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templation of religious truth, a disrelish for the pursuit of active holiness. This can only be combated by the due use of the means of grace. It can only be subdued by the energy of the Holy Spirit. But a most important means of grace is, careful and diligent instruction in religious subjects, and a steady and constant enforcement of religious duties, by the influence of parental example. In times like these, when every breath is charged with pestilence, when almost every morsel of intellectual food may contain no small proportion of intellectual poison, an awful responsibility attaches to the duties of a parent, or a guardian of the youth of our people. To combat with the innate evils of human nature; to oppose the follies of the youthful mind; to guide the affections to the side of truth; to check the passions, and to curb the will; to correct the judgment, and to inform the conscience; these are tasks of no trifling importance-tasks which require no ordinary care, no wavering trust in the high and holy principles of our religion, no unstable reliance on the grace of Almighty wisdom. Ye proud boasters of human wisdom; ye philosophers renowned in scientific research; are ye able to accomplish this moral renovation of the soul? Can ye watch, with tender solicitude, the progress of holy affection and of sacred feeling? pray, with the impulse of Christian affection, and

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with the confidence of Christian faith, over the soul just emerging from the darkness of sin, into the beams of the Sun of Righteousness? Yet this may be done by the purity of parental love, and the prayer shall not be unanswered, the anxiety shall not be unrewarded.

Christian parents! ye who, from your own experience, are acquainted with the frailties and weaknesses of our mortal nature, weigh well the responsibility of your important charge! Upon your instructions, and more especially, upon your example, are future generations dependent, for nothing less than their everlasting welfare. Science, philosophy, learning, may dazzle, may allure, may adorn; but there is a knowledge which outshines, and which will outlive them all; a knowledge which shall make wise unto salvation; a knowledge which shall be increasing, and expanding, through the countless ages of eternity.

"The fear of the Lord is the

beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do thereafter; the praise of it endureth for ever."

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SERMON XVII.

THE COMING OF THE MESSIAH.

HAGGAI ii. 6--9.

For thus saith the Lord of hosts, Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former, saith the Lord of hosts and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts.

Ir is not unworthy of remark, that in this short prophecy the solemn form, "Thus saith the Lord of hosts," is several times repeatedrepetition calculated surely to arouse the attention, and awaken the interest of all who hear it.

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A prophecy delivered in such terms of solemnity, and with such an evident anxiety to impress the truth of its announcement, cannot fail to carry with it the conviction of its great importance. And well may it deserve the attention which the terms of its delivery would bespeak; for in its short but comprehensive detail are included events, which are unparalleled in the transactions of time-events, the results of which are commensurate with eternity. It speaks of the introduction of the final dispensation of Infinite Wisdom, in order to complete that work of redemption, which, from the period of the fall of Adam, had been gradually carried on, according as the varying condition of the world gave opportunity for its development. It speaks of that period of greater light and more abundant glory, when not the outward splendour alone of the visible church of God should be the evidence of his protection and approbation; but when the spiritual gifts and excellencies of that high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, should shine forth among his people, to be the light and glory of the world.

At the time when this prophecy was delivered, nothing could more effectually raise the drooping spirits, and confirm the failing hopes of the Jews, than the tenor of its announcements. They had just returned from the weariness of Babylon's captivity, to the scene of their former

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glory, now made a desolation by the fury of the conquerors. Some there were that had seen the former splendours of that Jerusalem, whose very ruins were to them holy ground: some who had worshipped in those magnificent courts in which had shone the glories of the Eternal; who had bowed before that altar, at which Jehovah had received his own appointed worship. To such as these must have arisen recollections of a glory, which ill corresponded with the state of that sacred temple; recollections which no hopes of restoring its former splendour could tend to dissipate. Yet, amid their despondency and their discouragements, God sent to them a messenger of comfort, to announce the accomplishment of their highest hopes; to tell them that the glories of the house which they had begun to build, would be still greater than had been derived from the rich and sacred ornaments of that former temple, whose destruction they had, for seventy years, bewailed in their captivity. For in that building, humble though it might appear in comparison of the former splendour, would be seen not the mere symbol of the divine pre. sence, but the brightness of the divine glory, the express image of his person. To that house the desire of all nations was to come; that Messiah, so long promised, and so anxiously expected; that mighty deliverer, for whose arrival kings,

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