those truths" signified and sealed" by presses only more deeply upon us the baptism, which ought to guide and en- all-important truth, that God's love to courage them to train up their children us cannot, any more than His existence, in the way they should go. be affected by our knowledge or belief. 1. In baptism, God reveals himself as Behold that mother!-how she bends the covenant God of your child. At the very time when you cannot but feel how awful a gift this immortal being is; when, perhaps, you are well nigh overwhelmed by a sense of the responsibility attached to the gift; when all that your child may be rises before your soul, and questionings regarding its future destiny force themselves upon you with trembling anxiety, and in rapid interchanges of hope and fear,-then does God reveal himself in baptism, as claiming this child as His own, teaching and assuring you that it is not related to you alone, but much more to Him;-that not to the bosom of its earthly parents only is all love to it, and interest in it, confined; but that He who is thy God and Father, is also the God and Father of thy child. over her child, and clasps it to her bosom, to draw its nourishment from next her heart, what knows her child of the reality of her love? or how much it will endure and will sacrifice for its good and happiness? Yet the love is there, though the child knows it not; and though, alas! it may never be appreciated or returned. But why, it has been again asked, perform this ceremony upon an immortal and responsible being without its consent ?-I reply, Because God is its God and Father, whether it consents or not ! 2. But notice, further, that baptism teaches the end of the child's existence, or what it ought to be to God from what God is to it. By the Name of God is meant His revealed character. When God proclaimed His Name to Moses, He did so by describing His character. To be baptized in, or into the name of God, indicates, that it is God's wish that this child should, as the very end of its being, share His character, or be made like himself; in other words, He thus declares it to be His revealed purpose that the child should be a spiritual child to God the Father, through faith in God the Son, as mediator, and in the possession of God the Holy Ghost, as sanctifier; and thus glorify His name! This This is, indeed, the blessed truth to which baptism witnesses, and which it confirms. To the individual child God thus says: "I am thy God;-God thy Father, God thy Saviour, God thy Sanctifier. This is my NAME, and in it art thou baptized; as I am thy covenant God, so have I called thee by my name." Here, then, is a declaration by a solemn ordinance of a fact, not only of God's name as He is, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but also of the relationship in which this God stands to this individ-is practically the same beautiful answer ual child; and if so, then a clear answer is given by baptism to such questions as these: "What is the living God to my child? Is He indeed its Father, and, as such, does He love it? Is He indeed its Saviour, and, as such, is He willing to save it? Is He indeed its Sanctifier, and, as such, is He willing to make it holy?" Even so! as sure as this child is baptized into His name! Such a teaching as this on God's part, or such a revelation of himself, is the more instructive from the very unconsciousness of the babe;-for what knows this child of God's existence, or of His love? Nothing! but this very fact im as is given to the question in the Shorter Catechism, "What is the chief end of man?"-"Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever." Therefore, parents, learn from baptism what God would have your children be educated for,-for no end less glorious than this-HIMSELF! A clear apprehension of this will necessarily affect your whole system of education; for just as you keep it before you, will you employ those means by which it can alone be attained. Low and unworthy aims produce low and unworthy labours. If you see in your children those whose only glory is to consist in riches, in rank, or in some form of mere worldliness, you will train them up accordingly, as thus destined for time, and to enjoy and glorify self; but not as born for immortality, and to glorify and enjoy God. Let baptism remind you that they ought to be trained up in the way along which they should go for ever; and so as to haliow that name which is written on their foreheads, and to walk worthy of God, who has thus called them to His kingdom and glory! in, have a marked practical bearing upon the aims and efforts of the Christian parent. For instance, the fact of such blessings being offered, and therefore needed by the child, implies that its nature is not that holy and innocent thing which poets describe it as being. If it were so, then the great object of education should be to keep the child as it is. But if its nature is corrupt in this sense even, that it possesses such a tendency to do evil, that evil it will assuredly naturally do, the moment it comes to 3. Baptism, moreover, offers to the act as a responsible being; then must child the two great blessings essentially the parent ever desire for it, and seek necessary for its attaining the end of to nourish in it, such a new and living being made like God, and possessing principle of good, as God in Christ can His name. These blessings are, the pardon of sin through the blood of Christ, and the renewal and sanctification of nature by the washing of regeneration, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. alone bestow by the Spirit. When the child is born again, whether before baptism, at baptism, or in after years, depends on that Holy Spirit who dispenses His gifts "as He will." But certain it is, that "unless a man is born of the Spirit, He cannot see the kingdom of God;" consequently, all efforts at Christian education, without practically recognizing the absolute necessity of the Almighty aid, obtained through that Name into which the child is baptized, must be vain, because it either overlooks the end or the means. The water used in baptism is a picture of those blessings. It "shews forth" the "blood of sprinkling," shed