say, grant that this child now to be baptized therein, may receive the fulness of thy grace, and ever remain in the number of thy faithful and elect children:" and we "yield hearty thanks" to our "most merciful Father, that it hath pleased" him "to regenerate this infant with" his "holy Spirit, to receive him for " his "own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into" his "holy Church." And in the latter, the child having "renewed the solemn promise and vow made in " his "name at " his 66 baptism; "the Bishop opens his prayer with an acknowledgment of the regeneration and justification of the child, "Almighty and everliving God who hast vouchsafed to regenerate these thy servants by water and the Holy Ghost, and hast given unto them forgiveness of all their sins," &c. And is not this in perfect accordance with the Scriptures? on what ground does St. Paul call upon the Romans for sanctification? "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God," &c: the duties of the five last chapters of the epistle, are built on the mercies of the eleven first; and the important illative" therefore" is the cement which binds the superstructure of duties and graces to the foundation of "mercies." On what ground does he call upon the Colossians to exercise graces or to discharge relative duties, but as "risen with Christ," and as "the elect of God?"

And have we not ample reason to take this encouraging view of the subject, both from the letter of our formularies, so perfectly according with that of Scripture, and the ill success which has hitherto attended our legal mode of enforcing Catechetical Instruction? Let us no longer educate our children in the persuasion that they have an ability to do good" which by nature they "cannot have." Let us no longer, when a child is in fault, exact a promise from him, made in the confidence of his own natural strength, that he will not repeat it. Let us be consistent, and no longer teach the child, that he has " no power of himself to help himself," and yet constantly make demands upon the exercise of a strength, as though it were his own, which we know ourselves, and also teach him, that he has not. Let us rather encourage him to faith and good works, by showing him that he is under a covenant of grace; that what his own "ungodly" nature, without any strength to good, cannot do, Jesus Christ has done, and will do, both for him and in him: that what the Law demands of him, Christ has done for him, both in his life and death; and that what the Law demands in him, Christ has engaged to impart by his Spirit; that his constant prayer must be "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me ;' "1 that his coldness in

1 Psalm li. 10.

charity consists in rendering the poor independent of it. The Farmer would then learn both the responsibility and the privilege of the influence with which his station in society invests him. Like the family of a Patriarch, the dependents of his house would share the blessings of his abundance; and every field, the cultivation of which too frequently groans under the curses of hopeless pauperism, would then smile in truly blessed fertility, under the watering of those prayers which would as naturally follow the share, as the share follows the animal that draws it. The unnatural anomaly of legalized compulsory charity would then cease; industry by receiving its best wages, independence, would supersede the necessity of legislative interference between men; and charity, free as the operations of that Spirit which imparted this crowning grace to the soul, being left to the unfettered play of its own diffusiveness would assuage every genuine woe, and supply every real want. The impostor would be abashed, the indolent stimulated, the indifferent interested, the careless would be roused to attention, and the patience of the real sufferer from below, meeting the ready hand of active benevolence from above, the whole mass of human suffering would be alleviated and

1 It was a saying of the first Earl of Orrery, "That the greatest charity consisted in keeping people from needing it.”

assuaged. But unless our moral reformation were conducted with a prevailing and paramount regard" to the soul's health;" though Reform took place through every varied gradation of rank and station among us, from the Legislature to the lowest night-cellar in our crowded metropolis, the present abode of designing worthlessness, and meditative crime,— the social chord though strung to the most ex quisite pitch of moral harmony would quickly lose its tension, and having no stay to maintain it, would speedily revert to its wonted state of discord and disorder. A well-principled people are alone fit for Reform; let the people once be prepared to receive it, and in the necessary process of human circumstance it must infallibly establish itself. But how are the people to be brought to this state? By listening to that Church to which they profess to belong: by reforming the education of all ranks, and CHIEFLY PROVIDING that all "may learn all things which a Christian ought to know and believe to HIS SOUL'S HEALTH."

I must entreat you, My Dear Friend, to pardon the detention which this rapid survey of society, improved by a prevailing regard in the Sponsor to educate his charge in what may tend to his "soul's health," has produced: the scene is too lovely not to be dwelt upon with complacency, and I am unwilling that the Sponsor should lose any stimulant which may en

courage him to the earnest discharge of his duties.

The next clause addressed by the Church to the Sponsors is," and that this child may be virtuously brought up to lead a godly and a Christian life." Not merely a moral life, but "a godly and a Christian life." In this and in this alone can he "be virtuously brought up." Mere moral virtue is loose in its principle, vacillating as human habit, and arbitrary as human caprice in its exercise, and short and defective in its end. Christian virtue, is grace wrought into the habit, the fruit of the Spirit springing out of a lively faith in the merits and death of our crucified Mediator, and is the very soul of

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a godly and a Christian life." No Christian virtue, that is, no gracious habit can flow from the Law, or from a mere legal education, in which I conceive the mistake that dwarfs our present Christian growth to originate, and consequently it cannot issue in "a godly and a Christian life." But once associate this education, or "bringing up," with the promise of the Gospel, once let the Child see that he is a child of adoption, that God is again his reconciled Father in Christ Jesus, and you have "a godly life" emanating from godly principles, and maintained by "a godly a godly" support and once let him feel that he is indebted to the blood and merits of his crucified Saviour for every mercy he enjoys, and that it is his privilege as well as