IV. PRAYER FOR CHILDREN.

Parent and child! What human relation so momentous! What tie so intimate! What affection so universally strong and lasting! No other attachment impels to deeds so heroic, and to language so touching, or makes itself so widely felt in human society. Children are hostages to the God of Abraham and the God of nations. By every child, the parent is laid under bonds, heavier than the highest ransom ever paid by man for man, to observe all laws, human and divine. The child is one's-self transplanted. In the child, the parent outlives himself, and onward, from generation to generation, is to have a memorial on earth.

It is taken for granted that the great aim of every parent should be to train the child for the most effi cient service of God here and hereafter; that nothing short of early conversion and subsequent growth in grace to the highest degree, may be thought of; that any system of education which does not proceed upon the acknowledged principle of complete dedication to God is just as unscriptural and defective as the professed piety in which there are selfish reservations. So far as instrumentality can go in effecting it, parents are bound to see to it that their children become children of God, rich in faith and in holy living.

Here, if anywhere, is prayer demanded. No sooner has a helpless immortal been ushered into the world than it should be acknowledged as the Lord's. God has breathed into that tender framework the breath of life,

and there is a living soul which shall survive the pa ternal home where the little stranger has made its appearance, yes, the great tabernacle of this world, where dwell the family of man from age to age. How many hours it is to remain here, who can tell? Then let prayer to the Father of spirits be its welcome. The parents of the Rev. Dr. Finley, soon after the birth of each child, were accustomed to set apart a day for prayer that it might be an heir of eternal life. They had the happiness of seeing their eight children, seven of whom were sons, distinguished for piety in youth, and growing in grace as age increased.

As months and years pass, it should be with a confirmed habit of supplication for the child, fast ripening to the period of mature responsibility. Each birthday, each New Year's day, and every important anniversary, as it occurs, should be devoutly improved, in addition to the more frequent and stated times for parental prayer. Often as the child leaves home for school, for a visit or other purposes, and in returning from the same, let the heart rise to God in his behalf.

To a father or mother, watchful for such seasons, there will occur on the Sabbath, and at other times, opportunities peculiarly favorable for a serious and impressive inculcation of divine truth, and for earnest appeal to the throne of grace. With what familiarity and plainness can a parent then address the mind of a listening child, or the whole parlor auditory! Often will happy moments be found for setting home the allimportant lessons of heavenly wisdom, and for securing a blessing from the Father of mercies. Those favorable junctures, those Sabbath hours in a child's

soul, — how can any one fail to improve such genial seasons for sowing the good seed, and for calling down the dews and rains of heaven upon it!

Praying habitually with children is indirectly the most powerful of all means for their conversion. What can so reasonably be expected to impress the tender heart, as warm, familiar supplications by a father or mother kneeling beside the child? Cotton Mather says, "When the children are of a suitable age for it, I will sometimes have them with me alone, and converse with them about the state of their souls, and then pray with them, carnestly entreating that the Lord would bestow his grace upon them, and thus make them witnesses of the agony with which I am travailing to see the image of Christ formed in them." To have the susceptible minds of our children imbathed thus in the atmosphere of heaven, - what is there so delightful, so hopeful to contemplate! The biography of the church is crowded with illustrations of the power of such influence.

Listening to the fervent prayers of Richard Knill, for parents and children, and his earnest appeals to them some years ago in Chester, England, the writer was led to inquire whether that devout man did not enjoy peculiar favors in pious nurture. His own answer is, "I have a vivid recollection of the effects of maternal influence. My honored mother was a religious woman, and she watched over and instructed me as pious mothers are accustomed to do. Alas! I often forgot her admonitions; but in my most thoughtless days I never lost the impressions which her holy example had made on my mind. After spending a large

portion of my life in foreign lands, I returned again to visit my native village. At night I was accommodated with the same bed in which I had often slept before; but my busy thoughts would not let me sleep. I was thinking how God had led me through the journey of life. At last, the light of the morning darted through the little window, and then my eye caught sight of the spot where my sainted mother, forty years before, took my hand, and said, 'Come, my dear, kneel down with me, and I will go to prayer.' This completely overcame me. I seemed to hear the very tones of her voice. I recollected some of her expressions, and I burst into tears, arose from my bed, and fell upon my knees, just on the spot where my mother kneeled, and thanked God that I had a praying mother. And oh! if every parent could feel what I felt then, I am sure they would pray with their children as well as for them." He has since rested from his labors, labors under which, it is said, more than one hundred were converted who became ministers, most of whom now occupy pulpits, or are engaged in the missionary work. The tracts written by him have a larger circulation than those of any other man, more than six millions of them having been printed in England, and more than seven millions in the United States; while some of them have been translated in ten different languages. What a harvest from a mother's prayers!

Dr. Doddridge resolved, -would that all parents might so resolve!"As a father, it shall be my care to intercede for my children daily; to converse with them often upon some religious subject; to drop some short hints of the serious kind when there is not room

for large discourse; to pray sometimes with them separately; to endeavor to bring them early to the communion of the church."

With how much earnestness should these petitions. go up to the Mercy-Scat! What parent, reflecting for a moment on the condition and prospects of an unconverted child, will not be impelled to the most intense entreaties! "Arise, cry out in the night; in the beginning of the watches pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord; lift up thine hands toward him for the life of thy young children."

Here, too, as in other departments of intercessory prayer, the reflex influence is of great importance. Often do fathers and mothers find themselves tempted to relax their steady pursuit of the highest aim in training children. Often are they tempted to yield to the seductive influence of parental ambition, and to tolerate amusements and companionship that are questionable, or are known to be pernicious. What will bring such a corrective and fortifying power as habitual prayer for one's offspring?

V. PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.

Our broad, national domain lifts up her hands, crying, Pray ye the Lord of the harvest! Whole continents, and many an island of the sea, waving for the sickle, send over their cry, like the voice of many waters, Pray ye the Lord of the harvest! As eighteen hundred years ago on earth, so to-day in glory, our gracious Lord, seeing the multitudes, is moved