for the remission of the sins of many; and also "the washing of regeneration." It speaks of the disease and the remedy. It testifies of sin as being the moral defilement of the soul, which can be removed in its guilt only through the atonement of 3. Finally, the Christian parent may Christ for us; and in its power, only by be taught by the fact of his presenting the work of the Spirit of God in us his child for baptism, that he, of all on -even as the filth of the body is re-earth, is the person chiefly through whom moved by water. It teaches, moreover, God intends that child to obtain those that these remedies must be applied to blessings thus offered. each individual soul before the blessings which they confer can be enjoyed, even as water must be applied to the soiled body before it can become the means of cleansing it; and, lastly, this sprinkling with water testifies to the certainty and freeness with which God offers those specific blessings to the individual child, even as he reveals himself to be its God. The language of baptism is: " As sure as I baptize this child with water, so I ask, therefore, By what means shall sure do I, its Father, offer to take away this child ever ascertain that any proits guilt through the blood of my Son, mises or offers have been made to it in and to purify its nature through the baptism? How shall it ever hear of that power of my Spirit, and so to make it Name in which it has been baptized? like Myself!" How shall it be taught concerning God Now, these truths must, when believed its Father, Saviour, and Sanctifier? For I will not be led, in such practical hints as I wish these to be, into discussions regarding the times and ways in which God may save a child, whether with or without baptism; at baptism; or before it; with or without the parents' piety or instruction. What I wish Christian parents to see is, not what God may do without their instrumentality, but what, as a rule, He will do by it. though it is true, "that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved," and though this "promise is to us and our children," and has been sealed to each of them in baptism, yet "how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?" And how, then, I may further ask, is the child to hear so as to believe and call on the Name of the Lord, and thus respond to the calling of itself by God? I reply, that it is God's design that this should come through the Christian parent. The parent is selected as God's teacher, missionary, witness, and representative in the family, and to his children, as I have already, in the last chapter, explained to you. Hence one reason why the ordinance of baptism is dispensed only in connexion with a believing Christian parent, because he (or, in the case of orphans, sponsers) will, through a Christian education, both impart to the child a knowledge of that Name-Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in which the child has been baptized, and the import of those special blessings offered to it by its covenant God; and also train it up, so that it shall believe in God as He is thus revealed, receive the blessings thus offered, and himself choose God as His Father, Saviour, and Sanctifier. It was thus that God made certain precious promises to Abraham and his seed, because He knew that Abraham would so train up his children as that those promises would be realized. "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which He hath spoken of him." You thus perceive, that as personal faith on the part of the child, if it lives to become responsible, is required before God's offers of mercy made at baptism can be of any avail; and as it must choose God as its portion before His Name can be glorified and enjoyed, it is the duty, the glorious privilege of the parent to convey that knowledge to his child, and to make it the very end and aim of all his labours, that God's gracious wishes shall be complied with. What a cheering and strengthening thought is this to a parent, that in thus educating his child he is but "a fellow labourer with God"-he is not alone in his love or labours, for the Father is with him! Christian parents, in all their teaching and training to bring their children to God, to induce them to choose Him as their portion, may thus truly say with Paul: "We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God"-__“ as workers together with Him, we beseech you not to receive the grace of God in vain!"—and, oh! that children, just as they awaken and respond in riper years to that deep and true love in father or mother, which rested on them before they knew it, would also open their hearts to that deeper and truer love of their God, which has never ceased to shine upon them since they were born, and was solemnly testified to in their baptism! Nor need they, when the divine life is quickened in them, be baptized again! For what truth or blessing can God signify or seal to them which He has not already done; or what can God be to them which He has not already declared himself to be?" He is their Father-only let them love and live as His children! When this beautiful and solemn rite of baptism is thus understood, what are we to think of those parents who ask and obtain it for their children, yet themselves either believe not in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or, by their practical impiety, shew that they have disowned that name in which they were themselves baptized? such mockery bring a blessing to themselves or children? What are we to think of those parents who, while they are professed believers, and "seem to be religious," and bave “ a form of God. Can liness," yet are ashamed even to confess God before their children, or to impart THE YOUNG VOYAGER. to them from their own lips any teach-in which some vessel floated which no Has any one ever stood on a pier, withing regarding that great Name by which storm wave had yet tossed? But now it they are called? What would that parent sails forth, its canvass spread, its crew deserve who concealed from a starving alert, its freight secured, its destination son the offer made to him in infancy, the harbour to the open sea. registered. You marked its progress from It