blest tasks. It is true, that our slightest deeds of justice and charity are felt in some degree immediately that they do their little good in the present hour. It is also true, that they are the beginning of works that shall be felt in years to come, and in distant lands.

Among the trifling services which are yet not trifling, are those we perform for our children. They are exposed to sickness and death. They may fall into the hands of error. The tyrant sin may run them through and through, and poison their blood, and their moral life with his thrice-dipt, two edged sword. It is but a trifle, but our care should be to preserve their health. It is but a trifle, but our care should be to educate their minds - to fit them for the common duties of secular life. It is but a trifle, but our care should be to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We should lead them to the temple of worship and religious instruction, so that they may learn to regard their heavenly Father with reverence and love-so that they may learn to worship him always in spirit and in truth.

There are many, very many fathers and mothers, who are thoughtless and indifferent with respect to these trifles. So their sons and daughters grow up unprepared for the duties of life. They grow up to take the places of their parents and ancestors—but to desecrate and dishonor them with bad habits, and bad manners, with lax, or ignoble, or dissolute lives. Why do not all the guardians and teachers of the young, open their eyes and foresee the evil conse

quences of such carelessness and neglect? And why do not all such persons consider what nobleness and beauty will be the characteristics of those children who are favored with religious instruction and guidance?

Those fathers and mothers who neglect or refuse to minister to the wants of their children's minds and hearts, cut off from themselves the highest blessings and enjoyments. You find a parent that cares not that his child go to church on Sunday, who puts into his hand no religious book, who teaches him no religious lessons, and who if you ask him the reason for his neglect, will say, "My child has no taste nor love for these things, and my efforts in this direction would be useless; show me such a parent, and I will show you a man who never has had any taste or love for these things himself whose life has ever been the life of the lowest planc, whose enjoyments have ever been of the lowest type, and whose condition of unintellectual and un spiritual life will be made heavier and sadder by the moral poverty and degradation of his child when he shall have reached the years of manhood.

Our children will pursue the course of wisdom and worship of love towards God and love towards men, if we pursue this course ourselves. Their idea of life and its duties, of schools and religious worship, of the Sabbath and religious instruction, they get from us. If they are unwilling to walk in the road of Christian progress, if the forms of the Christian temple are tedious to them, if their hearts are not ever open to receive God's spirit from nature and the Bible, the rea

son is they but too faithfully follow us in our steps, in our thoughts, and in our tastes.

The text reminds us that God accomplishes his purposes by small as well as by great means and instrumentalities, and that his designs are being fulfilled oftentimes when we do not see or know it.

When the Hebrew mother laid the little ark among the flags by the river's brink, she was not conscious of the greatness of her child. So it is with many an actor in our world. There are thousands and thousands of men and women who are unconsciously at work in fulfilling the grandest purposes of the Almighty.

God's Providence is impartial and universal, and though we do not discern in all events and movements, how his work of love is going on how the problem of evil is to be solved-how the salvation of our race is to be attained—yet we believe that he will do what he has promised; we see that the winds are his messengers that the lightnings are his angels-that ministering spirits obey his will — that his Son is employed by him in the great and glorious work, and that the smallest service done for child or man under his command and in his spirit will effect something towards the end of perfection which we look forward to with Christian faith, and hope, and prayer.

God neglects nothing belonging to him, however small or minute it may be. He neglects no work that should be be done, however insignificant or unnecessary it may seem to our eyes. To his thought, every holy work is an important work. When ninety and nine of the flock are safe in the fold, the good Shepherd

seeks for and finds the single lost sheep, and brings it back, bearing it upon his shoulders. It is the conviction of his heart that the most trifling service of goodness, is a noble, a divine service. In the Father's house the long absent prodigal will not be forgotten. From that noble mansion, agencies and influences will be sent forth, which will, at length, touch the heart of the wayward, straying, miserable child, and induce him to leave the course of sin. The command of God is, "gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost." Leave no good work undone leave no benevolent task unfinished. Let us labor in the spirit of this command, and our toil in the humblest sphere will be great our lightest strokes may be felt far beyond the bounds of our earthly life.

DISCOURSE XXI.

THE END OF TRIAL.

1 PETER V. 6, 7.

HUMBLE YOURSELVES THEREFORE UNDER THE MIGHTY HAND OF GOD, THAT HE MAY EXALT YOU IN DUE TIME; CASTING ALL YOUR CARE UPON HIM, FOR HE CARETH FOR YOU.

We

God only is great, and he is Lord over all for evermore. His power is infinite. He rules the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth. Everywhere he doeth his will, and none can stay his hand. ourselves are feeble. However much we may truly say of our own greatness or capabilities—and we may by our own efforts in some degree affect ourselves and our own affairs- we must yet acknowledge that, under God, we walk forth in weakness, and cannot act independently of him, or cut ourselves loose from his control.

Do we lament because the difference between ourselves and God is so great? Do we think it would be better for us if we could entirely govern ourselves? if we could always do as we list? Who of us would dare to live and act forever without the gnidance of God?