it shall be that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering." He wins the victory, returns in triumph to his home, and who Iwas the first to meet him at his house in Mizpeh but his own loved daughter, and only child? "And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and behold his daughter came to meet him with timbrels and with dances; and she was his only child; besides her he had neither son or daughter," &c. Her reply was that of a heroine of the sublimest kind-"My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which proceeded out of thy mouth," &c. In Jephthah's vow we see two things (1.) A good feeling overcoming the judgment. His feeling of obligation to God was good, but the determination to express that feeling by offering to the Almighty of anything that may turn up, as it were, by accident, was bad. (2.) A sense of right leading to an enormous crime. The most heinous sins on this earth have been perpetrated under a sense of right, and in the name of conscience. Whether the vow meant the sacrifice of his child's life, or the sacrifice of her connubial right, is a question in which there has ever been a diversity of opinion, and on

which it is not our purpose now to enter.

"Is

Our subject at present is parental immolations. there not," says Bishop Wordsworth, "an immolation of children worse than the sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter?" We think there is. We stand appalled at the crime of Jephthah; we recoil from him as from a fiendish monster; but are we sure that parents are not dealing more impiously with their daughters here in modern England, The following remarks may illustrate our meaning. We shall go on the assumption that Jephthah actually sacrificed the life of his daughter, and

I. Jephthah sacrificed his daughter TO THE TRUE GOD. It was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to whom this man offered up his daughter. But what are many modern parents doing? Why, offering up their children to false gods.

First: There is the god of idleness. The idea which many parents give their children is that work is degrading, inconvenient, and an evil to be avoided, and their great aim is to make them independent of industry. Thus they sacrifice them to the god of indolence, and indolence is ruin.

Secondly: There is the god of worldliness. In numberless cases the first idea that is worked into the mind of children by their parents is the importance and greatness of

wealth. They are trained for this; their exertions are stimulated to this. Money is the divinity to which their very being is consecrated.

Thirdly There is the god of ambition. To gain influence in the world, to get applause, to command attention, this is taught to children as an all-important thing. Hence they are trained in meretricious accomplishments, and dressed in tawdry attire. It is truly lamentable to see the daughters of England offered by the Jephthah fathers to such miserable idols.

II. Jephthah sacrificed only

THE BODY OF HIS DAUGHTER.

warp its higher faculties, and to quench its higher lights. "Sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death." "To be carnally minded is death." Soul murders are the worst of murders, and parents are often the moral murderers of their offspring.

Secondly: Soul immolation is more mischievous. What is the body to the soul? The body is but organized dust, the soul is an imperishable emanation from the Eternal. The murder of the body does not involve the destruction of the soul, the soul of many a murdered man towers into the blessed life everlasting; but when the soul is destroyed, the man himself is ruined.

III. Jephthah sacrificed his daughter FROM A NOBLE IMPULSE. "It was when the Spirit of the Lord" was upon Jephthah. He "vowed a vow unto the Lord," under a profound sense of his dependence upon God. It is true that the verbal form of the vow was a great mistake, there was no true judgment in the resolution expressed in the words, "Whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house," &c. His strong feelings seemed to swamp his intellect. The religious sentiment in him had run into a wild and ungovernable passion. It is also true that the formal execution of his Vow was a crime. It was bad to make a wrong vow, and it was worse to adhere to it. The

sooner we break a wrong vow the better: it was wicked of him to say, "I cannot go back," he ought to have gone back.

the

Notwithstanding all this, spirit underlying the whole, prompting the whole, was sublimely religious; it was religion rising into the romantic. No such high feeling prompts parents in these days to sacrifice the souls of their children even to the false and ignominious divinities. They do it either from the spirit of custom, vanity, greed, or ambition. It is a cold-blooded, soulless immolation. It has no poetry in it, not even the poetry of wickedness. If there is any feeling, it is the mere lust of the eye and pride of life.

IV. Jephthah sacrificed his daughter with a TERRIBLE REGRET. "And it came to pass when he saw her he rent his clothes and said, Alas, my daughter, thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me," &c. Who can describe his feelings when he laid his hands of violence on his daughter, who came out to meet him, "with timbrels and with dances," his loved and only child his anguish must have been poignant and overwhelming. But modern parents lay the souls of their children on the altar of worldliness, vanity, and sin, not only without any compunction, but with an utter indifference. They look on and

:

see the moral life waning and expiring, without aught of moral distress. They see the souls of their daughters running into grubs, butterflies, swine, and heave no sigh of regret.

V. Jephthah sacrificed his daughter with HER FULL CONCURRENCE. "And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth." She was willing the father had her full and hearty concurrence. Do worldly parents in these times get the consent of their daughters to be morally immolated? No. Though it may not be against their consent, it is not by it, for their parents have not been candid, and told them what they intended doing with them. When Jephthah said, "I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back," his daughter knew what it meant, and forthwith consented. Were worldly parents to say to their daughters at the dawn of their intelligent and moral life, we intend to take all the innocency from your young loves-all the sensibility from your young consciences all the religious poetry from your young natures

-and to make you the dolls of fashion, the devotees of a sham life, the victims of a pampered animalism, and thus rifle you of your birthright as immortalsthis would be honest; this would bring the question so thoroughly

home to the young heart as would, we think, rouse opposition to the fiendish plan.

CONCLUSION: How many moral Jephthahs are there to be found in the families of this age. Why condemn this free-booting Gileadite for sacrificing the body of his daughter, when we regard as respectable fathers who are immolating the souls of their daughters.

A MESSENGER FROM THE DEAD.

"And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead."-Luke xvi. 30, 31.

A SHORT discourse on the whole of this sublimely solemn and terribly suggestive parable will be found in a previous volume of the HOMILIST.

We

In passing on to our subject, the following things may be noticed, as suggested by the context-1. Departed men in the other world think of the surviving here. Dives thought of his five brethren who were in the old family home. are not forgotten by those who are gone. We are thought about and talked about in the great world of spirits: it is natural it should be so. (2.) Departed men in the other world are interested in the surviving here. Both the request of the rich

man in hell and the response of Abraham in heaven express a feeling of concern. Many reasons may be suggested why the rich man did not wish his brethren to follow him into the dark regions. (3.) Departed men in the lost world make great mistakes concerning the surviving here. The rich man thought that if a messenger from the dead were sent to his brethren they would be saved. This was a mistake: Abraham assures him to the contrary. "And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead."

The text leads us to consider three things.

I. A NEED THE MOST URGENT. What is the urgent need? Repentance. "If one went unto them from the dead they will repent." In both worlds this is considered the great want. Dives and Abraham felt this. Repentance means not a mere regret, but a radical revolution; not a mere revolution in external conduct or in doctrinal beliefs, but in the controlling disposition of the soul. So radical is the change, that it is figuratively represented as a resurrection, a new birth, a creation. Now, the necessity of this repentance may be argued on two grounds.