gious education whatever in their youth. The notorious Gibbs remarked on the gallows:-"Sunday schools came twenty years too late for me; could I have enjoyed their instruction when young, never should I have come to this."

If you would preserve your children from the moral virus of infidelity, and the contaminations of vice, you must early imbue their minds with the teachings of the blessed Bible. "That the soul be without knowledge is not good;" and all other knowledge is vain, without the knowledge of God. "Madam," said the celebrated Jeremy Taylor to a lady who neglected the education of her son, “madam, if you do not put something into your boy's head, be assured that Satan will." Where the seeds of truth are not sown in early life, the enemy will be likely to scatter the tares of skepticism. It is easier to keep the ground free from noxious plants at first than to subdue them after they are once rooted in the soil. Very consistently did the unbeliever object to sending his children to the Sunday school, "because," said he, "they learn things there which they never forget."

"The odors of the wine, that first shall stain

The virgin vessel, it shall long retain."

"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Convince him that Christianity is divinely true; and it will be an anomaly if his faith should ever be shaken by the eloquence of error. Impress his susceptible mind with the fear of God; and it must be a miracle of craftiness that shall seduce him into rebellion against his Maker.

The influence of divine truth upon the young may not immediately appear in their conversion to God. "The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, till he receive the early and the latter rain." The present is the seed time, and we must wait, and watch, and pray for the coming in of the harvest. The principles of virtue which you have planted in the soul may remain concealed for years, and you may be tempted to think you have "spent your strength for naught and in vain;" but these precious germs are imperishable, and may awake in the future associations of life, and produce "some thirty-fold, and some sixty, and some a hundred." When the Catholic priest threw the little girl's Testament into the fire, she said to her weeping mother, "Never mind, ma; I've got the first nine chapters of Matthew by heart; they can't burn them. Knowledge is indestructible. What is once learned is never lost from the mind. The soul's past thoughts, feelings, impressions, and operations, become its inalienable property. They are written on an imperishable tablet, and no power can efface the record. Though some parts of our early experience may not be at all times in distinct remembrance, and though much of the information we have once acquired may be apparently forgotten, yet the mind possesses in itself laws, which, when brought into action, will completely restore the infinite variety of its former phenomena. They are not dead, but sleep; and the most trifling circumstance may serve to call up any of them from their grave of forgetfulness. Therefore, we have no small encouragement to hope, that the seed sown in the sabbath school

though it lie unproductive for a season, will ultimately germinate, and bear its fruit unto holiness."

Was the remark of the venerable Wesley, more than half a century since, prophetic? I find Sunday schools," says he, "springing up wherever I go; perhaps God may have a greater end in them than we are aware of; who knows but they may yet become nurseries for Christians?" The beautiful conjecture has been more than realized. To this simple instrumentality most of our younger members and ministers are indebted for a large portion of their religious character and influence. It was their early instruction in the things of God which laid the firm foundation for their subsequent piety and usefulness. On this point I might appeal to my brethren before me. How many of you received your first salutary religious impressions in the sabbath school? Never will your speaker forget the early meltings of his heart under the instructions of this primary department of the school of Christ! A few years ago might be seen in the Sunday school those who are now preaching the gospel in Africa and India, and Oregon and South America. It is said that nineteen out of twenty of the British foreign missionaries were sabbath school scholars. A certain small town in the western part of England has sent out into heathen lands ten laborers for God; and they were all formerly connected, either as teachers or as learners, with this blessed institution, Hence arose the celebrated Morrison, the apostle of China. In a word, from this source have originated most of the brighest living ornaments of our holy religion, and scores of successful reapers in the great spiritual harvest; and "when the Lord writeth up the people, it shall be said" of many an individual in the multitude of the saved, "This man was born there."

