fancied future joys, which we feel we must obtain before we give our hearts to God, and procrastination promises a future time for repentance; and so we pass, heedless, by opening graves and alarming providences, and stop our ears against conscience and the Bible, and put our souls in jeopardy for that endless duration after death. Is it easy to obey strong impulses made upon our feelings? Are these admonitions of the Holy Ghost never resisted? Is faith the most natural and obvious thing with these hearts of ours? Let us be reproved and rebuked by this example of the aged saint in the temple. I say, this aged saint. For the days of credulity with him had passed away. Old people are slow to believe new things. They shake their heads at the sanguine hopes and the ready acquiescence of the young in promising enterprises and pretended recent discoveries. The frosts of many winters had extinguished the natural ardors of this old man, and, for him, the sun and the light, and the moon and the stars, were darkened, and the clouds returned after the rain. He was afraid of that which is high, and fears were in his way, and the almond tree flourished, and desire failed, for it was time that he should go to his long home, and for the mourners to go about the streets. We must agree, then, that, in his circumstances, his faith was a great triumph over unfavorable appearances; indeed, there could not possibly be less to encourage faith than at the moment when he took that child to his arms. Had he the heart of Naaman the Syrian, who went away in a rage from the prophet's door, because he was told to go and wash in Jordan, instead of receiving a cure from the prophet with ceremonious application of his hand to the leprosy, Simeon might have turned away offended, saying, Is this root out of dry ground, my Saviour? Where did he find in that humble scene any thing to gratify his fancy, any thing answering to those pictures with which imagination, perhaps, had filled his mind, while expecting the Lord's Christ? And have I waited for this? is this what Abraham desired to see? is this David's Lord and David's son? is this the burden of Isaiah? There is no beauty in him that I should desire him. It must have been the purest and the strongest faith that made that aged saint feel and act as he did. Love mingled with it, and made his faith perfect; and so, faith, working by love, purified his heart from all those worldly, pompous, and merely Jewish feelings which would have made him despise the infant Messiah. Perhaps he subjected himself to the wonder, if not to the scoffs, of bystanders, taking a young child out of the arms of his mother, a stranger to him, and uttering such words of worship, such unintelligible words - "Mine eyes have seen thy salvation;" "A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel." Blessed saint, we need, and would emulate, thy faith and love. To the world around us Christ yet has no form nor comeliness, and when they see him there is no beauty in him that they should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men. He requires a cross daily of each of his followers. He bids them lay aside resentments, and lusts, and covetousness, which is idolatry, and all worldliness, and to be heavenly minded, and to learn of him who is meek and lowly in heart, that they may find rest unto their souls. Our hearts are slow to take all this to our arms and to our bosoms. We need Simeon's faith and Simeon's love to make us embrace Jesus Christ, with his soul-humbling doctrines and precepts, as he is offered to us in the gospel, and, regardless of the frowns and favors of men, say, Mine eyes have seen thy salvation. We need to be absorbed more in promoting the cause of that Saviour whom Simeon declared to be "a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of the people of Israel." What zeal that good man would have had for the conversion of the world, had he lived in our day. He would have had no rest till every fellow-creature had, by faith and love, seen and embraced the Lord's Christ. may derive this admonition from the scene before us in the temple: II. IF WE DEDICATE OUR CHILDREN TO GOD, WE MUST BE PREPARED TO HAVE THEM SUFFER GREAT THINGS FOR THE SALVATION OF MEN. All Christian parents dedicate their children to God. The forms in which they do it vary, but the consecration of children to the service of God is one of the most natural, as it is a solemn and affecting, duty, and is felt to be a great privilege by pious parents, whether it be attended with a public offering of the children in a religious assembly, or not. When we consecrate our children to God, we must reckon upon great sacrifices and trials, if God will, in their history. The angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, and said, "Hail, thou that art highly favored among women; the Lord is with thee." Mary afterward exclaimed, in the joy and fulness of her heart, "Henceforth all generations shall call me blessed." Her child grew in stature, and in favor with God and man, and, at length, entered upon his public ministry. Her thoughts and feelings, as a mother, as she heard of his mighty works, his opening the eyes and the ears, and loosing the tongue, and feeding the multitudes, and walking on the sea, and raising the dead, and casting out devils, and healing the sick, can better be imagined than described. These feelings, however, were mixed with other feelings, as she perceived how the chief priests and rulers of the people conspired against him to take his life. Can we suppose that there never were any of those interviews between them, which a good son, though grown to manhood, loves to have with the mother that bare him? Did he never retreat from the world to her humble dwelling, and tell her of his joys and sorrows; the mighty work which God had given him to do; the toil and pain which marked his daily life; the thronging multitudes and the insidious Pharisee; the love and joy of the Magdalene, and Bartimeus, and the envy and subtle craftiness of the sanhedrim? How did she feel, as she looked upon the marks which care and toil had made upon that child of hers, the object of such wonder in her secret meditations, - for such marks his life of sorrow had made, - "his visage was so marred more than any man's, and his form more than the sons of men." What did that mother want, when she stood without, with his brethren, desiring to speak with him? She saw that things were coming to a crisis with him; her heart was burdened, on his behalf, with a heavy load; all the mother's solicitude, and conscious right to interfere, made her eager to withdraw him from destruction; but her grief swelled like a mountain torrent when she |