years. First, however, it will be well to look to the passage of Scripture from which the verses of the text are taken, in which a parent's duty is set forth, and the evil entailed upon "children that are corrupters" declared. Neither let us forget, any one of us, how we read, in the very early pages of Scripture, that "Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord slew him." As "wickedness proceedeth from the wicked," so, when unrepented of, and continued in, doth it bring forth death! And when a child dieth in its wickedness, God knoweth best! It is amongst his secret things; or whether it were for the parent's sin, or that it should be removed from more evil yet to come! This we know not; but we do know that God is merciful and gracious; and, as the wise widow of Tekoah said to David, "Doth devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him."

And thus it turned out in the history of Job and of his children, about whom one messenger escaped alone to say,

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Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house; And behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead."

Now, with reference to this and his other sad losses, and his own personal affliction, Job, in the preceding chapter, had, to use the words of the Psalmist, "mourned in his complaint, and made a noise;" and the verses of the text are a part of one of those three friends' answers, who "had made an appointment together to mourn with him and to comfort him." And in what he spake, Bildad the Shuhite spake well, save only when he concluded that Job could not be acceptable to God, because he was in adversity; "for gold is tried in

the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity;" and we know from God's after dealings with Job how "perfect and upright" a man he was, notwithstanding his failings as a man. From whence also we draw this comfortable conclusion, as well as from the failings of other saints and worthies, that "the best of men are but men at best." One only is without sin: that is "THE HOLY ONE OF GOD."

But in what Bildad had said, "If thy children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgression," and in the verses which next follow, in which Job is summoned to prayer, it would seem as though the Shuhite knew not of Job's custom as a father, recorded in this Book for our instruction: "And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and of fered burnt-offerings, according to the

number of them all; for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually ;"—that is to say, he had brought them up well and prayerfully, and like a good father, and even when they had come to man's estate, they were still constantly in his thoughts, and the subject of his prayers. And the last chapter of this most instructive book shows well how God "accepted" him, and how the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning." As a father, he had done his duty; and in the place of the children that he had lost, he had "seven sons and three daughters." And the words of the prophet are applicable here: "BEHOLD, I, AND THE CHILDREN WHOM THE LORD HATH GIVEN ME!" The perfect man was not cast out, and, so to say, his banished ones were restored unto him: even as in the world to come good children and good parents

will meet again, where is no sorrow, nor crying, nor parting more!

But, Christian Brethren, if this be so, we must endeavour so to part, as that, through Christ, who is "the resurrection and the life," we may assuredly meet again. And this, as far as in us lies, we shall bring about most readily, by teaching our children to "remember" their "Creator in the days of their youth,"-in other words, by instilling into them lessons of EARLY PIETY, and bringing them up "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." And looked upon in this light, the words of Bildad the Shuhite are teaching words for all parents who have teachable spirits, and are willing to be schooled in lessons of eternity. Father or Mother, in any Christian land or Christian parish, to you is this word spoken, "If THOU wouldest seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almighty; If THOU wert