much left unlearned, that we should have learned if we had been pious in our early youth ; we should have gone so much deeper into the counsels of God, if we had come early to Christ, and, like Timothy, learned the Scriptures on our mother's lap, and followed the finger of a mother's love as it pointed to the Saviour. Oh ! pray that your sons may not grow up in sin ; pray that they may be converted in their earliest years; labour that they may be converted in their earliest years. Pray that your daughters, from the first development of their moral faculties, their moral being, may learn to love their God and Saviour, and be trained for usefulness here and glory hereafter. Your responsibility is great; for the evils of society are to be rectified in the young. Mothers ! with you, who can arm them, who can train them, rests this responsibility; and may God's blessed Spirit impress it on your hearts, and lead you to seek light and grace at the fountain from which they come.

Mothers ! bring your little ones to Jesus. Bring them by faith ; and if Satan seems to stand and rebuke-if a wicked and unbelieving world, by its example and its influence and its maxims, seems to rebuke-still bring your little ones to Christ, still press even to his feet, and never bear your mother's burdens alone, but roll them upon a breast that beats in sympathy with yours; roll them upon the heart, and roll them upon the arms of the blessed Redeemer. Bring them to Jesus as their Saviour. Bring them to Jesus as their Sovereign, and teach their wills to bow to his will. Bring them to Jesus as their pattern. It is said of a Grecian mother, that, when Alexander the Great was passing in the crowd, with his tall helmet and waving plumes, she raised up her child above her head, and said to him, “Look there! that is Alexander the Great, and you must be another.” We only point to the heathen mother, to teach you to take a high example; take the example of Jesus, and teach your child his blessed history, and say, 'There, my child ! be like Jesus; tread in the footsteps of Jesus.'

I see before me some dear little children. Next Sunday afternoon I hope to address a whole serinon to chil

Ι dren, and to tell them how much we ministers love them, how much we ministers long to see them Christians; I hope then to say something to them, that the God of grace may bless to their little hearts; but I am unwilling that they should go away this morning without a word. Dear little children, look at me, look at me as your friend ; look at me as a minister of Christ sent by the blessed Jesus to teach you. I want you to love Christ; for I have seen dear little children that loved Christ; I have seen dear little children, that wept because they had wicked hearts; I have seen dear little children, that loved to speak of the blessed Saviour, who came and died for them. Are you such a child? Do you repent for sin ? Do you know how wicked a heart

you
have ? Do

you know how God is displeased even with the sins of children? do you know that you need the Holy Spirit to make you holy, and that you need the blood of Jesus to save you? Dear little children, have you read the story of the Saviour's sufferings? Do you remember how they whipped him, and how the blood ran down his body as they scourged him? Have you read how he went out into the garden, and wept and prayed and lay upon the ground in an agony? Have you never thought of it all ? It was because he loved your little souls, that he bore it. You know he never sent little children away from him ; he always took them in his arms and blessed them; and you may be sure, that, when he prayed in that garden, he did not forget you. And when they nailed him to the cross, and put upon his head the cruel crown of thorns, and the blood ran down, dear children, he was dying for

a

you. If he had not died, you must have gone to hell, but he died, that you might be taken into heaven at last. Will you love him? Will you give him your hearts now? I

seem to see him going from seat to seat, and he stops at the little children; many great men would pass you by, but Jesus Christ will not. He seems to stand at the door of little children's hearts, and to say, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any” little children

open the door, I will come in” to be their Saviour. Will you open your hearts to him, dear little children? Will you say, 'Come, blessed Saviour! and I will be thine obedient child; I will love thee, I will serve thee, and then, when I die and my body is laid in the cold grave, I hope my soul will rise with holy angels to love and praise and pray!

SERMON VI.

CHILDREN URGED TO HEARKEN TO INSTRUCTION, AND TO FEAR

THE LORD.

“ Come, ye children, hearken unto me; I will teach you the

fear of the Lord.”—Psalm xxxiv. 11.

You know, when a minister preaches, he divides his sermon into different parts; sometimes we call them heads of the sermon; and there are some that understand it so well, that they have their pencil and paper and take down each one of the heads. Now I want you to recol. lect them, whether you write them down or not; because your teacher or your parents will ask you what the heads of the sermon were. I want every child to understand now, what the heads of the sermon mean; they are the different points about which the minister makes his remarks.

Now I am going to give you two general heads in this sermon, and then, under each one of these general heads, several smaller particular heads.

I. I am going to tell you, in the first place, several reasons why children should pay great attention to sermons. “ COME, YE CHILDREN, HEARKEN UNTO ME.”

I shall give you four reasons why every child ought to listen very attentively to the preacher; now, understand that you must recollect these heads—these four reasons that I give.

1. The first is this: if children do not pay great attention to the sermon, they cannot learn. Children come