But some children are so unfortunate as to have unconverted parents, who, feeling themselves no interest in the things of God, take no pains to give their families a religious education; and thus, by the guilty neglect of those who ought to be most solicitous to guide their inexperienced feet into the paths of piety, they are left to walk in the way of their hearts, a 66 way that leadeth to destruction." These little wanderers-in many cases already inducted into the practice of vice -the sabbath school often plucks from the fangs of the destroyer, and turns their steps to the testimonies of the Lord; and then, through their children thus converted from the error of their way, those parents themselves are sometimes brought under the influence of divine truth, and turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God." I care not whether the dew descends from the sky, or rises from the earth, if it only comes, and comes in sufficient copiousness. It is the natural and prescribed order for the parent to instruct the child; but God often smiles upon the labor of his little ones when this order is reversed, and the child becomes the teacher of the parent. Frequently have the juvenile preachers returned from their Sunday classes with a sermon for their impenitent friends; and hoary age has learned wisdom from instructed infancy, and the confirmed obduracy of threescore years has yielded to the influence of the gos. pel. What can be more persuasive to a profligate father than the godly admonitions of his son? or more melting to a thoughtless mother than the simple appeals of her daughter? A child, whose parents ne.

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glected family worship, having learned in the sabbath school the im portance and obligation of the duty, said to his father, "Pa, my teacher says every body ought to pray; why dont you pray?" It was word spoken in season ;" and from such a tongue, it was "like apples of gold in pictures of silver." The father was silent; but his house that day became a "house of prayer." Instances like the above are of frequent occurrence, producing piety in the most careless and wicked households. And the blessed effects are not always confined to families. They have sometimes extended throughout whole districts or villages, and great revivals of religion have resulted, and rude and immoral neighborhoods have assumed an orderly aspect, and community has been astonished at the mighty renovation effected through so humble an instrumentality.

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It would be interesting to trace this religious influence of sabbath schools in its remoter benefits-its benefits to the country at large. Nations are composed of individuals, and by purifying the component parts, you purify the mass. Instructed in the knowledge of God, your children will go forth into the world, bearing with them truths and principles which tend to form their characters and regulate their lives; and from the Sunday school room you may follow them into respectable connections, and important offices of trust; witnessing at every step a practical demonstration of the power of early religious instruction in elevating the tone of public feeling, and purifying the morals of society, and promoting your municipal, and literary, and Christian institutions. "I am fully of the opinion," says Chief Justice Marshall, "that virtue and intelligence form the basis of our independence, and the conservative principles of our individual and national happiness; nor can any man be more firmly persuaded that Sunday schools are devoted to the protection of both." Religion is the "chief corner stone" in the foundation of a great and prosperous people. Without this, however excellent and fair our political structure, and however richly decorated by the hand of science and of art, we build upon the sand, we rear a Babel destined to fall, and bury future generations in its ruins. What else lacked the renowned nations of antiquity? They had taste, and genius, and eloquence, and in the fine arts they were the models of modern communities; but their institutions were without perpetuity, because they were not founded upon true religion; and the fabric of their grandeur crumbled into dust because it was not combined with the imperishable principles of virtue. Give your population the knowledge of God; give them divine truth to enlighten, and divine precepts to direct them; give them moral maxims applicable to the various duties and relations of civil and social life; and you impart to your valuable institutions a permanency which shall remain unaffected amid the convulsions of empires, and a glory which shall constantly brighten with the lapse of time.

"Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum :" The institution under consideration is one of the most important auxiliaries of the church. And the inference is: That no benevolent or religious enterprise of the present day has stronger claims upon the zeal and the liberality of Christians.

Our various means for disseminating Christian knowledge are mutually dependent; and this is the first and foremost of the train.

The others proceed from it, just as so many streams from the same fountain, or so many native branches from the same prolific root. Its influence extends to all our philanthropic operations, like the power that impels a complicated piece of machinery. This is the main spring of our active Christianity; the great wheel that perpetuates the revolutions of all our moral enginery; the warm heart whence vitality and vigor circulate to the extremities of the frame. Hence sabbath schools manifestly hold a conspicuous place among the various instrumentalities employed for the conversion of the world. Dr. Smith, an avowed infidel, when they were in their comparative infancy, frankly and ingenuously remarked, that no plan had promised to effect a thorough change of manners and morals with equal case since the days of the apostles. The good which they are capable of effecting is indeed incalculable. They have power to emancipate imprisoned intellects, and dissolve petrified hearts. They are "fountains of living water." They are Bethesdas "for the healing of the nations." They are "rivers the streams whereof make glad the city of God." They are so many moral levers, by which Heaven is taking a purchase on our sunken world; so many golden chains, binding it fast to the everlasting throne. They are the power of God unto salvation;" and myriads shall yet lift up their hallelujahs in heaven, who, but for their. benefits, might have mingled their lamentations with the lost. Ten years hence their influence shall be felt and appreciated by thousands, who, to this day, have never heard the gospel; and when any demonstration from the chair of philosophy shall fail, then shall multiply their miracles of grace and truth, to the confusion of gainsayers, and the admiration of the world.

