no more unite in her ordinances, nor seek comfort in her sacraments; when your warfare will be accomplished, your battle fought, your race ended; when, if you are found faithful servants, you will depart to join the church invisible but triumphant. Think, therefore, on those who will be left behind; on those who, now in infancy or youth, will then remain to occupy your places; and remember that it is yours to prepare them for that station; it is yours to make them sincere members of that Church to which it is your comfort and happiness to belong; it is yours, to train their infant minds in the way wherein they should go, and teach them diligently what great things the Lord hath done for them. Oh! let no word of irreverence, no expression of disrespect, shake their infant faith: let no appearance of apathy or indifference lead them to suppose, that you really despise what you pretend to venerate and follow. Think not that lukewarmness on your part will be followed by no effect on their minds; nor that a life of unvarying devotion, a death of unclouded If hope, will be lost upon their hearts. you have been Christians indeed, it will be their pride and glory to seek spiritual support where their fathers sought and found it, to look for immortality and eternal life in the path which their fathers trod. Remember, too, that as God hath threatened to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, in temporal punishment, so he will visit the sins of the children upon the fathers, in that which is eternal; if through their disobedience or neglect, the youthful mind has been corrupted, the affections misled, the understanding darkened, the steps turned aside from the way of truth. Let not this day pass, then, without a solemn communing with ourselves, whether we have done these things, or whether we have disregarded them; whether we are fitter for that eternal rest which is prepared for the people of God, whether as years revolve-as time becomes shorteras eternity draws nearer, our faith and hope have increased in clearness and in fervour; whether our bond of connexion with the visible Church has been drawn closer, as it is about to be severed, and our desires have grown stronger, our aspirations more eager, to join that blessed multitude, who, already redeemed and brought out of much tribulation, now seated upon the thrones of their glory, sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints'." 1 Revel. xv. 3. 66 |