, effective means of grace. The unction of the Holy One, and the power of the Highest, reside in them, and operate through them. The church is the house of God, and the gate of heaven. Thither the tribes go up to worship, and take their wives and little ones to offer up sacrifices, and keep holy day. The connexion between the public ordinances of religion and its private agencies, though but little thought of by many Christians, yet is exceedingly intimate and important; so important, that neither home training nor Sunday-school inculcations are likely to attain any saving efficacy without it. I think we do not generally find children to become truly pious without the superaddition of solemnities of the sanctuary to the lessons of the parent and the lay teacher. The good seed thus sown in the tender mind wants, in order to its germination and growth, the genial dews and showers that fall nowhere else so plentifully as on Mount Zion. There the pleasure of the Lord delights to dwell; and it will be the glory of this man, and that, that he was born there. Now, the power of the church to awaken into spiritual life and fruitfulness the good principles implanted in the mind by parental teaching, will be always very nearly as the respect, reverence, and love, with which its ministrations and ordinances are regarded in the family circle. Think, then, what must be the baleful influence of the captious, fault-finding, unloving spirit, cherished by so many parents, and by their children of course, (for such faults are, above others, family faults,) toward the church, its teachings, and ordinances. Some professors, who give the ordinary evidences of piety, continue to be always in a state of dissatisfaction, and send their disaffection toward their brethren and pastor. Neither their families nor their neighbours hear much on this subject, besides regrets and complaints. This or that member is always wrong; or, perhaps, the church itself is tainted with some radical evil-by a vicious polity, or unsound principles, or bad administration. The pastor, it may be, is more faulty still. He lacks eloquence, or pathos, or industry, or humility, or manners. He is loud, or slow, or ungainly.......It follows, from so many grievous imperfections, that decline, apostasy, and ruin cannot be long in coming. If they do come, this croaker ought to know that, whoever is to blame, he will not be held guiltless. He, above all others, weakens the hands that already hang down, and loosens the very foundations, which, if he augurs right, were already about to be swept away. But the chief calamity is about to be felt in his household. The ministry, so held up to dishonour in the presence of his children, loses all authority and efficiency, at least for them. They will crave no part, and cherish no faith, in its teachings or its prayers. The atmosphere of a church so exceptionable and fallen will be to them a tainted medium, from which they will imbibe no sanitary, vital aliment. Their teeth are set on edge, because their parents eat sour grapes; and the house of the Lord has neither comfort, nor grace, nor beauty for them. Conversions in such a family would be miracles indeed, whatever the skill or fidelity of parental training. But, apart from the captiousness of those whose strongest ground of dissatisfaction with the Christian church is precisely its fidelity in enforcing evangelical doctrines and morals, it must be confessed that the real imperfections of its piety constitute a great obstacle in the way of the godly training and early conversion of children. The church does not labour earnestly for this result, does not pray for it; though that is really the most important of its sacred functions, and its chief reliance for growth and efficiency....... The real efficiency of the church resides with a few, whose moral forces are nearly exhausted in bearing the burdens, and counteracting the malign influences, of the imperfect, halting piety of our average Christianity. We therefore lack the pure, fervid atmosphere which is adapted to nurture and invigorate the spiritual life in all who inhale it.......Does anyone suspect that Christianity accomplishes in our day all that it is adapted and intended to achieve for mankind? Four-fifths of the population of our most evangelized communities live and die unconverted. Little less than a moiety (one-half) of the children of our Christian families fall into the ranks of an impenitent, unregenerate world. Shall it be so evermore? Shall Christ never see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied? Is Satan to triumph to the end? The actual type of our Christianity is especially deficient in those attributes which are adapted to exert the greatest power over the early period 3 R VOL. X.-FIFTH SERIES. |