it be supposed that God intends men to grow up in sin and enmity to Him, hardened to all that is right and good, and confirmed in evil habits, before they are brought unto Him ?1 Far be it from us to limit the power or goodness of God; but He has stated rules of operation in grace, as well as in nature, and it is only in accordance with these that we

due care and culture, be likely to take the deepest root and produce the largest increase."—(Dr. GASTREL.) "With all imaginable concern of conscience, let parents make it their business to infuse into their children's hearts early and good principles of morality. Let them teach them from their very cradle to think and speak awfully of the great God, reverently of religion, and respectfully of the dispensers of it."-(Dr. R. SOUTH: Sermons.) "It is quite certain that if from childhood men were to begin to follow the first intimations of conscience, honestly to obey them and carry them out into act, the power of conscience would be so strengthened and improved within them that it would soon become, what it is evidently intended to be, a connecting principle between the creature and the Creator.' This light that lighteth every man, if any were to follow it consistently, would soon lead a man up and on to a clear and full knowledge of God, and to the formation of the divine image within himself.”—(Prof. SHAIRP: Religion and Culture.) "I think it can be shown by sufficient evidence that more is done to affect or fix the moral and religious character of children before the age of language than after. . . . My solemn conviction" is "that more, as a general fact, is done or lost by neglect of doing. on a child's immortality, in the first three years of his life than in all his years of discipline afterwards." Observe "how very quick the child's eye is, in the passive age of infancy, to catch impressions and receive the meaning of looks, voices, and motions. It peruses all faces and colours and sounds. Every sentiment that looks into its eyes looks back out of its eyes and plays in miniature on its countenance." (Dr. BUSHNELL.) Gregory Nazianzen says, "Thou hast a child, let not evil gain any time. From the beginning let it be sanctified: let it be dedicated to the Holy Ghost." "Perhaps, a great deal of what we are used to call natural temper is little more than that particular frame of heart which was first infused in our education."-(Religious Education.)

"Infancy and childhood are the ages most pliant to good. And who can think it necessary that the plastic nature of childhood must first be hardened into a stone, or stiffened into enmity towards God, before it can become a candidate for Christian character."-(Dr. BUSHNELL.) "It cannot be God's purpose that for about fourteen or sixteen years children should grow up unregenerate-children of the devil-and then by a violent revolution, a conversion, a change of heart and life, become His children. If they grow up in sin we cannot be too thankful for the grace that converts them. But why should they grow up in sin? Is it not God's injunction that we bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? And if we obey, shall He not, as a rule, realize the great promise of their pious manhood ?"-(Rev. HENRY ALLON.) "No limit, indeed, can be set to the force of truth or to the power of divine grace: and, doubtless, some of the brightest ornaments of religion have been brought under its sanctifying influence in later life. But if vicious propensities are permitted to gain the ascendant, if the seeds of immorality be sown by a false system of education, and unbridled freedom of action be allowed, if wicked com

are entitled to look for His blessing.1 It is in childhood and early life that we are particularly to look for the blessing of God upon our children, and it is by means of careful training that we may expect to lead, and to keep them in the right way.2 It is owing to the neglect of this that, as

panionships be formed, and the polluting influence of fashionable pleasure indulged, then, in the natural order of things, the mind must become like a tree scathed and blighted by lightning; it may retain its form, but it will be stripped of the verdure of religion and virtue." (Dr. DIXON.)

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"While viewing human nature and the history of man, it would be improper to entertain theological distinctions or to inquire into the cause of those higher and more intimate reformations-reformations of the spirit which Christianity challenges as its triumphs, and teaches us to ascribe to an emanation of divine influence. These restorations of the true and original beauty of the human soul, whatever may be their cause, take place in accordance with the constitution of the human mind, not in subversion of its principles of movement, and are at once truly divine and truly natural." (ISAAC TAYLOR.) "While the blessings of religion are solely the gift of divine grace, they can only be reasonably expected in the diligent use and improvement of the various means by which God ordinarily communicates these blessings. This is a truth which, however it may be overlooked by ignorance or denied by folly, . . lies at the foun. dation of all real and rational piety." (Dr. THOS. BROWN: Sermons.) "The great God hath stated rules of operation in the world of grace as well as in that of nature, and though He is not limited to them, it is arrogant, and may be destructive, to expect that He will deviate from them in favour of us or ours."-(Dr. Doddridge.) "You have to act, I believe, in spiritual things on precisely the same principle which is to regulate your conduct in the affairs of life. . . . God interposes for our relief, not by caprice, partiality, kindnesses towards individuals, separate acts and interpositions in the case of one and another, the exercises of mere prerogative; all of which throw us, in religion, either upon the endless multiplication of miracles, or on chances and peradventures which can afford no rational ground for action or hope. Instead of this, the grand general idea of the Gospel is the establishment of a gracious dispensation or system intermingling with or overshadowing the natural, itself becoming as fixed and settled a thing as either of them, prepared to act according to its own nature, and to work out effects by the action of determined laws and arrangements."-(Rev. T. BINNEY: Both Worlds.) "The mind is as much subject to law as the body is. The reign of law is over all."(Duke of ARGYLL: Reign of Law.) "There are laws in the moral world on which we may form our calculations with little less of accuracy and of truth than on those which guide the spheres or govern matter upon earth." (The Parents' High Commission.) "If moral means have, as their name signifies, not an arbitrary relation to their ends, but one based on the nature of things, must we not look for the accomplishment of those ends with more or less confidence, according as those means are employed ?"-(Rev. D. THOMAS.)