But what shall be done to promote the interests and the efficiency of this invaluable institution? Here I feel the need of help from above; not that I have no measures to suggest, nor that I suspect the inadequacy of those measures; but because I know not how to urge their claims on your adoption with sufficient energy. "Help, Lord, for vain is the help of man!"

First ministers of the gospel must take the lead. This is an im. portant part of their appropriate work. The children of our congregations will soon grow up to manhood; and by taking care of the lambs, the shepherd promotes the prosperity of the flock. Nor let any minister of Christ think a due regard to the spiritual welfare of the rising generation beneath the dignity of his sacred office, or incompatible with his reputation as a learned and eloquent divine. The wisest man that ever lived instructed the young from the throne of Israel. He who spake as man never spake the orator of Tabor and Olivet-suffered the little children to come unto him, took them in his arms, and blessed them. Our own sainted Summerfield, when stationed in New-York, was in the habit of preaching once a month exclusively to the children of his charge, impressing divine truth upon their susceptible minds with a success equalled only by the sweetness of his eloquence. "The most gifted among us," says Dr. Channing, "cannot find a worthier field of labor than the Sunday school; whoever, in the humblest sphere, imparts God's truth to one human spirit, participates in the glory of the greatest and best men that ever lived: he labors on an immortal nature: he is laying the foundation of im

perishable excellence and felicity: his work shall outlive empires and stars!"

Again: here we find an appropriate sphere of usefulness for youthful piety and intelligence. We speak of the young especially, because they ordinarily have time to devote to this object, and are generally free from most of those worldly solicitudes and perplexities which so often embarrass the efforts of their older brethren. But we confine not the duty exclusively to them. Here is work enough for all to do, and room enough for all to work. The institution is too important to be abandoned or neglected; and in the name of Christ we urge our appeal for help. We invite you not to the cultivation of an unproductive soil, which shall repay your toil with thorns, your sweat with dust. The great Master of the vineyard shall own your efforts; and though the work may be slow in its progress, it shall be glorious in its results. Sabbath school teachers are like vine-dressers, intrusted with the culture of the tender shoot, preparing it to bring forth its fruit in its season, and waiting patiently for their reward in ripe clusters on the young branches they have nourished. Over the ministers of the gos pel they have a decided advantage. He has to deal with minds darkened by prejudice, and "consciences seared with a hot iron;" and the argument that works conviction, and the appeal that causes compunction there, must be irresistible as the whirlwinds and the lightnings of heaven. With them the case is vastly different. "The lines have fallen to them in pleasant places, and they have a goodly heritage." Their instructions are directed to hearts not inflated with pride, nor prepossessed with a love of the world, nor abandoned by long con. tinued habits of impenitence and unbelief. The ground is already prepared to receive the precious grain; let them scatter it with a dili. gent hand! The clay is already susceptible of the designed impres sion; let them stamp it with its Maker's image! Their labor is not in vain in the Lord;" let them not be "weary in well-doing," nor abandon their work in despair! Yet, had they no higher dependence than themselves, well might they anticipate a failure; but "it is God that giveth the increase," and, therefore, their "expectation shall not be cut off."

And is not theirs an honorable employment? Who so much re. sembles that divine Shepherd who "taketh the lambs in his arms, and carrieth them in his bosom?" I would rather be a sabbath school teacher, with my five little boys around me, than an Àlexander or a Xerxes, with steel-clad millions at my heels! I would rather have one youthful soul bound as a gem in the "crown of my rejoicing," than wear all the laurels ever gathered on the field of slaughter, and all the palms that philosophy and eloquence ever won their votaries! What are the glories of royalty? what the magnificence of empire-the accumulated wealth of the world-compared with the happiness of him who converteth a sinner from the error of his ways, and saveth a soul from death?" His honors are written on the glorified human spirit-his name on the archives of heaven; and when all earthly grandeur shall have passed away like the shadow of a summer cloud, he "shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever." The faithful teacher builds for himself a monument that shall stand unmoved amid dissolving worlds: beauty and