not some of you teach a school of girls? Could not those who have much to do, yet be the instructors of one helpless child? for one is an important object-it has an immortal soul.

Young Females, who have been early taught of God-here is employment for you too. Your affectionate tenderness gives you a peculiar fitness for the work. Many of you have leisure; many of you have influence; undertake the pleasing though arduous task. Account it an honour to be employed in his service: look up to him for aid; he will help you, and crown your endeavours with success.

Rich disciples of Jesus, you are called on to aid this good work. Your wealth gives you influence, and opportunities of being useful. Employ it for God. Let the rising generation have your active labours. Assist with your opulence, and relieve the wants of the needy. A decent garment will prevail on the poor scholar to attend with pleasure, and will convince him that you regard his present comfort before he is sensible that you are seeking his eternal felicity. In a variety of ways, you have it in your power to secure the children's good will, and to engage them to listen to your counsel.

Above all, Parents-this subject claims your most serious consideration. In giving you children, God has given you a charge of intinite importance, to which is annexed the most awful responsibility. The reflection that immortal souls are entrusted to your care, and that you must give an account of your stewardship at the judgment day, may well rouse the most careless from his slumbers. Hear the voice of Jehovah himself, speaking to you, both in the Old Testament and in the New. By his servant Moses, he thus addresses parents under the ancient dispensation, Deut. vi. 6, 7, "These words which I command thee-thou shalt teach diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." The spirit of Jesus in the New, delivers the same injunction by the Apostle Paul, Eph. vi. 4. "Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." King Solomon, writing by the same authority, enforces the command by a powerful motive, Prov. xxii. 6. "Train up a child in the

way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Set the commands of God, and the worth of your children's souls before you; they unite in representing the magnitude of the duty to which you are called. The work of instruction should commence as soon as the infant mind is capable of receiving it: and continue from year to year, united with and enforced by example, precept, restraint, and prayer. All this ought to be done under the influence of this consideration, that you are training up immortal souls for an eternal state. Have ye, O parents, discharged your duty thus and are you still thus discharging it? If conscience bears testimony that you are, bless God who has enabled you to be faithful; and persevere with renewed vigour and affection, and with dependance on him for his blessing. Have any parents become lukewarm, though they continue their instruction? Should immortal souls be treated so? Dull formality here-how incongruous and shocking! Cry to God for mercy. Some may be satisfied with their children's learning a catechism by rote, and consider all as done. But is this a rational instruction in the principles of christianity? It is but the shadow of instruction. But many parents must stand convicted by their own consciences, that they have neglected the religious instruction of their children, and that their anxiety for their eternal salvation is not to be compared with what they feel for their temporal welfare. How will they answer to God for their neglect? How thankful for the help, which is proffered, should such persons be? Let them embrace it, and second it with all their authority and all their influence. They may have reason to rejoice in these advantage, they and their children, to all eternity.

Listen to the word of exhortation, all ye disciples of Jesus, whom he hath animated with love to precious souls, and let it produce the peaceable fruits of righteousness. Ye say, 'we are not our own, but his.' Remember then that you are bound to glorify him in your body, and in your spirit, which are his.

Has he bestowed on you gifts which may be useful to your fellow creatures? For what purpose were they bestowed? To please yourselves? To make you appear superior to others? to gratify pride? No; but that you may glorify God, and promote the happiness of your neighNo. XXVIII. 21-3

bour. Why does God entrust a man with five talents? Is it, that he may squander them away, or hide them in a napkin? Is it not that he may gain five talents more? Is Abraham blessed of Jehovah? It is, that he may be a blessing to others. Is Paul endowed with a rich variety of gifts and graces? He feels himself on this account a debtor to Jew and Gentile, to Greek and Barbarian, to bond and free. Does Jesus himself appear as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth? it is that in him all the families of the earth may be blessed. Let the same mind be in you which was in these ancient believers, and in Christ himself. Remember that whosoever has the power dó good has a call to do good, from him who gave the power; obey his voice, and let him not observe you to be slothful servants. The cause admits of no delay.

to

Besides the motives arising from the worth of souls, which are common to every age, should not the warnings, which God, in the awful dispensations of his Providence, has spoken in thunder to every man who has ears to hear, and a heart to perceive, be listened to with reverence?