2" It has long been a popular proverb, 'Use the means and God will give the blessing'; but few seem yet to know how much is implied in this wise saying, few have yet learned that in religious and moral strength

is frequently remarked, the children of good and pious parents so often turn out ill.1 If they do not avail them

and power, as in every other divine gift, man has received from God far more than he has well employed." (Rev. R. A. THOMPSON.) "He who looks for the effect while he is wilfully neglecting the necessary means manifests not rational and commanded confidence, but foolish and unwarrantable presumption."---(Dr. WARDLAW.) "If there be such an order of sequence established and maintained by God's all-ruling providence, on the ground of which we may calculate that when Christian parents put forth the influence of their character, and discharge the duties of their relation as they might and should, their children will grow up partakers of their character and blessedness, it is manifestly of the first importance that they should clearly and fully and habitually recognize its existence."-(Rev. D. THOMAS.) We may calculate with confidence on the communication of the Holy Spirit's grace when the parental influence is duly exercised." "We seek the circumstances that are favourable, and employ the means of those whose spiritual improvement is our aim, expecting with such circumstances and means the divine co-operation indispensable to our success. The more favourable the circumstances, the greater the fitness of the means we use, and the truer the use we make of them, the more confident is our expectation that the Divine Spirit's presence and power will render them effectual for our purpose." (Ditto) "We must not presume upon the means without God, nor upon God without the means. in the means nor make an idol of the means. I will, therefore, lay my hands to the means, as if they were all in all; and yet look above the means, as if they were nothing at all."-(Divine Breathings.) "In the moral world the force of God composes itself of our forces, in the same way that the work of His Providence is very often the sum of our actions. If you decompose into visible elements the power displayed by Christianity, you will only find a human force at the end of your analysis." (VINET.)

I must neither be idle

"The wonder that children of pious parents so often grow up into a vicious and ungodly life would, I think, give way to just the contrary wonder if only some just conception were had of the various, multifarious, unknown, unsuspected disqualifications by which modes of nurture otherwise good are poisoned."-(Dr. BUSHNELL.) "That there are so many of this unhappy description is chiefly owing to their not having been favoured with a sufficient degree of personal religious instruction, nor subjected to proper discipline."-(Rev. E. RUSSELL.) "We frequently hear of godly parents having very ungodly children; but show me," says Dr. Bushnell," the case where the whole conduct of the parents has been such as it should be to produce the best effects, and where the sovereignty of God has appointed the ruin of the children, whether all or any one of them. The sovereignty of God has always a relation to means, and we are not authorized to think of it in any case as separated from means." "During all the most extensive experience I have had, with the opportunity of studying human nature to as large an extent in one day as persons not set apart to Metropolitan Missionary work have perhaps in half a year, and having directed my attention to diligent examination with a view to the elucidation of this promise, 'Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it,' the result I have found to be that I have never discovered a single case of juvenile delin

selves of the means which God has put into their hands, they cannot expect His blessing upon their labours.1

The error arises from looking at Christianity in the present day too much in the light of its first appearance." Christianity was first planted on earth amid signs and wonders from heaven attesting its divine origin; and men were then turned from the error of their ways by supernatural means. But these ceased with the times that gave them birth; and the age of miracles has long passed away.* Now we are entitled to look for the divine life in our children only in and through the use of natural and appointed means, the means which reason and experience teach us to

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quency where the child had been the subject from infancy of the double teaching, by precept and example, in the ways of Christ at the hands of parents, both of whom were truly converted to God."-(Mr.VANDERKISTE.) 1"Perhaps it is not too much to say that anomalies like those which now so frequently distress us would rarely exist if Christian families were what they ought to be, and Christian society what God intended it should be." (Organized Christianity.) 'God communicateth His grace ordinarily by means, as ordinarily He causeth natural effects by means, and miracles are rare." (R. BAXTER.) "Pious and well directed efforts in the educational department must, to a certain extent, meet with success; and it is very questionable whether there are any instances on record of persons dying in an unconverted state who have been brought up by their parents in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”—(JOSEPH BENSON.)

