by you; but my self-reproaches are now unavailing; I deservedly perish; but my blood be upon the head of those that neglected me!" Ah, cruel parents indeed, who neglect the religious education of their children; more cruel, in some respects, than Herod; he slew the bodies of children, these murder souls; he murdered the children of others, these murder their own; he employed the agency of his servants, these do the work of slaughter themselves!

3. Do you regard your own comfort? Do you love yourselves? Are you anxious to avoid painful and incessant solicitude, bitter reflection, domestic disquietude, dreadful foreboding? Then bring up your children with the most unvarying regard to their religious character. Should God crown your efforts with success, what a harvest of joys will you reap, even in this world! When you see your children enter the paths of wisdom, "Thank God," you will exclaim, “my highest ambition has at length reached its object. My children are decided Christians. I am now no longer distressingly anxious for their future prospects in this life. In one way or other, God will provide for them. And as to eternity, they are safe." Who can describe the pure, elevated felicity, with which such parents mark the course of their children, in going from strength to strength in their progress to Zion! What a season of delight is that, when they publicly assume the profession of a Christian, and connect themselves with the church! What joy is felt on beholding them at their side at the table of the Lord, and holding communion with them in the joys of faith and the anticipations of eternity! And what satisfaction is experienced in seeing them enrolling their names as the friends of God and man, and giving their support to those institutions which are formed to promote the highest interests of the human race! As they grow in experience, in usefulness, in respectability in the church, the parents' joy and gratitude are continually increasing, and they feel the honour of having sent such members into the fellowship of the faithful.. Should God, in the mysteries of his providence, remove them by an early death, you will be cheered, amidst the agonies of separation, by their dying consolation;

their piety will wipe away your tears, and be a balm to the wounds of your mind; and when they have departed, you will solace yourselves with the healing thought, that they are gone to that world of glory in which you will soon be reunited with them. Or should the order of nature be observed, and you precede them to the tomb, will not their presence and attentions in your dying chamber, be more soothing by the consideration, that they are so many saints, as well as children, ministering to your comfort? Will not their piety give a sanctity and a sweetness to all the offices of their affection? "I die," will be your expression, as, like departing Jacob, you address yourselves to them, "but God will be with you, and we shall meet again where there will be no more death."

But should you unhappily neglect their religious education, and they, through your inattention, should grow up without any due sense of the claims of God, is there not a danger of their becoming immoral, as well as irreligious? And how could you bear to witness, or to hear of their profligacy and vice, if, at the same time, you were conscious that it was in a measure through your neglect? Perhaps they may be unkind and disobedient to you; for God may justly render that child a scourge to his parent, whose parent did not train him up in the ways of religion. O, what scenes of domestic misery, what heart-rending spectacles of confusion and wretchedness, have profligate children occasioned in the families to which they belong! How many have thus had their hearts suddenly broken, or their gray hairs brought down by the slow process of withering sorrow to the grave! and the sting of all this, in some cases, has been the consciousness of parental neglect. No sin more heavily punishes itself than this, nor mingles for its subject a more bitter cup. But, then, the eternal consequences, oh, the eternal consequences of this neglect ! See the heart-stricken parent wringing his hands over the dying youth, who is departing without repentance. No, not a syllable escapes his lips that sounds like penitence; the father weeps, and prays, and entreats, but the son hearkens not, and dies, and makes no sign. Now in what a burst of agony does he give vent to

his feelings over the corpse, from which the spirit has departed, but departed not to the mansions of the blessed. "Oh, my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee. O Absalom, my son, my son!"

Or, in the event of your own death, what thorns will it plant in your pillow, with what deeper shades will it invest the descent to the dark valley, to reflect that you had forgotten the religious character of your children, and the eternal salvation of their immortal souls. Then, amidst these fearful scenes, to awake to a sense of your duty, when it is too late, except by one parting admonition, to perform it! Then to see those around your bed with whom you had been intrusted, but whom you have neglected!

