est, tract of being into an abode of pestilence and death.

Paralleled alone in the singularity of this adjustment, is the wisdom and the wonderful skill, with which the very perturbations and disorders, arising out of the reciprocal effects of moral evil, are made to work out their own correction; and from what would have seemed the greatest imperfections of the scheme, the largest benefit is ultimately derived. Our mutual sufferings give rise to mutual affections. Good-in its very nature new, and singular, and otherwise unknown-is made to spring even from transgression and sɔrrow. And the power of omnipotent love has asserted its supremacy, in bending to its sway the most malignant and destructive agencies. This, too-so far as we are able to discover-is a phenomenon confined to the realm which we inhabit. We know not that the principle we strictly denominate compassion, or the interest we derive from sympathetic tenderness, is, in its proper sense, diffused through any other sphere.

Thus it is, that the social machinery of the world is prepared, by its great Fabricator, for producing here the most surprising and beneficial results. There may be diversities of operation in the systems that encircle us, which, were they revealed, would exhibit, not less impressively, the inexhaustible resources of his skill, or the unlimited designs of his benevolence:-but these are our proper study; and in our practical conformity to their direction, lies the duty with which we are intrusted.

The first in order, and the highest in importance,

amongst all their applications, is to the obligation involved in the parental character. This, while it has been recognised in every age and nation, as among the primary enactments even of the law of nature, derives yet higher sanction from that unerring code, which, while it ratifies the dictates of conscience, and the deductions of right reason, superadds such special injunctions as concern man, not alone in the relation of a creature to his Creator, or a fellow-subject amongst his partners in existence, but as the object also of redemption, and a participator of infinite and sovereign mercy.

And, as it is wisely provided for in the divine administration, that no duty shall be unconnected with a recompence, and that no obligation shall rest where the capacity of its discharge is not secured, so to the faithful accomplishment of the offices devolving upon pious parents, the largest returns, and of the purest satisfaction, are graciously accorded. The assiduity, vigilance, and kindness, necessary to their performance, are found more certainly and uniformly efficacious than any other modification of effort for men's spiritual welfare.

Christian families have ever been, and must be always, the very spring-head of benevolent and holy influences. Here it is that the dews of heaven are first imbibed and collected. Here the refreshing waters commence their earliest flow. Out of the bosom of such families it is, that we derive the innumerable forms of pious fellowship, and of sacred beneficence. Here are those germs and seedlings, which are to fill the earth with fruitfulness, and to

clothe the church with beauty. Here those infant graces receive their discipline, and mature their strength, which are to go forth afterwards to the encounter of every error and pollution. Those holy purposes are here nurtured and confirmed, which will soon reveal themselves under the commanding forms of enterprise, and patience, and heroic selfdenial. If to the parent is committed the formation of the commonwealth, then to the Christian parent is assigned the arduous but honourable task, of replenishing the church,-not in earth alone, but heaven ;—of training up for glory that philanthropy, which looks not to the body, but the soul; that patriotism, which embraces not an empire, but a world; that unquenchable ambition, which shall pursue its conquests, and gather its rewards, beyond the boundaries of time and death; and that emanation of divine benignity, which shall shine, like its parent beam, to guide the wanderer, to cheer the exile, and to gladden the homeward path of spirits once far off, but now returning to the habitation of their father. The missionary, the pastor, the visitor of the forgotten poor, the pious instructor of an unborn generation, the future champion of holiness and truth, and the witness for God against the scoffs and infidelity of a coming age;-these, and others like them, are to be meetened for their several employments, and girded for the hardships and honours which await them, by the hand of parental instruction.

On this point, while the testimony of experience is not less uniform than it is encouraging, there is one fact so pre-eminently interesting, that I cannot

pass it over in silence. Whoever has cultivated a familiar acquaintance with the details of religious biography, will have been struck to observe, in most frequent and impressive examples, the power of such instruction, particularly as administered by MOTHERS. To so large an extent is this power realized, that, when we witness the admission of fresh members into the church, or listen to the narratives of personal experience presented by candidates for ordination,—at least if any favourable impression is known to have been made upon their minds in earlier life,—we almost instinctively expect to hear them acknowledging their unspeakable obligations to the care and watchfulness of the maternal character. Whether it be, that infinite benevolence would requite in this form the humiliation and sorrow arising from the priority of woman in the first transgression,-even as, in unutterable condescension, it assigned to her the exclusive parentage of our great Deliverer ;-or whether it be only the result of that peculiar combination of assiduity and mild forbearance, by which the piety of a Christian mother is wont to be distinguished;—or whether the heart yields itself, with a less reluctant submission, to one whose very sex forbids the competition of mere force, and the exercise of physical exertion;-or whether there be, in the absoluteness of our dependence on her in the first years of life, an efficacy to win and to subdue, when every other influence would be tried without effect;-or what other cause may be assigned, I know not :-but the fact is certain,-that the instructions of such a mother are, in innumer

able instances, productive of more valuable and permanent results than all other forms of instrumentality together. And I doubt not, that, at the last day, they will be confessed to have been rivalled, in the magnitude of their effects, only by the actual proclamation of the gospel, and the dissemination of the holy scriptures. What encouragement is thus afforded to pious mothers, I need not now stay to point out ;-but what impressive views of their responsibility are connected with the fact, it is of more importance to submit to your attention. Allow me, therefore, to attempt its corroboration by the citation of a single testimony. I will do so in the terms in which it is embodied in one of those very useful publications issued, under the denomination of "Anecdotes," by the Religious Tract Society, not being aware of the authority from which it is derived. "A few years ago, some gentlemen in America, who were associated in preparing for the Christian ministry, felt interested in ascertaining what proportion of their number had pious mothers. They were greatly surprised and delighted, on finding that, out of one hundred and twenty students, more than a hundred had been blessed by a mother's prayers, and directed by a mother's counsels to the Saviour. Though some of them had broken away from all the restraints of home, and, like the prodigal, had wandered in sin and sorrow, yet they could not forget the impressions of childhood, and each was eventually brought to Jesus, as well as proved a mother's joy and blessing."*—Is it not a natural reflection,

* Christian Ministers, page 6.