To everlasting promises, would hail them
With kiss of love, with long and holy kiss,
Involving and expressing on the cheek
Of that dear infant the unsullied faith
Of ancient generations, and bestow
The patriarchal blessing on his head.

How felt those parents as, retiring calm,
Tender, resolved, with lofty purpose filled,
They to their own sweet home rejoicing bore
The gift of God, the child of covenant love,
Their holy offspring! Never, till then, O, never
Seemed, in their view, that beauteous babe so dear-
Seemed that sweet home so glorious, so refined!

O! 'twas like heaven, as with a mutual care They placed the cradle by the altar's side, And, kneeling where their loved one sleeping smiled, Renewed before the ancient household shrine The heart-felt consecration; then implored That grace which He, the God of promise, sealed To them and theirs. If faith, which works by love, Be strong with God, strong in prevailing prayer, Then rose that altar's incense pure to heaven, And angels looked upon that sacred spot, Where bloomed the rose of Eden-looked and said, How sweet the work to guard it! Ah, many, many Such glorious watching places angels find Round Zion's sunny hills and streams of grace.

Think not that angel visits are but “few

And far between." Öft at the rosy morn,
Or the still quiet evening, lo, they come,
Spirits invisible, to watch, to kneel

In the loved circle of a covenant home,
Strengthening the saint, the father, while he prays,
And leads e'en guardian angels to the throne.

Celestial work! high, elevating task!
To wear the unsullied ephod, which is cast,
By God's own mercy, round the household priest,
As trembling he advances. As he leads

To the pure shrine the partner of his cares,
O, how their souls commingle! How the power
Of minds united, fired, and giving forth,
Into one prayer, issues of endless life,
Wrestles in words of faith, and tones of love.

The new creation pours its shining truths
In one strong argument: the radiant law,
Claiming for God life's earliest loves and hopes-
The immortal soul of infancy; the cross
That op'd the gates when came the Holy Dove,
Bearing the peace-branch, wet with purest dews
Of paradise restored; the fall of man,
The chain of ages; generations linked,
For good or evil, bearing from earliest guilt
Sin to each life, and second death to death;
Redemption's glorious scheme; and covenant grace,
Poured like a stream in sunlight, and in joy
From age to age-all, all these lofty truths
Press on the soul, and form themselves in prayer.
And prayer, so formed, shall lodge its great request
Deep in the bosom of its covenant God,
Shall grasp the chain of promises, and bind
Around the loved that spiritual string of pearls-
Pearls of great price-gems of especial grace,
Hung, like the shield of knighthood, on the just-
Or like the star that gilds the royal brow,
Glows on the patriarch's forehead, and beseems
The crown of glory, such as Christ bestows
On heavenly princes. Higher than all degrees
Of earthly heraldry-beyond all gems

Of empire-purer, brighter, costlier far.

In the course of thought pursued in this chapter, I have rather followed the promptings of my heart than the prescriptions of method. There is, indeed, so much of pow. erful and attractive beauty in this ordinance, that it is calculated to impart intellectual enjoyment, as well as salutary religious impression. Indeed, we have always reason to exclaim, "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!" in reference to all the methods of his grace, and all the ordinances of his worship.

CHAPTER XII.

Practical reflections. Application of these principles to parents.

THE grand object of this discussion having been to promote the practical influence of this ordinance, I trust that the different classes concerned in it, will permit me to address them with such reflections as the principles before us authorize. In the first place, I solicit the attention of parents. To them this argument proclaims that the parental relation itself is of deep and solemn import. It is a relation which no angel may sustain; which in the higher grades of intelligence no being but God sustains. Its design is to educate souls for an endless and blissful existence. God has therefore confined, and adapted it, through the institution of marriage, to such a mode of existence as should effectually conduce to the spiritual welfare of all the parties concerned. This ordinance of infant consecration, has stamped this relation with the seal of infinite mercy and gracious protection. It regards the parent as a being loaded with interests and responsibilities which draw hard on the farreaching cords of eternity. As he climbs up the straight path, and the bright but rugged way, it beckons him on; it shines about his steps; it reaches forth the hand of promise, and clasps the hand of his faith to lift him up and lead him higher, till the path is all brightness, and the day is perfect. Through this ordinance, the Church has taken hold of the marriage institution, and of the parental relation, thus sanctifying them for her own appropriate and lofty purpose. The destination of the Church is so glorious, and the pur

poses of her existence so spiritually grand, that the parental relation deriveth from this connection and subserviency a corresponding sacredness and grandeur. It is no light thing that this relation should be publicly designated as the main channel between the high designs of the spiritual Church and their accomplishment in the salvation of immor. tal souls.

It is no light thing for the parents to sustain this relation through which the redeeming grace is poured. It will be no trifling matter for the impenitent parent, that he refused to acknowledge the benevolent claims of the Church upon his parental influence. It will sound strange to the august spectators of the judgment, that he strove to wrench it away from the tenure of the Church, and secured his own offspring from all participation in the blessings of the covenant. There will then be appalling disclosures as to the manner in which the human heart has scorned all the approaches of the Church, in these provisions of mercy. It will then appear, (what it really is,) most amazing infatuation, that the impenitent parent could so deliberately bind around the souls of his children the ligatures of moral pollution. It is abhorrent to all the instinctive principles of unfallen moral natures, or of ransomed spirits, whether made perfect in heaven, or going on towards perfection on earth, that parents can seat themselves beside their babes with thoughtless levity, to weave into the open heart of childhood the principles of eternal woe. What! are not the passions of your child sufficiently ardent, unless you stimulate them with the ingredients of madness! Are not the tendencies of his depraved heart sufficiently malign, unless you mingle into them the elements of eternal despair? Are not the temptations of Satan and the wiles of the pit enough to effect his ruin, unless you shall engage in the conspiracy? Will not his moral interests be sufficiently

exposed in this guilty world, unless you carefully withdraw from them a parent's protection? Let the impenitent pa. rent look to this. Through this ordinance, your insulted God demands your child. He claims from you, in behalf of that child, that family, a holy parental influence. He promises, if you will yield to his claim, to make that holy influence of yours a channel for his own, and to transcribe from the moral lineaments of your own mind the characteristics of holiness on the heart of your child. If you refuse this claim, and pass on impenitent, he will permit the spirits of darkness to amuse themselves in painting on the soul of your child the moral likeness of its parent. He now

calls upon you in every public administration of this ordi nance, to decide whether you will have a holy character; and hence the promise of the Spirit to transmit its features from generation to generation; or whether you will have a character of pollution, and have that same character wrought by the agency of Satan into that of your offspring unto the third and fourth generation. These inquiries must be answered without delay, for the terrible portraiture is already going on. Even while you hestitate,.the image is assuming its ineffaceable lineaments. Awake, and give yourself and give your child over into the bosom of the covenant, and into the dominion of the Holy Ghost, if you would escape a speedy and a multifold damnation. Strive! yearn! struggle! for, peradventure, even yet, the plague may be stayed. You must meet that child whom you withhold from Christ, at the judgment seat. You must there account for the perversion of that family influence. There a strict inquiry will be made into all the history of your household relations. There you must meet the glance of every child whom your example has corrupted, your neg. lect has ruined, and your perverted influence has moulded for the scenes of the pit. You must meet him amidst those