The

But there are other scenes more dreadful still. faithless parent must meet his ruined children, at the day of judgment, before the bar of God. Fearful will be the interview; and to us, now, utterly inconceivable. No imagination can portray the scene, and I attempt it not. And then, eternity, oh! eternity!— who shall bring out from the secrets of that impenetrable state, the condition of children lost, in some measure, through the neglect of their parents; and the condition of parents, hearing, through everlasting ages, the imprecations and reproaches of their own offspring, and all these imprecations and reproaches echoed back from their own conscience? But the picture is too appalling-and if the mere anticipation chills with horror, what must be its reality?

Look for a few moments at a brighter scene, and anticipate the meeting, at the judgment day, of pious parents and children reclaimed, converted, saved, by the blessing of God upon their affectionate solicitude, and judicious and persevering efforts for their eternal welfare; but this is as much too bright for the imagination as the other is too terrific. It is glory, honor, and felicity too great to be imagined. And beyond all this, everlasting ages remain, for the child to be blessed with salvation, and the parent to be blessed with the consciousness of having been the happy instrument of eternal blessedness to his own offspring.

CHAPTER VI.

THE DUTIES OF CHILDREN TO THEIR PARENTS.

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live long on the earth."-EPHES. vi. 1—3.

"My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother; bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee: and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee."-PROVERBS, Vi. 20-22.

"The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice; and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him. Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice."-PROVERBS, xxiii. 24, 25.

PERHAPS there is no duty, the obligations of which are more generally acknowledged, than filial piety; none which, in the performance, yields greater pleasure, nor which, if neglected, brings a more severe or righteous retribution. All nations, however sunk in barbarism or elevated by science, have admitted the strength and justice of parental claims; and the unhappy youth who resists them, stands convicted, condemned and reprobated before the tribunal of the world. On the other hand, an eminently dutiful child is an object of delight, admiration and esteem, to all who have an opportunity of witnessing his conduct: he goes through society surrounded by a glory purer than that of fame, and far more conducive to his own comfort; he is a blessing to his parents, and is blessed himself. Children, may all of you be such; and for that purpose, ask your fixed attention to the statement of your duties, as set before you in this chapter. The obligations of social life are reciprocal. If your parents owe to you all that I have enjoined upon them, how much do you owe to your parents? I have been your advocate with them, I now become theirs with you.

I

Consider well the relation you sustain to your parents. There is a natural connexion between you, inasmuch as they are the instruments of your very existence; a circumstance which of itself seems to invest them, as I have already said, with an almost absolute

authority over you. The commonness, the universality of the tie, takes off the mind from contemplating its closeness, its tenderness, its sanctity. You are literally parts of themselves, and cannot dwell for a moment upon your descent, without being struck, one should think, with the amazing and solemn weight of obligation that rests upon you towards a father and a mother. But consider, there is not only a natural, but, in reference to duty, an instituted connexion between you. Jehovah himself has interposed, and, uniting the language of revelation with the dictates of reason, the force of authority to the impulse of nature, has called you to filial piety, not only as a matter of feeling, but of principle. Study then the relationship, look narrowly and seriously at the connexion subsisting between you. Weigh well the import of the word PARENT; think how much is implied in it towards its appropriate object, how many offices it contains in itself,guardian, ruler, teacher, guide, benefactor, provider: WHAT THEN MUST BE THE OBLIGATIONS OF A CHILD? The following is a brief summary of filial duties:1. You ought to LOVE your parents.

Love is the only state of mind from which all the other duties that you owe them can arise. By love, we mean complacency; and surely this is due to a father and mother. The very relation in which you stand to them demands this. If you are destitute of this, if you are without any propensity of heart towards them, you are in a strange and guilty state of mind. Till you are married, or are in prospect of it, they ought, in most cases, to be the supreme objects of your earthly affections. It is not enough for you to be respectful and obedient, and even kind; but, where there exist no reasons for alienating your heart, you should be fond of them. It is of infinite importance that you should watch over the internal state of your mind, and not suffer dislike, alienation, or indifference, to extinguish your regards. Do not take up a prejudice against them, nor allow an unfavourable impression to be made upon your mind. Respect and obedience, if they do not spring from love, are valueless in their nature, and very precarious in their existence.

If you love them, you will delight to be in their com