the best morality in all the world. I would have the Sunday. school teacher take care of the morals of the boys and girls, speaking to them very particularly of those sins which are most common to youth. He may honestly and conveniently say many things to his children which no one else can say, espe cially when reminding them of the sin of lying, so common with children; the sin of little petty thefts, of disobedience to parents, of breaking the Sabbath-day. I would have the teacher be very particular in mentioning these things, one by one; for it is of little avail talking to them about sins in the mass: you must take them one by one, just as David did First look after the tongue: "Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile." Then look after the whole conduct : " Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it." If the child's soul is not, saved by other parts of the teaching, this part may have a beneficial effect upon his life; and so far so good. Morality, however, is comparatively a small thing.

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The best part of what you teach is godliness, a constant belief in God-I said, not religion, but godliness. Many people are religious without being godly. Many have all the externals of godliness, all the outside of piety—such men we call religious-but they have no thought about God. They think about their place of worship, their Sunday, their books, but nothing about God; and he who does not respect God, pray to God, love God, is an ungodly man with all his exter nal religion, however good that may be. Labor to teach the child always to have an eye to God; write on his brow, "Thou, God, seest me;" stamp on his books, "Thou, God, seest me;" beseech him to recollect that,

"Within the encircling arms of God

He ever more doth dwell;"

that the arms of Jehovah encompass him around while his every act and thought is under the eye of God. No Sundayschool teacher discharges his duty unless he constantly lays stress upon the fact that there is a God who notices every thing. O! that we were more godly ourselves, that we talked more of godliness, and that we loved it better!

The third lesson is-the evil of sin. If the child does not learn that, he will never learn the way to heaven. None of us ever knew what a Saviour Christ was, till we knew what an evil thing sin was. If the Holy Ghost does not teach us "the exceeding sinfulness of sin," we shall never know the blessedness of salvation. Let us ask his grace, then, when we each, that we may evermore be able to lay stress upon the abominable nature of sin. "The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the face of the earth." Don't spare your child; let him know what sin leads to; don't, like some people, be afraid of speak ing the consequences of sin plainly and broadly. I have heard of a father, one of whose sons, a very ungodly young man, was taken off in a very sudden manner. He did not, as some would do, say to his family: "We hope your brother has gone to heaven." No; but, overcoming his natural feelings, he was enabled, by divine grace, to assemble his children, and say: "My sons and daughters, your brother is dead; I fear he is in hell; you knew his life and conduct, you saw how he behaved: God snatched him away." Then he solemnly warned them of the place to which he believed, and almost knew he was gone, begging them to shun it; and then he was the means of bringing them to serious thought. But had he acted, as some would have done, with tenderness of heart, but not with honesty of purpose, and said he hoped his son had gone to heaven, what would the others have said? "If he is gone to heaven, there is no need for us to fear, we may live as we like." No, no; I hold it is not unchristian to say of some men that they are gone to hell, when we have seen that their lives have been hellish lives. But it is said: "Can you judge your fellow-creatures ?" No, but I can know them by their fruits; I do not judge them or condemn them; they judge themselves. I have seen their sins go beforehand to judgment, and I do not doubt that they shall follow after. "But may they not be saved at the eleventh hour?" I do not know that they may. I have heard of one who was, but I do not know that there ever was another, and I can not tell that there ever will be. Be honest, then, with

your children, and teach them, by the l elp of God, that evil shall slay the wicked.

But you will not have done half eno igh unless you teach carefully the fourth point-the absolute necessity of a change of heart. O, may God enable us to keep this constantly before the minds of the taught that there must be a broken heart and a contrite spirit, that good works will be of no avail unless there be a new nature, that the most arduous duties, and the most earnest prayers will all be nothing, unless there be a true and thorough repentance for sin, and an entire forsaking of it through the mercy of God. Ah! be you sure, whatever you leave out, that you tell them of the three Rs, Ruin, Regeneration, and Redemption. Tell them that they are ruined by the fall, and that if they are redeemed by Christ they never can know it until they are regenerated by the Spirit. Keep before them these things; and then you will have the pleasing task of telling them.

In the fifth place, the joy and blessedness of being a Christian. Well, I need not tell you how to talk about that, for if you know what it is to be a Christian you will never be short of matter. Ah! beloved, when we get on this subject, our mind cares not to speak, for it would riot in its joys, and revel in its bliss. Oh! truly was it said: "Blessed is the man whose iniquity is forgiven, and whose sin is pardoned." Truly was it said: "Blessed is he that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is." Always lay a stress upon this point, that the righteous are a blessed people-that God's chosen family, redeemed by blood and saved by power, are a blessed people here below, and will be a blessed people above. Let your children see that you are blessed. If they know you are in trouble, come with a smiling face, if it be possible, so that they may say: "Teacher is a blessed man, although he is bowed down with his troubles." Always seek to keep a joyous face that they may know religion to be a blessed thing; and let this be one main point of your teaching, though 'many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken." "The Lord redeemeth the soul of his ser vants; and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate "

Thus I have given you these five lessons; and now, in con clusion, let me solemnly say, with all the instruction you may give to your children, you must all of you be deeply conscious that you are not capable of doing any thing in the child's salvation, but that it is God himself who from the first to the last must effect it all. You are a pen; God may write with you, but you can not write yourself. You are a sword; God may with you slay the child's sin, but you can not slay it yourself. Be you therefore always mindful of this, that you must be first taught of God yourself, and then you must ask God to teach, for unless a higher teacher than you instruct the child, that child must perish. It is not all your instruction can save his soul: it is the blessing of God resting on it.

May God bless your labors! He will do it if you are instant in prayer, constant in supplication; for never yet did the earnest preacher or teacher, labor in vain, and never yet has it been found that the bread cast upon the waters has been lost

SERMON XXIII.

THE GOD OF THE AGED.

"Even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you."— ISAIAH, xlvi. 6.

WILL you allow me to expound the doctrine of this text, and then to show you how it is carried out, especially in the time of old age?

I. THE DOCTRINE OF THE TEXT I hold to be, the constancy of God's love, its perpetuity, and its unchangeable nature. God declares that he is not simply the God of the young saint; that he is not simply the God of the middle-aged saint; but that he is the God of the saints in all their ages from the cradle to the tomb. "Even to old age I am he;" or, as Lowth beauti fully and more properly translates it, "Even to old age I am the same, and even to hoary hairs will I carry you."

The doctrine, then, is twofold: that God himself is the same, whatever may be our age; and that God's dealings toward us, both in providence and in grace, his carryings and his deliverings, are alike unchanged.

1. As to the first part of the doctrine, that God himself is unchanged when we come to old age, surely I have no need to prove that. Abundant testimonies of Scripture declare God to be an immutable being, upon whose brow there is no furrow of old age, and whose strength is not enfeebled by the lapse of ages; but if we need proofs, we might look even abroad on nature, and we should from nature guess that God would not change during the short period of our mortal life. Seemeth it unto me a hard thing, that God should be the same for seventy years, when I find things in nature that have retained the same impress and image for many more years! Behold the sun!

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