all that is to be done for your children's education; you have neither time nor ability.

Then

to the poor especially let me say, Do not tempt charitable people who would help you, to be

See that

children your

go

weary of well-doing;" and do not frustrate the grace of God, who stirs them up to serve you. without fail and punctually to the schools provided for them, and be slow to listen to any complaints which they bring home against their teachers. There is the parochial minister between you and them, and what you state to him reasonably and respectfully he will look to. Do not apply to him lightly, but having done so, there leave it. If you will weakly take part with your children against their instructors, your are making it impossible. for them to do your children any good; and if you cannot even make much allowance for the manner in which the tempers of instructors are tried, you know not how to do unto every man as you would have every one do to you.

I turn now to this congregation generally: "Bear ye one another's burdens," the apostle says to all of you, "and so fulfil the law of Christ." * "As every man hath received the gift, so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." hope I have made it appear to you, that "for the

I

soul to be without knowledge is not good"-that God's people are destroyed for lack of knowledge --that "a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame ;" and that christian instruction and discipline are things indispensable to the wellbeing both of individuals and of society. I hope that I have also fairly warned those who are put in special charge of individual children, of the obligation which lies upon them to be faithful to their trust. But now does not an obligation lie upon you also? To what end is it that ye have your wealth? and what reward shall ye render unto the Lord for all his benefits that he hath done unto you? Are ye not all "members one of another?" Can the eye say to the hand, I have no need of thee? Yea, those members of the body which seem to be more feeble, are they not necessary? Do not "rich and poor meet together, the Lord being maker of them all?" * Is not "the king himself served by the field?" † Have not the labourers that reap down your fields a claim upon you? And is it not by the sweat of the brow of him that smites the anvil, that your capital is turned to account? And without him could you thrive or live? Are ye not, at all events, one Father's children, all of you, and the sheep of the same good Shepherd's fold? And has not that Shepherd commanded you to + Eccles. v. 9.

* Prov. xxii. 2.

"feed his lambs ?" *

And does he not say, moreover, "It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish ?" † Then "withhold not good, I say unto you, from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it."‡

You have the means of helping the poor to help themselves in the education of their children; I pray you use them. Of the general hopefulness of that work I shall have more to say this evening. But I have already stated its necessity, and I shall now only add a few words as to the special means by which it may be attempted in this place, notwithstanding one obvious circumstance which may be thought discouraging.

In this place, it seems, children may go to work, and do, and must, at a very early age. Their parents will not keep them at school when they can earn anything; therefore, if they be not instructed before they are seven or eight years old, there is no time for the attempt at all: and what can they learn by that time? I say, a great deal-much that is useful, much that is indispensable, much that, by God's blessing, will be found imperishable. And, moreover, they may be brought to fix their foot upon a step in the ladder of godly learning, from which they may reach higher another day. It happens oftener than

* John xxi. 15.

Matt. xviii. 14.

Prov. iii. 27.

inconsiderate people dream of, that the man is made in the nursery. Yes-the intellectual, moral, spiritual, christian man. The wise one in his generation, as the bud expands-the heir of glory, as the blossom ripens and brings forth fruit unto life eternal. Many know thisthoughtful, humane, believing people—and they have invented and are supporting Infant Schools.

I am not going to describe the process, much less to affirm extravagant things concerning them. But here, a mere child may be kept out of mischievous society at least, and by proper painstaking he may learn besides, what I have so much insisted on, to obey orders, or to do as he is bid at once; may get some right impressions moreover, and receive some truths-some, indeed, which many prophets and kings have desired to hear, and have not heard them-may acquire too some habits, and that, so that they shall become, as we speak, a second nature to him. And what then? Must all be lost when he goes to work? He will not lose his parents probably: God's eye, at all events, is upon him still. He has placed him in a christian country, and he has made the sabbath in his mercy for his necessities. Six days he labours, and then there is the Sunday School (here as in other places) to take him up where the Infant School left him. There is the Church, and the catechist, I pre

sume, in the person of the parochial minister. There are the prayers also of that minister and of his school teachers, and of his parents, and of himself; and a good God to answer them, whose own mouth hath spoken it: "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God." What lacks he yet? There is the Bible, and if he spells it

out with difficulty, still he

may read it, and

"suck the sweet and tender milk" at least, of which there is such store for babes.

And then, secondly, as to labour-his work, his daily task. I say, it just fills up the measure of his advantages. If there is a mercifu! text in Scripture, this is one: "In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread;"† and woe unto him that covets to eat it otherwise. Labour, if it be honest-if it be of our proper calling, keeps man out of ten thousand snares, keeps under his body, and brings it into subjection-not ignobly employs his faculties hinders not his soul, as sloth does inevitably, from ascending up to God; whilst he may serve God as acceptably and as piously by means of it, as by prayer or almsgiving. Had Hophni and Phinehas been at the anvil or the plough, we had not heard, in all likelihood, of their profligacy, and the commonwealth of Israel had not suffered by their crimes.

* Mark x. 14.

↑ Gen. iii. 19.