SERMON V. THE NATURE AND INFLUENCE OF MATERNAL ASSOCIATIONS. “ And they brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them. But when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not ; for of such is the kingdom of God.”—Luke xviii. 15, 16. The prince of darkness has fearfully extended his empire over the whole human family, and the Son of God, the Prince of peace, has come to "destroy the works of the devil,” to open the prison-door to the captive, and let the prisoner go free. He has come, with the voice of authority, to command the prisoner to escape from bondage, and with the voice of tender invitation to entreat him to leave his vassalage and disown his allegiance to Satan. And there are two remarkable features in all his commands and invitations ; the one is, that they regard all classes of men, without respect to any of the distinctions that pertain to the present and temporary forms of society; and the other feature is, that they extend to human nature in every age of its existence, from its earliest stages and its first developments. This feature, the disciples of Christ did not at first understand ; they supposed, that the kingdom which our Lord had come to establish was of such a nature, that it required the full maturity of the understanding to appreciate its advantages, and to enter upon the discharge of its duties. Hence, (as you may suppose his group principally to have consisted of mothers,) when mothers, obeying that maternal instinct, which often is more wise than the sound deductions of philosophy, (sound in the eyes of those who make them,) that maternal instinct which felt for the little ones, felt their helplessness and their want, and had learned the power and goodness of the great Redeemer--when they drew nigh and presented their infants to him, to come within the blessed sphere of his benignity and mercy, the disciples interposed, and rejected the infants and rebuked the mothers. But Jesus said, Suffer these little ones to come to me ; let no man forbid them ; the kingdom that I am establishing, reaches even to the infantile state of human existence; little children, too, are to be the objects of my grace and of my redeeming power : - Suffer little children to come unto me.' The first duty that devolves upon those who have the care of human beings, is of course physical ; it pertains to the animal, the material part of human nature, because that is first developed. The next development is unquestionably moral; the child begins to feel, before he manifests much understanding. It is unquestionable, that the conscience is developed much earlier, than those whose observation has not been specifically directed to this point are prepared to believe; it is certain that the heart is very early developed, and God seems, in the very manner of the development of the faculties of human nature at successive periods, to indicate the kind of care, the kind of instruction, and the kind of influence, which should be brought to bear upon human nature. Last of all seems to come the higher range of the intellectual powers. The first duty, touching the character and interest of man as a moral being, is to bring him under the moral government of Jesus Christ. The first duty with the mind of man is to make him understand and feel his want a and his guilt as a sinner. The first and most important lesson that a mother can convey to the heart and the understanding of her child, is, that he is the degenerate shoot of a degenerate vine, and that in Christ alone is his help. His little mind should first begin to understand the story of redeeming and incarnate love—the history of Him who became an infant, and then the “Man of sor. rows," and then the bleeding Victim, and then the living Intercessor and the omnipotent King, to raise us from our ruin ; and the first attractions of the little heart, beyond the father and the mother that begat and that nurture, should be to the great Benefactor, that has come to redeem. “Suffer your little ones to come to me,” said Jesus: from them that are indifferent, and from them that have objections to them, he seems to turn to mothers, and say, Bring your little ones to me. The first duty to man, as an immortal being and the subject of God's moral government, is to induce him, just as rapidly as his affections and will are developed, to break the bands that bind him to the kingdom of darkness, and bring him an intelligent and a voluntary subject into the kingdom of the Lord Jesus, to teach him to love, to teach him to obey, to teach him to serve his “God manifest in the flesh.” And it is an interesting object of investigation, to see what full provision God has made for the reclaiming of man from his apostacy, the introduction and the conservation of man in “the kingdom of his dear Son”—and that, from the earliest period of his existence. There is something very wonderful in the family constitution; there is something in it, which even the Church herself has not fully understood, but which there are many indications in Providence that she is going to understand more fully. There is more power in the family constitution, there is more moral power in a mother, than the world has begun to conceive of, than even Christian mothers have yet begun fully to apprehend. And as they advance in faith on God's promises—as they rise in the strength of a holy confidence, that seizes the promise of an unchanging God-as they become intelligent in those great purposes of his moral government, which pertain to us, and which are essential to direct us in the right discharge of duty-we have no question that the moral power of the mother will rise ; and just as far as we get away from Paganism, and all its degradation of the female sex-just as far as we get away from the foolish and romantic ideas of woman, that prevailed in the days of chivalry—we shall come to the clear and glorious light of Christianity, and woman will be, what God meant she should be in his hand, the regenerator of the human race. There is a peculiarity in the maternal feeling, that no man, who feels himself identified with the interests of the human race, can observe without himself feeling the deepest interest. There is something in a mother's love, that cannot have been unintended ; there is a reason for that peculiar delicacy and tenderness—for even that tenderness of tone, which we cannot imitate ; there is a meaning in the fact, that the musical scale of a mother's voice is pitched differently from ours. It is one of God's great instruments, for fitting her to reach man in those periods of his existence, when every thing is tender in his body and in his soul. There is an affinity between the feelings of a mother and a child, that does not exist in kind or degree between the father and the child, indicating a peculiarity in the duty and a peculiarity in the responsibility. I may say in passing here, because I deem it of importance,) that perhaps there will become, for a time, extravagant and exaggerated and unharmonious and unauthorized views of the duty of mothers, and fathers will forget their peculiar a station-for it is one of great peculiarity, and it is one of equal responsibility different in kind. I wish not to encourage any exaggerated view ; I wish not to roll more burdens upon the tender sex, than God has placed ; but my specific duty will lead me peculiarly to speak and alone to speak of maternal duty. There is something in the entire helplessness of human nature, in the entire dependence of human naturethere is something in the imitative propensities of chil. dren--there is something in that perfect confidence, that characterizes children—which fits them to come so fully, so entirely, under the kind and powerful influence of the enlightened and sanctified maternal heart; and the noblest object on the footstool of God is a Christian mother, moulding human nature in the first stages of its earthly and of its immortal existence. Oh! that I might have light from God, to help even mothers this day to estimate their high calling and their holy commission. No fruit of sin has been more fatal, than the misun. derstanding of female duty and female character. One of the striking characteristics of all heathen lands is the condition of woman. When the Brahmin priest was reproached by the missionary, because he saw a woman dragging her entire length from the point of commencement of her dreadful pilgrimage to the temple-(it lay entirely through a large tract covered with mud, and she was dragging her body through the filth)—“There !" said the missionary, “that is one of the fruits of your system !” “Well, what is that ?" replied the Brahmin; “it is only a woman!” That tells the characteristic feature of their dark and debasing system ; “it is only a woman!” And what means the Turkish harem, where woman is but the animal? What means it ? the light of Christianity has not shone. What is the present moral and social condition of France France, that made the |