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SERMON I.

GOD'S CARE OF CHILDHOOD.

PSALMS, lxxi. 5.

Thou art my trust from my youth.

DEAR children, you have lived but a little while in the world. Yet have you lived long enough to experience much of the kindness of God, your heavenly Father. Attend to me a little while, and I will speak with you of that kindness. Pray too, that while you read, your hearts may melt and overflow with love and thankfulness; and promise that by God's help you will serve, with all your might, Him who has been every day of your life most kindly careful of you.

Now, you can walk about, and take some care of yourselves; but a very little while VOL. II.

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ago, you could not move one step, or put forth your hand to help yourselves. If your house had been on fire you could not have fled away, or if you had been ever so cold or so hungry, you could have done nothing for your food or clothing. Had you been left alone without care and kindness, a few hours would have closed your miserable life. But the unseen God took care of you. He saw your helplessness in the day in which you were born, and he fed you and clothed you and sheltered you and kept you from danger. In those days of ignorance and weakness, you had no need of knowledge, or of feet, or of hands. God gave to your parents a kind and tender feeling towards you; and their minds thought for you; their feet walked for you, and their hands fed and clothed you; their eyes were open to see danger even before it came nigh you, and as they saw it they sheltered you or removed you to a place of safety.

The wisest, strongest, most active and industrious of men, cannot provide for their safety and comfort, better than you were provided for when you had no knowledge and no strength.

Think too of God's care and kindness since you can remember; since you have had a little knowledge and strength, but yet too little to take care of yourselves. I mean not now to speak of that kindness which he has shown to you as to all, in providing so richly the fruits of the earth,*but of the manner in which he has given you your portion of what he has provided for all. Even until this day, you have laid no regular plan to provide for your many wants, and the labour of your hands, which I hope is increasing daily, has done very, very little for you, and yet all your wants are well supplied. "All without your care or payment, all your wants are well supplied." There is skill and labour and kindness in your parents to supply them all. But it is God who gives to your parents a kind feeling towards you, and skill and strength. He continues their health and activity, and makes their business prosperous and their fields fruitful. He preserves them in life, that they may for him take a kind care of you.

*See Sermon IX.

Think, dear children, often, of the kind care of God in keeping sickness away from you, and in healing all your sicknesses. Some of you have been sick, so sick that your friends have expected you to die. But God blessed the means used for your recovery, and restored you again to health. so happy in your lot, as

Some of you have been

scarcely to have suffered pain or sickness. How kindly has God dealt with you all, dear healthy children, in his preventing and in his healing mercy. Look upon sick and dying children-look upon the ricketty and deformed-look upon those who are writhed and tormented with fits-look upon the deaf and dumb who can neither hear nor speak and be thankful-look upon the miserable idiot, see him stray about from door to door, without thought or plan--hear his half spoken words, from his unmeaning tongue, and be thankful for that greatest earthly blessing, "a sound mind in a sound body." O never, never, be so wicked and unthankful as to make sport of the deformed and foolish whom you see around you. Sinful, ungrateful child! what hast thou, that thou hast not received? Thy health, thy limbs, thy well

formed body and thy sound mind, are the gift of God. He made thee to differ from the miserable around. Beware how you offend Him by despising those who suffer affliction.

How richly has God provided blessings for your minds. He made you at first, to be wiser than the brutes which perish. Your parents and your teachers have, ever since you began to speak, been labouring to make you wise. Think of those who grow up around you without teaching, and without government-children of ignorance and evil habits. In many countries, the greater part of the children are not even taught to read. The poor savages in the wilderness many hundred miles westward, are brought up in savage ignorance and savage habits, are wild children and will presently be wild men.

I have already spoken to you of the blessedness of Christian birth and education.* Think often of that blessedness :-of the riches of that mercy to your helpless childhood. If you had been born in a pagan land, you could not have gone away for better teach

See Sermon IX, Vol. I.

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