sonable, unwise, and unjust, than that of making a difference between one child and another. It discourages the rest, and ruins one-the favorite. It sets the Father against the Mother, and the other Children combine to crush the fondling." Melancholy, in the extreme, is the prospect of that Child who has the misfortune to be such a favorite!

Finally, For every one in charge of a Family, it is indeed a most serious and important consideration, that, whether the tendency of the heart be to undue severity, to over-indulgence, to a baneful inequality of treatment, or to this sinful partiality, in all cases of failure, the evil will be found at least to originate with the Parents! Meeting, as every failure must, even at its commencement, with the corruption of human nature, there will then be faults on both sides; but still with the Parents the evil originated inasmuch as to them belong the privilege and the duty, not so much of redressing evil when it has come to a head, as of sowing the seeds of character, of training the plant, of bending the twig when young and tender, of crushing evil in the bud, or of preventing the growth of what would prove noxious to the mind. Hence

in representing to us the rectification of such a moral disorder in a family, the Scriptures direct us to commence with them :-" He shall turn the heart of the Fathers to the Children."

Placed in a situation so difficult and responsible, where so much depends upon our procedure, refuge we have none, except in the wisdom that cometh down from above, with all its heavenly attributes. This alone can preserve us from extremes, and give us consistency, as far as may be in our present imperfect and sinful state. But then this wisdom must not only be requested, but there is only one way in which it can be obtained. It is a communi

cation from above, bestowed on those only whose hearts are in truth turned unto God; for never can we love even our offspring as we ought, till we love God as we should. Until He has the first, they cannot occupy the proper and appropriate place in our affection and our care. To the following Section, therefore, I must now refer the reader.

SECTION THIRD.

THE MEANS OF RECOVERY AND ESTABLISH

MENT.

Deliberate conversation with Parents as to the absolute necessity of personal Religion.

I AM not insensible that this subject is of more importance than any which has preceded it, and that if I fail here, the volume I should account of very inferior value; but though volumes have been written upon it, I must rest satisfied with only one section.

Here, however, reader, instead of any formal statements, I would prefer to hold some conversation with you, if you have no objection to give me your ear, and something more. What I request more will be mentioned presently; and in the meanwhile, allow me first to say, that, a Parent myself, and acquainted with a Parent's heart, and a Parent's cares, and a Parent's difficulties, I feel in, you therefore all the interest of sympathy, and of anxiety after your best and your highest interests. If you are already not almost only, but altogether, a Christian, you will, I trust, see the force of all that is advanced as we proceed. If you have reason to suspect that you are not, or if you suspect that there is a deficiency somewhere, then suffer me to request your unprejudiced and serious perusal of what follows, more than once.

Whatever men may say, genuine Christianity alone can rectify the disorder which sin has introduced, whether into the soul, into our families, or the world at large. Upon this supposition, you may have observed that, in Scripture, some one striking feature of genuine Christianity is, occasionally, put for the whole: some one powerful effect is mentioned as an evidence of the existence of Christianity itself. So the "turning of the heart" towards our fellow-men, and especially towards our offspring and the people of God, if that heart directs to suitable measures, is an evidence of the heart being turned to God himself, a generous effect, and peculiar to Christianity. The shipwrecked mariner, throwing out a rope to his companions who are still buffeted by the waves, gives not more evidence of his being now in safety, than that man gives of his own salvation, who, in a scriptural way and spirit, seeks for the salvation of others. From the manner, however, in which these expressions of Malachi are introduced in the New Testament, all doubt, as to their precise meaning, is taken away, and that by the angel of God, when addressing Zacharias, the Father of John. After intimating to the Parent that his Child should be filled with the Holy Spirit, as a proof of this he adds,- "And many of the Children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God; and he shall go before Him to turn the hearts of the Fathers to their Children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready a people prepared" or disposed "for the Lord." From this language you will evidently perceive, that the Fathers or Children referred to are such as had also turned to the

Lord their God, and that, as a people, they were prepared or disposed for the Lord.

Scripture, indeed, my friend, at any time, never deals in half measures. It begins at the beginning, and that with the heart; dealing with it through the conscience :

insists upon it that the heart is diseased, and that to such extent, that an entire change there must be effected. Men may and do hesitate, and cavil, and so may you; but in these hesitations Scripture discovers no such sympathy as to recede in one page from what it demands in another. To come up, therefore, to the proper meaning of this language, uttered by an angel commissioned from above, nothing short of repentance towards God, and of faith. towards our Lord Jesus Christ, will answer instead. No, reader, rely upon it, that nothing short of your returning back from sin and Satan, from the world and self, to God, your original happiness; as to your Sovereign Lord to be obeyed, and your best portion to be enjoyed, depending for reception and acceptance on the sacrifice and intercession of Christ alone; nothing short of this can you, with safety, rest in, when you hear of repentance towards God, and of faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ.

A subject of the Divine Government, and one day to render an account of all the deeds which you have done in the body, yet, at this moment, under an invincible obligation to attend to this subject, I trust you will not object to my referring you for information and conviction, to the law of God itself.

Whatever men may think and say, when living in sin, or paying to this law only the homage of a passing regard; and however even some divines may confound this law with the thunders of Sinai, the majestic circumstances which once attended its more complete display, and formal delivery, it is worthy of your deliberate consideration, that nothing has been left undone to put honor upon it. When the God of glory dwelt in the Jewish temple, in the pillar of the cloud over the mercy-seat, this law, by his special command, was deposited in the ark, the holiest place in the holiest of all, as its dearest and choicest treasure. Thus was it done to the law which God de