you don't care whether they go or stay away-if they find you ready upon all occasions to take their part against their teachers, and to suppose them ill treated and harshly used whenever they are corrected for their faults-if they see you don't care whether they learn or not-if you take no interest and ask no questions about what they are set to learn-it is no wonder that there is no progress made, no improvement in their religious knowledge it is your own fault; and if hereafter your children grow up to be disobedient, idle, vicious, and undutiful-if they neglect you in your old age, and bring your gray hairs with sorrow to the grave,-believe me, brethren, it will be in very great part owing to your own most false and sinful indulgence of them. You did not make it a point of duty to teach them in their youth; have you then any right to complain that they make it no part of their duty to honour you in your old age? Observe, too, my text says, not only "thou shalt

teach them," but "thou shalt teach them DILIGENTLY." It is not to be only now and then that you say a word or two about their duty to God; you

must make a

practice and a habit of it. You must do it "diligently." Remember, that if you are not diligent in storing the minds of your children with good advice, and leading them day and night to look up to God as the Author and Giver of all good, without whose favour they can never be happy in this world or in the next, and whose loving-kindness and blessing is better and more desirable than life itself and every worldly possession, if you do not make it your business to show them what God requires of them, and second the endeavours and strengthen the teaching of those to whose schools of religious instruction you send them, by questionings, and showing interest about their progress when they come homeif you do not thus do your part, there is an active and untiring Enemy of yours and theirs, who "goeth about seeking

whom," amongst the young as well as the old, the learned as well as the ignorant, he may catch as his prey, and "lead captive at his will." The devil is never tired; he is diligently engaged at all seasons in catching away the good seed, particularly that which is sown in the hearts of the young; for youth is especially the seed-time of life; few comparatively change their characters after they are come to years of discretion. The grace of God is doubtless sometimes shown in the conversion of more aged sinners from the error of their ways; but in very many such cases there has been good seed sown in early years, which, though for a time choked up by the briers and thorns of evil passions and habits, has at length quickened into life. Abundant are the promises and encouragements to "teach our children diligently" in the right way. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it."* "Cast thy bread upon

* Proverbs xxii. 6.

the waters, and thou shalt find it after many days."-"In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand, for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether both shall be alike good."

Our

blessed Lord has spoken a parable con

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cerning a certain man who had two sons; and he said to one, Go work today in my vineyard, and he answered and said, I will not, but afterwards he repented, and went; and he said to the other, Go work to-day in my vineyard, and he said, I go, sir, and went not.Ӡ Wherefore, if a man have a child, who, after receiving good instruction constantly, and being well brought up, and virtuously taught by precept and example, nevertheless turns out ill, and appears, like the disobedient son in the parable, to refuse to labour in the vineyard of the Lord; still let not the father despair. Many years after he is laid in his grave, that disobedient and un*Eccl. xi. 1, 6. + St. Matt. xxi. 28-30.

dutiful child may, by the workings of God's providence, be brought to himself, and see the errors of his past life: then suddenly the words which his parent used "to teach him diligently" many years before, will rise up in his remembrance; the seed sown in the morning of his life, which has so long lain dead and fruitless in his heart, will spring up, and, although late in life, will bring forth fruit; and then he will thank God that, when he was a child, his father persevered in training him up in the paths of godliness, and "he will rise up and call him blessed."

I speak no imaginary case; hundreds and thousands such have occurred, and will occur; in this is the faith of Christians, tried, as in other matters: the duty is laid upon us, and we are assured that it shall receive its reward-our words will not fall to the ground: they may be the means hereafter of bringing our sons unto God: or else—and it is an awful subject of reflection-they must be re