have secured to those souls, as strongly as possible, those means and influences on which their eternal welfare depends? Who can fail to see how well the ordinance of infant consecration is adapted to give this security?

3. The utility of infant baptism is manifest from its actual bearing on the performance of parental duties.

The parents retire from the sanctuary to the household hearth. There they bow at the family altar. They plead for the soul which they have given to God. They reiterate their vows, and commend their child to the Spirit of the covenant. Can they do less, if they act according to their strongest feelings and solemn promises? Where has family worship been most faithfully maintained? Unquestionably, where the household dedication advocated in these chapters has been most faithfully performed. I appeal to Scotland, to England, to the United States, as compared with other countries. I appeal to the history of those Churches which have most clearly understood these principles and most highly proved them. The maintenance of family worship is regarded as a sacred, indispensable duty, generally if not universally, in those Churches where family consecration is rightly practised. As a convincing illustration of this, we need but present, as a specimen of a whole class, the household worship of New-England. It is unnecessary to extend the comparison minutely, through different denomi. nations, yet let the inquiry be prosecuted ever so exten. sively, the same principle would gather continual confirmation. It is painful to present the other side of the picture. An aged godly minister once said, when addressing a Church, who, like himself, rejected infant dedication, "I am acquainted with the state of our Churches in all this region, and there are but few members who maintain family worship." This assertion could never be made respecting families who practise infant consecration on the principles here professed.

What glowing interest must these principles awaken in the bosom of the family circle!

"The saint, the father, and the husband prays." They not only preserve family worship, but they purify, inspire, and ennoble it.

If the parents are prompted to maintain family worship, in consequence of their covenant faith and engagements, they will, in the same manner, be influenced to diligence in family instruction. They will draw around them the consecrated group. The father, when he sitteth down, and when he riseth up, when he goeth out, and when he cometh in, in the house, and by the way. The mother in the closet and in the nursery, each in their respective stations; both at their united domestic fireside. They will instruct them. Such is the inference forced upon us, for according as family worship is neglected or honored, so will it generally be with religious instruction. The facts correspond with the inference. The catechetical instruction; the strict household regulations; the stern doctrinal and moral prin. ciples, instilled even with proverbial diligence by our an. cestors; the Sabbath school instruction; the maternal association, the simplified religious reading in modern times, all bear witness to the truth of these statements, and have chiefly originated among those who baptize their children, and have been mainly propelled by the zeal which the coals from this altar have enkindled. It is true that much is now done where the ordinance of infant dedi. cation is not practised; that an increasing interest is now felt, there is no doubt; other truths and principles have operated, in a measure, to stimulate; and more especially the presence and example of infant consecration in the same neighborhoods has counteracted the tendency of neglect in many families. Yet the inspiring, moving spring of this

unusual interest is manifestly the spirit of household dedication.

For the same reasons that family worship and instruction are nourished by this influence, will intellectual education be promoted. The parents feel that the minds for whose moral culture God has adapted such a special system of provision, ought to receive the best possible intellectual cultivation. Hence the principles of infant consecration have always tended to promote the general education of youth. Again I mention Scotland, England, the United States, and especially New-England. To mention these countries, especially the last, is sufficient. Their common schools; their educated ministry; their literary and scientific institutions; their numerous publications, in volumes and periodicals, and their general intelligence, are known and ho nored of all men.

The parents who are influenced as described above will train up their households to sanctify the Sabbath.

The mind imbued with the reasonings which establish the divine authority of infant baptism, will feel the beauty and force of that which sustains the divine authority of the Christian Sabbath. On the other hand, those who have taught the abolition of the Abrahamic covenant, have extensively advocated the abrogation of the fourth command. ment.

The heart which prizes most highly the covenant of consecration, will naturally feel most deeply the value of the Lord's sacred day. The same manner of investigation, adopted under the other specifications, will equally illustrate the correspondence of the history with the logical deductions.

If these things are so; if family worship and instruction, if the benign influences of liberal education, and the auspicious energies of the Christian Sabbath, are promoted,

preserved, and elevated, through the influence of household consecration, can any man question its manifest and its sur passing utility? If, moreover, its living truths, its solemn pledge, and its actual bearing on the performance of parental duties, are so conspicuous, how salutary must be its influence on the formation of parental character. The constant exer. cise of such Abrahamic faith, of such patriarchal solicitude, of such strong, deep, and prevailing prayer, as the fulfil ment of the pledge, the development of these principles, and the performance of these duties demand, must tend to form a lovely, steadfast, and consistent character. How sweetly must it combine warmth of affection with vigor of intellect, and domestic cheerfulness with holiness of conversation, It is "as the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended on the mountains of Zion; for there the Lord com. manded the blessing, even life for evermore,"

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CHAPTER IX.

Utility of household consecration continued. Its influence on consecrated children. Examples-its connection with prevailing prayer. Examples-the early conversion of children.

HAVING Considered in what manner the ordinance of infant consecration produces parental faithfulness, we shall proceed to inquire in what manner God blesses that faithfulness, in remembrance of his holy covenant. Hence we remark,

4. That the utility of this ordinance is manifest, from the restraining moral influence which it exerts upon the minds of consecrated children while impenitent.

A pious lady, being solicited by her daughters for permission to attend a ball, replied, My dear children, in your infancy I consecrated you to the Saviour; how then can I give my consent to your request ?—I have dedicated you to him forever-do you wish to break away from that dedication? Will you not rather yourselves now consent to that precious covenant? They paused, considered, assented to her decision, and rejoiced that they had a mother who was steadfast to her baptismal engagements.

A young lad, over whose infancy a dying mother breathed her prayer of faith, and over whose earliest years the watchfulness of that mother's parents and sisters exercised the care of holy affection, was once strongly tempted, when at play with his shoolmates, to take the name of his covenant God in vain. So powerful was the temptation, that he even resolved to venture his first oath. The word was forming on his lips, when the thought of his infant de