}

-This is peace! And this, too, is his own direction for obtaining it: 'In the world ye shall have tribulation; but, in me, ye shall have peace. Be of good cheer: I have overcome the world.'

After so many years of uninterrupted activity, to be imprisoned, to be silenced, and almost incapable of writing or reading, is more wearisome than even the pain that often accompanies it. And yet hence the following instruction may be gathered :

1. How much activity belongs to some natures; and that this nature is often mistaken for grace.

2. How much we are called to suffer, as well as do, the will of God. When I have bid one of my children sit down quietly, and remain silent during my pleasure, I enjoin him a much more difficult task than the most active service and yet I expected it to be done, because I ordered it. How is it, that I have not yet learnt to sit still when I am bid.

3. While life is wasting, and souls are perishing, I may yet earnestly plead, with the Psalmist, 'Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name.' I may sing with the poet,

Lying on my couch at an interval of ease, I form a

project of some work: I trace the good effects which it ought to produce; and say to myself, Why do we sit still till we die? I start up, to find pen and paper; and, at the moment, my painful complaint arrests me afresh. While I, fainting, recline again, I seem to hear "Know, feeble worm, that even God's work must wait for God's call, and time and strength."

I am shocked to think, that throughout my louring and threatening dispensation, I still am ready to kindle and explode when the temptation comes. Mr. Henry's remark on Abimilech, who wished his armour bearer to dispatch him, lest it should be said he died by the hand of a woman, may on other accounts be applied to me: —Homo moritur, at superbia non moritur.

The many mercies mixed with my pains, ought to strangle every peevish thought in its very birth. How am I surrounded with every thing that can meet and mitigate my case! What kind friends, with their sympathy and assistance !-What excellent supplies for my pulpit! What intervals of ease!-What a Bible, full of directions and encouragements!—What opportunity for reflection and prayer!—What a prospect, after a short night of sorrow!-Complain with all these! Get thee hence, Satan!

"Ah! my dear angry Lord,

Since thou dost love, yet strike:
Cast down, yet help afford;

Sure I will do the like.

"I will complain, yet praise;
Bewail, and yet approve :
And all my sour-sweet days,
I will lament and love."

16

TO THE

PARENTS OF THE CHILDREN

WHO ATTEND THE SCHOOLS FOR RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION, AT ST. JOHN'S CHAPEL, BEDFOrd row.

WHEN Our Lord put the question, 'What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?' he showed the infinite worth of that soul, and also the awful consequences of neglecting it.

To make this more plain, he has given us a book, showing us, in a variety of ways, that the soul, like the body, has its wants, diseases, and death, and also its means of recovery of spiritual health, and eternal life. This recovery is compared in Scripture to the bringing of a lost sheep back again to the fold;' or to one awaking from 'a deadly sleep to a lively hope:' as it is written, 'Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead; and Christ shall give thee light.'

6

NOW RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION is one of God's appointed means for this relief and recovery of the soul of man; as he saith, 'Take fast hold of instruction: let it not go, keep it, for it is thy life.'

More particularly with respect to our children, He says, 'Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.' And accordingly he charges us, 'In the morning to sow the seed of instruction, and in the evening not to withhold our hand, since we know not which shall prosper.'

'A brutish man knoweth not, and a fool doth not un

derstand this' wisdom; and therefore despiseth it. But mark what honour the Lord putteth upon it, when he saith, 'Shall I hide from Abraham the thing that I do? For I know him, that he will command his children, and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord. Them, that honour me, I will honour.'

And because religious instruction is God's usual method of delivering us from the blindness of ignorance and the poison of sin, He hath not only sent His Word, and promised His Spirit to them that ask Him; but he has also raised up Ministers and witnesses, from time to time, 'to open men's eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith which is in Jesus.'

But that religious instruction which is needful at all times, is particularly needful in a day of rebuke and blasphemy, like the present. A sort of madness now abounds, that leads guilty, dying creatures, not only to ridicule and reject both the physicians and the remedies which God hath sent to heal them, but also to delight in spreading the pestilential disorder.

Now if some cruel wretch were contriving to give your child a dose of poison under the notion of a sweetmeat, could you rest till the child was informed of the danger, and secured against it? Or if the plague were to break out among us, would you be easy till the best remedies were administered to your family, and every thing tried for their safety?

What then are we to think of those who are so anxious to secure the body of a child which must soon turn to dust, and yet slight the means which God has appointed for the safety of its never-dying soul?

None will need to have these things urged upon their

consciences the moment after they enter Eternity. But few consider enough how much, even in the present world, the comfort of the parent depends upon the religious instruction of his child.

How many, who have sowed the seed of religious instruction, are reaping the fruits of their labours in the piety, affection, and prosperity of their children! On the other hand what fruitless complaining and bewailing is often heard, over a profligate son, or a ruined daughter! And what bitter reflections must follow in the mind of those parents, who trace this ruin to their own neglect?

'I will judge,' said the Lord, the House of Eli for ever, because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.'

Consider the advantages of preparing your children against the time when they must leave you, to struggle with a dangerous world. Good principles form a suit of armour. They are also a recommendation; for who would not prefer a servant, or a partner, who has been brought up in the fear of God and the knowledge of his duty, to one who has been left to run wild, neither fearing God nor regarding man ?

Consider, also, if they should be taken from you by death, how painful will be the reflection, if they meet it in ignorance and unbelief through your neglect! On the contrary, what a consolation it will be in parting with them, if, through God's blessing on your religious instructions, you have ground to hope that they are gone to Him.

Now, when to these considerations you add, that youth is the spring-time to plant good principles, before bad ones take root; and how much easier it is to prevent evils than to cure them; we trust that those, who have a real regard to the honour of God-to the souls