portion, and that he may be the lot of thine inheritance. Yes, ye who have travailed in birth with your dear children, let your anxieties for them be summed up in this, that they may be " heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." If you " travail in birth with them again and again till Christ be formed in them, so far from pitying your anguish, I will rejoice over you, and say, that " your labour shall not be in vain." Little do mothers consider how much, under God, the salvation of their children depends on them. Little do they think how the prayers they have offered for, and with, their children, and the tears they have shed over them, would impress their tender minds, long after their tongues have been silent in the grave : and probably induce a penitential sorrow, when some concur- ring providence shall have softened and prepared their minds. Were parents more anxious about the spiritual welfare of their children, we should not so often find them in their declining years bowed down with trouble, and " their grey hairs brought with sorrow to the grave."
And does not the Presentation of the infant Jesus in the Temple speak to young people also ? Yes surely ; and that too in most instructive terms. You are ready to think it too early yet awhile to give yourselves to the Lord : but can that ever be too early, which is your most indispensable duty, your highest privilege, your surest felicity ? Did Samuel ever re- gret that he was given to the Lord even from his mother's womb ? Did Timothy spend a less happy life, because he followed the faith and piety of Lois and Eunice ? If you could but once taste the blessedness of true religion, you would never think of it as a toil, or dread it as a bondage : having " drunk water out of the wells of salvation," you would most con- tentedly leave to others the muddy draughts which they with difficulty collect from their own " broken cisterns." Be pre- vailed upon, then, to make the attempt ; to give yourselves to the Lord; to commence that blessed course which Jesus trod before you. You have a special promise given you by God himself; " They that seek me early, shall find me :" The Lord impress it on your minds, and lead you to a sweet experience of its truth and blessedness !
But the subject speaks to all of us ; yes, I say, to all. Do we not all profess to be " the Church of the first-born ?" and is it not on that ground that we hope to be numbered with " the general assembly, who are written in heaven?" Behold then, we all belong to God : he lays claim to every one of us, and says, " They are mine." True, " we have been redeemed, yea redeemed, not with corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." But wherefore have we been re- deemed? That we might not serve the Lord? Nay; but