Whence came that confusion and distress of nations which have occasioned such perplexity in the world, and made men's hearts to fail them, for fear? Whence the multiplied miseries which have spread themselves far and wide on the face of the earth? Those who look at inferior causes only, will ascribe it, some to one thing, others to another. But trace the evil to its source, and it will be found to originate in ignorance and wickedness. Whence these wars and fightings? Come they not, says God, the Maker and Judge of 'man, even from your lusts which war in your members, and from those evil passions which ignorance and wickedness have engendered and nourished? And in whatever proportion these prevail in any country, they threaten strife, confusion, misery, and every evil work. The justness of this reasoning is confirmed by many mournful facts. The Bishop of Killaloe, in a sermon he preached before the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, on the 24 of November, 1798, after describing the miseries of that devoted country, adds, "I will no longer dwell upon these painful recollections, but draw from them the following conclusion, that all the evils which we have suffered, we have drawn upon our selves by neglecting, as we have done, the morals and religion

of the people; and that if we do not actively and immediately turn from that way, we but postpone the hour of destruction." He then recommends the diffusion of knowledge and instruction as the remedy for the disease, of which ignorance was the first cause. Follow his counsel; and where can you better begin the work than with the rising generation? These motives receive peculiar force from the shortness and uncertainty of your continuance in the present world. There may remain but a small portion of life for you to glorify God in, and to do good to precious souls. Consider how little has been done in time past, and what poor blushing reflections the review of your life will furnish through eternity. And should not this stimulate to every exertion you can possibly make, for teaching the statutes of Jehovah, and the grace of Christ to the rising generation?

Let every heart then be lifted up in prayer for success; let every hand take hold of the plough to break up the fallow-ground; and the sower follow with the precious seed of evangelical truth. The harvest may indeed not be just at hand, nor the effects of your labour immediately seen. But, though slow, they are sure and permanent, and delightful beyond expression. You may therefore "go forth with joy; for the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands."

To conclude. If the plan be adopted by all good men, and pursued to the extent to which it may easily be carried; there is little reason to doubt but that, in the space of twenty years, its beneficial effects will be seen and felt in a manner abundantly above what we can well conceive. Our country will have a larger portion of truly intelligent, good, and virtuous inhabitants, than it ever could boast of: society, more industrious, benevolent, prosperous, and happy members; the church of the Redeemer, a far greater number of judicious and exemplary Christians than England ever saw; and knowledge, virtue, and piety, will be extended to a degree which they never yet attained. Happy the people that is in such a case; yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord.”

66

Extract from Dr. Watts.

age

"THE children of the present age are the hope of the to come. We, who are now acting in the busy scenes of life, are hasting off the stage apace; months and days are sweeping us away from the business and surface of this earth, and continually laying some of us asleep under ground. The circle of thirty years will plant another generation in our room another set of mortals will be the chief actors in all the greater or lesser affairs of this life, and will fill the world with blessings or with mischiefs, when our heads lie low in the dust.

"Shall we not then consider with ourselves, what can we do now to prevent those mischiefs, and to entail blessings on our successors? What shall we do to secure wisdom, goodness and religion among the next generation of men? Have we any concern for the glory of God in the rising age, any solicitude for the propagation of virtue and happiness to those who shall stand up in our stead? Let us then hearken to the voice of God and of Solomon, and we shall learn how this may be done: the all-wise God, and the wisest of men, join to give us this advice: "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."

BAXTER.

THIS great man said some years before he died, that he esteemed Catechising to be so necessary and useful, that he would be contented to spend the remaining part of his life in that work, though he should do nothing else.

BOYLE

"I THINK the rectifying the education of youth to be a thing so important, that till it please God to awaken men to a greater sense than they yet have of the necessity and usefuluess of that, I shall scarce expect such reformation,as I wish, either of men's principles or manners.”

ANDOVER:

PRINTED FOR THE NEW ENGLAND TRACT SOCIETY

BY FLAGG AND GOULD.

1820.

[5th edit. 6000.