ment, maintained by his power; and that all the boundless happiness it contains, flows incessantly from him,-from the joy of the insect that sports for its hour in the ray of the sun, to the rapture of the angel and the archangel that burn for ever before the eternal throne. To his perfection, teach them there is no limit ; that to his power, space has no bounds, and to his goodness, time no decay; that "he is the Lord, and changeth not; that

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every good and every perfect gift de"scends from him ;" and that to his beneficence" there is no variableness nor "shadow of turning."

2. Teach them, in the second place, that this God, all great and glorious as he is, is yet the Father of the race of man; that, in “ forming them in his own

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image," He has contracted the affections of a parent for them; and that, during all their eventful progress, He has watch

ed over them with the care with which a father watches over the progress of his infant children, and with the anxiety he feels, that they may come to the maturity of their being. It is this which is the great and distinguishing discovery of Revelation; the mighty discovery which leads the Christian into the moral sanctuary of nature, and enables him to worship there" in spirit and in truth." This, then, my brethren, is the second great truth which you have to teach your children; and every page of the Scripture, from its first to its last, affords you proofs and illustrations by which it is verified.

After the general enunciation of this great doctrine, you are then enabled to display to them, in detail, those magnificent scenes of the Divine administration which the ancient Scriptures unfold. Shew them then the first origin and cradle of their race, the melancholy fall from that

purity in which they were created, and the watchful presence of that paternal Spirit, which, in its visitations of wrath, as well as of mercy, was uniformly leading them on to some distant maturity and regeneration of their nature. As time advances, shew them the selection of that " peculiar people," who were separated from the rudeness of the surrounding world that they might preserve, for happier ages, the name and the worship of the living God; and that long line of prophets and of wise men, who follow each other in bright succession, commissioned by heaven to maintain the lofty truths with which they were entrusted, and to announce the arrival of one greater Being," in whom all "the nations of the earth were finally to. "be blessed."

Mighty as these discoveries are, they are yet simple and intelligible to the young. They assimilate the government

of the Almighty to the well-known resemblance of a father in his family; and dark and disastrous as may occasionally be the appearances of the world, they give them still the grateful assurance, that there is "One that careth "for them; and that, as a father pitieth "his own children, even so He pitieth "those that he hath made."

3. When the book of the Old Testament is closed, open to them the book of the New Testament, and shew them, in the third place, that these long prophecies have been accomplished; that the promised Saviour came; and that "herein is the "love of God manifested, in that He hath

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given his Son to be the Redeemer of "the world." Teach them, that it is here the full and final demonstration of the paternal goodness of God is given. In the successive missions of wise men and of prophets, they read the unwearied and

progressive providence of heaven. But, in the mission of the Son of God, there is something more;-there is an elevation of the race of man to some higher and nearer relation to the Almighty; -there is an "adoption" of it, as it were, into some greater rank of being, and there is a sacrifice involved, which demonstrates (in a manner which human language will never be able adequately to express) how dear the children of men are to the God who made them, when He spared not his only and beloved Son for their sakes.

4. Teach them, in the last place, my brethren, what is the end for which all this revelation is given, and all this progressive love employed;-that it is to train and prepare them for some more exalted state of being;-to fit them for some nearer approach to the great Fountain of Life and of love. Teach them that, in that greater state, the same compassion