feels the and to be communicated in riper years helm, it ploughs the wave, it begins its by the parent, of a property which should course. The skies are chequered, the be his on terms easily complied with? clouds gather, the winds are strong. You But what would such neglect be when felt an interest in the voyage which that compared to the guilt incurred by the vessel was to make; you thought of the hazards of the sea, of the perils of her parent who conceals from his own child course; you thought of storm and strugthe knowledge of the glorious inherit- gle, of possible loss and shipwreck, or of ance offered to him by his God! Yet is a sunny and joyous entrance into the it not the case, that in many a family, distant haven beyond the present flood, this Name of God, and all the blessings where the mariners were to find an exoffered by Him, are never breathed by God would be their guide, their guardian, pected home; you breathed a prayer that the parent to his children, as if they and their friend. And what is each little were some awful secrets which he was child, though now inexperienced of life's pledged to conceal ! Would not many changes? what but such a vessel bound on baptized children be able, at judgment, a long voyage, sailing across a wild sea, exposed to howling winds and rains, passto testify against their parents, and saying by many a reef, and in peril of rocks with truth," They never told us of God our Father, of Jesus our Saviour, or of the Spirit our Sanctifier! We never heard from their lips a word to warn us of our danger as sinners, or to inform us of the mercies offered to us, and to be obtained by us as well as by others, through a Saviour! Never, never did they tell us either that we had been baptised, or what God had revealed to us in the ordinance !" Parents! this must not, dare not be! While thus acting towards your children, the very ordinance of baptism which you ask for them, as a matter of form or senseless superstition, condemns yourselves. It witnesses of a name written on your own foreheads, which you have denied; of a God long revealed, but yet unknown to you from wilful ignorance; and of mercies long offered to yourselves, but never yet received from stubborn unbelief! If such is your state, repent! "Return to the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity." Receive, though late, the remission of sins, and the gift of the Spirit signified and sealed in baptism to yourselves; and then only when you are right with your own Father, will you do right towards your own children! and breakers? How fearful the shipwreck of such a vessel! how blessed its calm arrival on the everlasting shore! Who would not pray, that of each such vessel, of each such child, God may be the guardian and the guide-His own eye be upon its course-His own pilotage at its helm?-Rev. Gerard Noel. THE BABY'S SLEEP. The mother took it from the nurse's arms, SACRED POETS. I. GEORGE HERBERT. HERBERT was twenty-nine years younger than Shakespeare, and fifteen years older than Milton. Born in 1593, he died in 1633. His life and labours in the interval were such that he has been styled Holy George Herbert." No other poet of our country is thus honoured; and yet he died at the age of forty. this school, others are turned into premature dotage; but it is pleasing in the extreme to see more genial consequences, to watch the intellect brightening, the faith ever increasing, and the amiability of the spirit becoming greater than before, beneath the influence of affliction. Health is a great advantage to a truly healthy soul; but the frailty of its abode is often the agency for sending the spirit out in eager quest of another and a more enduring one. It is infinitely more to be desired, that the living soul should have a weakly, sickly frame, than that the vigorous body should always have to drag hither and thither a corpse-like soul. But listen for a little to some of the experience Herbert had of affliction: He had that peculiar blessing-a pious mother. Her days of widowhood began when the poet was only four years of age. To her piety and care he owed much of the integrity and freedom from common vices that marked his youth and early manhood. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1608; and after an honourable course of study as a student, and fellow of that College, he was elected orator for the University. In this position he had to flatter King James in Latin; and afterwards, when he became My days were strew'd with flowers and happiness; "At first thou gav'st me milk and sweetnesses; I had my wish and way; There was no month but May. But with my years sorrow did twist and grow, 'Sicknesses cleave my bones, And tune my breath to groans.' a courtier, the art of speaking and writing the flattering language with and beyond propriety, would be easily acquired by one who was naturally eloquent, and of a most generous disposition. But the eye of moral criticism must not look too sternly on the sayings and flatteries of a young man of twenty-six. It will often help us to a fair estimate of a man's conduct, as well as of his writings, if we find out his age at the time in question. Edmund Burke's Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful is of no philosophical value, eloquent and interesting as it is; for he was little more than a youth when he wrote it; and Mr. Macaulay's article on Milton was an early production, regarding which he himself says, that hardly a sentence of it is what his mature judg-Yet, for I threatened oft the siege to raise ; ment would approve. Let us silently wonder whether many have walked through the snares of life, at college and at court, without being more entangled in them than Herbert was. He had one source of trial and purification-he was a diligent scholar in the school of affliction. While some grow discontented and snarling creatures in And more; for my friends die; Was of more use than I. The way that takes the town; Before I had the power to change my life. I was entangled in a world of strife, Not simpering all mine age, I could not go away nor persevere. I took thy sweetened pill, till I came near; In my unhappiness, Turning my purge to food, thou throwest me |