regarded as the Lord's day; and you will give it to the Lord. 2. You will not only avoid all that is evil, but you will do all the good you can; you will meekly show forth the love of your God by setting it off with all its attractiveness in a holy life and conversation. Believe me, you might all be preachers! You startle, but I repeat it, you might all be preachers, though not all pulpit preachers. The child in Ceylon. * * The child reproving the clergyman. But I told you there were two commandments: the first, Love God; the second, Love thy neighbour. "But who is my neighbour?" Doubtless your parents are the first in this reply. Next to God comes their claim, for they are to you in the stead of God. But is there a little child here who needs this exhortation ?—I fear there are some who do not love them enough! Oh! if you only knew how much they love you, you would love them yet more and more. Some of them are poor, and obliged to toil almost day and night to preserve you in a little decency and to give you a little useful learning. Perhaps, when you are asleep in bed, your anxious mother is yet sitting by her little fire consulting with her husband about your welfare. You are their last concern at night, their first care in the morning; and it is very hard work to make their little pittance afford you a plentiful meal! Perhaps they are very often obliged to deny themselves of their scanty store that you may have enough, and that you may be clothed as well as their little income will allow. When you go home to-night, my poor little ones, whose parents' lot appears so hard, look up into your 'father's face and see the furrows which his daily labour has made upon his wasting frame! Take hold of his hand! feel how hard, how rough it is; more like horn than human flesh. See there the effects of his daily toil; in the sweat of his brow earning his daily fare; and while you hold his hand, again look into his face, which perhaps betrays the decline of his natural health and strength, and ask him, “ Father, for what have you toiled so hard? Father, what have you laid up for your later years after so much hardship? What is to support you when these hands are no longer able ૨૨ to perform your daily task?" Ask him these questions; and when the feelings of his heart will permit him, I doubt not but he will give you this reply: "It is true, my child, I do toil hard, but it is not for myself! My own wants could be easily supplied. I want but little, nor that little long; but I labour for my boy, I weary myself for my girl, that they may be comfortable, and that I may give them some useful learning to fit them for their future walk through life. This has always been my care, and it was not possible for your mother or me to make any reserves for that time when the infirmities of age should lay us aside. Your wants have always swallowed up our little earnings; and the only dependance we look to for these few remaining days or years is the love of our little ones! That is all the treasure we have been endeavouring to lay up in store, and we have spared no pains to increase it." Oh! my poor little ones, would not your hearts swell at hearing these words? and could you be hindered from clasping your parent's neck, mingling your tears with his, and saying, "Father, you shall have my love." But some of you have not a father. * * The commandment is beautifully expressive: "Honour thy father and thy mother." The mother is the weaker vessel, and she requires more of your love; her tender heart is more susceptible than a father's, and that will wound her delicate spirit which would only grieve your father. If she be your only parent, you owe her double love! The father's and the mother's should both be offered to her! And oh! what is a mother's love! Ask a mother! nay, she cannot tell you, but you may read it in her actions. You forget the time when you were a little loathsome creature, covered from head to foot with the smallpox-one mass of putrefaction, a disgusting spectacle to every one. Your nearest friends would scarcely touch you. Who but a mother would press the loathsome object to her bosom? Who but a mother could gaze upon the spectacle without a feeling of abhorrence? she, with increasing love. The more you suffered, the more she loved! the more disgusting you became to others, the nearer she pressed you to her loving heart. "She could not forget her sucking child." Or when your body was filled with deadly fever, and your very breath tainted the air with impurity and filled the house with infection; when all forsook you, who but a mother would hang over you and breathe the putrid atmosphere, regardless of her own life in the preservation of yours!-Oh! the love of a mother!