2" We should be on our guard against a twofold error. The one is to look for the same disposition during the first centuries which prevailed in later times. The other is to overlook the necessity for further development, and to maintain that everything ought to have remained in its state of comparative childhood or youth."-(HAGENBACH: History of Doctrines.)

8"There was once a direct supernatural intervention, a miraculous putting forth of the power of God, in order to meet an inexorable necessity; but that being done, a gracious constitution of things is based upon itthe supernatural then ceases, so far as direct acts are concerned."—(Rev. T. BINNEY.)

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"The system of mercy once established, things proceed according to the laws and canons of the economy. The supernatural ceases. He acts in the dispensation of grace, as He does in those of nature." -(Rev. T. BINNEY.) "All the dispensations of Providence are tempered by an harmonious principle; and in the moral, as well as in the natural world, every effect has an evident relation to its cause." "Not that I would be understood to assert that Providence may not, perhaps, even in the present day, be sometimes pleased to interpose in a manner more awful and impressive than is agreeable to the ordinary course of his proceedings; and to arrest the sinner in his career of infidelity or wickedness, and to turn him from darkness into light. But it is the error of enthusiasm to invert the order of God's proceedings, and to mistake that for the rule which, in reality, constitutes the exception."-(Bishop MANT.)

be adapted for that end.1 Farther, in these days conversion. to Christianity was really a conversion.2 It was the giving up of one religion and the adoption of another; the giving up of the idolatrous rites and ceremonies for the worship of the true God; the forsaking of all licentious courses hitherto regarded as venial for a strict and pure code of morality.3 This was a judicial act involving due consideration; and the effects of which would immediately manifest themselves.*

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'He that expects to attain the kingdom of heaven by miracle, it will be a miracle, indeed, if he come thither." (Holy Living.) "Rome might more easily be built than a man converted in a single day. Such a prodigy is possible with God; but in a thousand, and in ten thousand cases to one, we may safely predict that He will not perform it."-(VINET.) God doth not bestow His gifts "absolutely without condition, nor miraculously, without concurrence of ordinary means;" but "by supporting our active powers, and supplying needful aid to our endeavours, by directing and upholding us in the course of our action, by preventing or removing obstacles that might cross us, by granting that final success which dependeth on His pleasure, He doth confer them on us.”—(Dr. ISAAC BARROW.)

2"Not as now, by the slow and sedulous labours of parental instruction, and the discipline of early years, or by the gradual dawn of clearer conviction, and a deeper moral feeling on the soul, through the teaching of Scripture, but by agencies and influences almost instantaneous were moral revolutions in the old time achieved."—(Dr. CAIRD: Conversion in Primitive and Modern Times.)

3 "One most obvious point of difference is that then conversion consisted in the adopting of a new religion, whilst now.it consists generally in the realizing of an old and familiar one. Formerly, in other words, it was a new faith espoused; now it is only an old one quickened. . . . When men became Christians, then they had openly to renounce one religion and adopt another—to pass at one step from Paganism or Judaism to Christianity. When men become Christians now, inmost cases they simply pass from nominal to real Christianity. There is no external act of renunciation, no visible recanting an old and professing of a new creed; all the difference is that what was before a mere form becomes a reality; that old creeds are realized, old forms become instinct with the sap of reviving spiritual life. .. When a heathen was converted to Christianity his whole life became revolutionized. Unhallowed rites

and ceremonies were no longer frequented; sacrifices and festivals ceased to be observed; habits of life were completely altered; idolatrous customs and usages, which interpenetrated domestic and social existence, were renounced; licentious excesses, formerly regarded as venial, if not committed under the very sanction of religion, were succeeded by a pure and strict morality; from a despiser and persecutor of Christianity the neophyte became an open and devoted follower of the Lord Jesus; and, of course, a change so radical, so revolutionary, could not fail to be instantly observed by all to whom the convert was known."--(Dr. CAIRD.) 4"A moral change, which is not the slow and silent result of long processes of education, discipline, thought, reflection, conviction brought about by the gradual converging influence of a thousand events, agencies, teachings of Providence and of grace, but which, under some condensed