sons of poverty? Does love for the Lord Jesus Christ animate their souls, and has it not power to press them into his service to feed the lambs of his flock? Consider, O youth! the parable of the talents; if we misimprove our talent, the awful consequence, and if we improve it, the eternal reward that follows. Your coming forward to the help of the Lord against the mighty, is for your own benefit-you yourselves will reap the reward. If you hoard up the treasure committed to you, it will destroy you, but if you scatter it abroad, it will produce an abundant harvest which you shall reap at a future day. Consider the effect of actions; the devoting yourselves to this work is paving the way for your Christian character rising to a glorious consummation, and the giving your time to the world and its pleasures is making you less inclined to the ways of holiness, and paving the way to endless ruin. Seriously think of the importance of this work, and I am sure your time and talents will be devoted to its promotion. The children that are to be instructed are poor and ignorant, many of them orphans; the value of giving instruction to such is great; the cry of the poor is heard in the ears of the Lord of Sabbaoth. The ignorant Christ came to instruct, and to the fatherless he is a father and a friend: the prayers of these children, put up in behalf of a teacher, is more valuable than gold: "They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever." Let not parents detain their children from coming to these schools; let them consider the inestimable value of their souls; and if, through their neglect or detention, their children are kept back from schools where they may learn the knowledge of Christ, what a fearful curse must fall on the head of these parents who love darkness rather than light, and keep their children in profound ignorance of the word of God! All that bear the Christian name profess to derive their knowledge of religion from the scriptures, and these scriptures declare, "If any man shall add unto them, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book; and if any man shall take away from the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book;" and whosoever shall preach another gospel than Jesus, let him be accursed. Awful must be the sin and direful the punishment that awaiteth those who are the means of keeping the word of God from any of the sons of Adam! Think, parents, of your responsibility; this word of life is put into your hands that you may teach your children its holy precepts, and set before them an example guided by its light. If you cannot teach your children yourselves, send them where they will be taught the simplicity of the gospel dispensation. Let them not grow up in ignorance, a curse to yourselves and society; and latterly, to take up their abode in endless misery. Think for a moment what an agonizing meeting it would be for you and your children to meet in hell! Let children delight to come to places where they may learn of Jesus Christ and him crucified; let them treasure up his word in their hearts, and practise it in their lives; it will prove their ornament in life, their soother in affliction, their rejoicing at death, and their joy to all eternity. Children, the command is, "Obey your parents;" but if they obey not the gospel precepts, follow not their example; if they prohibit you from learning the scriptures, in this obey them not, for they assume a power that the God of the whole earth hath not given them; and your obeying the commands of God rather than man, will be blest of him who calleth all to "Remember their Creator in the days of their youth, before the evil days come, when they shall say they have no pleasure in them." Dear to Christ are the children of God, who love to learn of him, and who keep his commandments. Venerate his holy day, reverence his sanctuary, love his ministers, and take pleasure in the society of all them that love him. When his friends speak of him, book of remembrance is kept." Delight to converse about Jesus. Departed saints on the mount of transfiguration spake of the decease he was to accomplish at Jerusalem. It is the duty of all Christians 66 a to encourage the instructing of youth in the knowledge of Christ. Those who cannot lend their helping hand as teachers, have it in their power to encourage parents to send their children to the schools, and young men to come forward as teachers, and to give money for their support. It is a labour of love of the highest magnitude. The money expended, the toil of the teachers, and the time occupied, is not once to be compared to the aim and glorious effect of this cause; it embraces not only the welfare of the present, but likewise of future generations. That it shall prosper, faith, enlightened by the lamp of prophecy, gives us full assurance, from the mouths of babes and sucklings Jehovah hath perfected praise. Education civilizes man, and makes him a thinking and rational being; and, in educating the children of our industrious poor, we are strengthening the sinews of our country: "Princes and lords may flourish or may fade, A breath can make them as a breath hath made; What is the peasantry of a nation that can only boast of physical strength ?-Without education they are but little removed above the brutes that perish; it is they who, in all ages, have given stability to governments, or been the cause of their overthrow; an enlightened peasantry, how glorious to a nation, and how strengthening to the hands of a government !-They are not misled by the flattery of the insidious, or the declamations of the crafty and profligate leaders of tumult. To convince us of the dangerous state of an unenlightened peasantry, let us turn our eyes to France in the period of her revolution ;-there we see the streets of Paris flowing with the blood of her citizens,not only with the blood of those who, with tyrannic sway, ruled them with a rod of iron, but, to use the sublime language of Scripture, "They were drunk with blood." The party in power today shed the blood of their predecessors,-to-morrow they were succeeded by a party more powerful than themselves, who gave them to the guillotine! O France! thou who mad'st thyself drunk with the blood of the saints! in the day of thy visitation thou hast got blood to drink because thou art worthy!-A peasantry enlightened by the knowledge of Christ tremble at the thoughts of shedding their brother's blood, lest the Avenger of blood should blot their names out of the book of life.The value of their souls they are taught to venerate, their troubles here will soon pass away, and they are taught to wait patiently until their change come. Can they, who are taught to render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's, be bad subjects of a government? Can they, who are taught, that unless they C |