-Grieve her not; the least token of disregard to her mild restraints will wound her tender frame; will you, then, instead of joy, give her sorrow? You will only know her full worth when you know her want, as I do. For nine long years that sweetest word in human speech could never hang on my lips-" my mother!" Oh! the very remembrance of the slightest provocation will wound you in the tenderest part, when she is removed! and I do think that such a remembrance would be the angry ghost of me! And yet such children there are, who provoke even a mother's love to such a height as to tear her heart from them! (Taylor's Sermon. *) But some of your parents are placed above dependance, ' and are not obliged to toil thus hard for you! But is your love to be abated to them? Oh no! the duty of the child to the parent is the same in every circumstance: in riches as in poverty; and I am sure they value your love more than their wealth. What is now theirs, will be yours; and in this respect you are under increased obligations to love them; their greatest joy is your welfare; let them have the rejoicing of the Gracchi. But, after your parents, the command extends to all; love all with a love of good-will; bear hatred to none.-See the Indian who was robbed. Appendix.-Illustrate "To know God" by paraphrasing Jeremiah, ix., 24. This knowledge implies to act up to it, and love him in return; hence David says, "Serve him." How? By doing his commandments. The first is, "Love God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength." How do you show this? 1st. By getting frequently into his company. 2dly. By frequently reading his word as if you heard from your Creator father.-But this is only domestic; how is it shown in social life? 1st. By abstaining from bad company-Peter.-2dly. By reproving others.-God has often blessed infantile preaching. The second command is, "Love all men." How? With a perfect heart. (Apple, or, rather, pear.) A willing mind, not as the unwilling schoolboy. * Why with this perfect heart? Because God searches the heart; a power only possessed by him. Man may be deceived, for he looks only on the outward appearance; but God's eyes are as a flame of fire! [See Proverbs, xvii., 3.] Look at Ananias.-God searched the heart as with a candle! Solomon believed this truth which David taught him, and acted accordingly.-See 1 Kings, viii., 39. "And the thoughts :"-even the idea before matured into a thought, and the thought before acted on. "Afar off ?" "Before our lips pronounce the word, He knows the sense we mean." How are you to seek him? 1st. Read his will. (Elisha's mantle-child and bad bargain.) 2dly. Do it with prayer, or it will be useless. ("Melove God"-Cora forsake him.) Refusing to obey; to read, to pray; disobeying parents and mingling with the ungodly leads to a bad end"cast off forever."-See 2 Chronicles, xv., 2.-Solomon.— Conclusion.-Jack, or poor man in Dublin visited by stran ger's friends. * * 1 Cor., iii., 22, 23.-Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's. ST. PAUL was a faithful messenger of the Most High! had been a violent persecutor of Christianity, but was miraculously converted. Wherever he preached the power of the Holy Ghost attended his word; and signs and wonders were wrought. We do not mean miracles-but God acknowledged his own word by his holy ministry. He planted many churches, and when removed to others, he supplied his lack by epistles, in which, as in the text, his heart expands. * * * One reason of which was to correct the contentions of his Corinthian brethren about various preachers. *"Christ is God's"" the Lord's Christ"-necessary he should be human for sacrifice; inferior to the Father, and such inferiority will continue till this kingdom is given up, &c., and Christ resumes his wonted dignity, as explained Heb., i., 3: "Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." He is now only in the glory of the Father! then he will have the glory which he had of his own "before the world was." We shall inquire, I. What is it to be Christ's? II. The privilege of such. I. What is it to be Christ's? Not a mere name of Christianity: all Europe has this, yet not Christians-nor an attachment to this or the other religious sect. * 1. A Christian is one who obeys the commands of Jesus; makes his word his rule; does nothing but what is well pleasing to him! brings his actions hereto. 2. A Christian is one who has the assurance that he pleases God in all things! the witness of God that all he does is right-a Divine impression that he is accepted in the beloved-a son of God-(Young)—and he knows it; for, "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." 3. Such a one abides in Christ as the branch in the vine -feels he is grafted into Jesus, as he felt the seal of adoption, and bears the fruit of holiness.-See the process of |