him. In such a state of danger, should not our diligence be somewhat answerable to his? Should we not be more active to save ourselves, than our enemy is to ruin us? Are such admonitions as these to be disregarded? "Take ye heed."-" Watch and pray."

66 Put on the whole armour of God."-If the state of this world would be a hell upon earth, supposing men were brought up in unrestrained wickedness, is not any neglect criminal which might in the slightest degree spread abroad such a state of disorder? Is it not advisable, then, that mankind, from their earliest years, should be brought up in habits of righteousness and christian love?

No child, therefore, must be neglected or left to himself. What your views of Infant Baptism may be, I know not; but this I know, that while it seems to me a fearful risk for any parent to hesitate about bringing his child to Holy Baptism, because the blessed Ordinance is so often abused; it seems even a more fearful risk, nay, risk I cannot call it, but a positive sin, to bring a child in the careless, faithless spirit in which it is too often brought, and having done so, to leave that child afterwards to himself.

Here I may bring a case before you, which will perhaps be the best comment on my words. Would it not seem hard to the son of a nobleman

who at his death had left titles of high and honourable distinction, and treasures of gold, and vast estates, if the guardians of that child, and the executors of the father's property, were to say, "The infant is too young to know whether he would be pleased with these things. How can we tell that he will chuse (when grown to man's estate) to bear his father's titles, to possess his father's treasures, and to live upon upon his father's fine estates? We will have him 'left to himself,' and by and bye he may judge for himself." If they were accordingly to bring him up like the orphan of some wretched beggar, in ignorance and filth, without any care to educate his mind, or form his principles, or regulate his passions, or curb his tempers, so that he might be fitted for his high station, what would he think of those guardians, if, when come to man's estate, they were to tell him, for the first time, who and what he was?_"Oh! cruel, cruel," he might exclaim, "false friends to my father and to myself! unwise judges of what was for my benefit! They were privileges, they were blessings, from which you have shut me out. You say I was too young to chuse at that early age. What am I now? Look at me, and ask yourselves, what your thus leaving me to myself has made me? I am unprincipled and uneducated; my passions rage and reign like tyrants in my heart. I am

unmannerly and awkward, altogether unfitted to support my station, to adorn my rank, or to direct the management of my vast estates. And this is the fruit of your system! this is your faithfulness to a dying friend's request! Alas, alas! my heart is almost broken, when I think of what I might have been, and what I am! Who, with one grain of common sense, could have felt a doubt of accepting the rank, and the riches, that were meant for me? My tastes, my occupations, my companions, now that I have been left to myself, are any thing but those of the child of a noble father, the heir of a magnificent inheritance!"

But, let us talk no more of the splendid inheritance of any thing that this earth can bestow. What is the poorest labourer's child in this happy christian country, or rather, what are his privileges? Is he not called to be, by adoption and grace, a child of God, an heir of glory?

But now, some may be ready to cry out, you are going on too fast in your assertions; we do not, cannot agree with you-" the child may be made a child of God, and an heir of glory." Look to facts, they will say. All are brought to to the font of baptism, but you surely will not say they are made christians by what we look upon as often little better than an empty rite. I agree, sorrowfully yet heartily I agree.

Many, alas! how many children, who have been brought to the font of baptism, shew no evidence of a new nature, no evidence of their faith by their works, the true test; they are alike without works and without faith. But I repeat your words with authority and with power, look to facts.' The fault lies not in the baptismal service; the fault lies neither with the outward and visible sign, nor with the inward and spiritual grace. Our Lord expressly tells us that He is willing to receive all who come unto Him in His own appointed way: but look to facts. The child is brought to be baptized, and then-left to himself. The parents disregard the solemn rite. The child receives a new name; but the new nature (so far as baptism has to do with it,) is little thought of. The god-fathers and god-mothers (chosen too often out of compliment from among the richest or highest of the parents' friends, rather than from among the godly and conscientious,) give themselves little concern about the sacred ordinance; make their bow, when asked to take the solemn vows upon themselves in the child's name; go home to feast and be merry with the parents; call the child afterwards their god-child; make it a present, or forget it. The other members

*

* It is too common a custom for sponsors to make no answer, when the appointed questions are put to them.

of the church, if assembled when the holy rite is administered, too often look upon the baptism as almost an interruption; keep their seats, and do not join in any part of the affecting service; they are utterly indifferent to hail the entrance of an heir of glory (snatched from a lost world) into covenant with its Saviour and its God. The minister, who performs the holy service, (I speak from my own repentant experience,) however he may feel impressed or anxious during the ordinance! too often fails afterwards, duly to instruct and warn either the parents, the child, the sponsors, or the church under his care, of their solemn engagements and duties and privileges. And what is the consequence? Look to facts-I say again. Poor little helpless infant, what have we done for thee? Left thee at the very threshold of the gate to heaven, mocked thee and mocked our God, by bringing thee thither, and then leaving thee to perish. Thou, the most deeply interested, but quite unable, from thy tender age and yet unawakened faculties, to know our cruelty and falsehood, or to prize the grace and goodness of thy God. Alas! thou art unable to know and love thy gracious Saviour. We are not unable to perform and keep our part of the engagement we so solemnly make; we are not like thee, unable, but, to our shame be it spoken, we