Their last account will be rendered, not with joy, but with grief.

II. CHRISTIAN PARENTS, IF THEY ARE FAITHFUL,

SHOULD BE ENCOURAGED AND COMFORTED WITH REGARD

TO THEIR CHILDREN, IN VIEW OF THE SAVIOUR'S POWER

AND GRACE.

Have any of us a child grown beyond our control, disobedient, wicked, a candidate for ruin? While we weep, perhaps, over our sad mistakes or neglect, let us not be discouraged. Pray with the child, again and again; it will help your efforts; it will secure the help of Christ. The creature on which Christ rode in triumph to the place where the children sung hosanna to him, was one on which never man sat. So Christ can break or tame the uncurbed spirit of a son or daughter with infinite ease, and make that child the honored instrument of glorifying him.

What steed, with his caparisons of royal wealth, ever bore such a king, or walked in such triumph, as that young, untamed colt which bore Christ so gently amid shouts and over branches thrown down into his path. Let every unbridled, untamed spirit be brought to Christ, with implicit and obedient faith. He can make it willing in the day of his power.

Some of you have representatives among those children whom Christ has gathered into his kingdom.

Could you have seen the reception of your child in heaven, and heard the words that were spoken concerning it, and concerning you,—could you behold it in some circle of the redeemed; the leader of some little choir, or awakening love and wonder at the development of no common power, or the youngest, sweetest singer there; a servant of Christ, doing his commandments, hearkening to the voice of his word; sitting among good men and angels, as Christ sat, at twelve years of age, hearing, and asking questions, -you would cease to weep, except for joy.

What a contrast there is between such a child and you, unconverted parent; for, without doubt, many an unconverted parent has a child in heaven. How much worse than at the dying pillow, and the little grave, will the separation be, when you see the child in the kingdom of God, and you yourself shut out. O miracle of sin; a parent, with a child in heaven, going to hell. Dreadful scenes await us at the judgment seat of Christ. There will be scenes of bliss there, when parents meet their long-lost ones, and find themselves standing in the relation of parents to youthful seraphs, who, in heaven, during these years of parental sorrow, have been growing wise, and excellent in beauty. They will make their parents feel more than old Jacob did, when they told him, Joseph is yet alive, and is governor over all Egypt.' Your Joseph,' whom they cast into a pit,

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is yet alive, and sees the face of the King; he thinks of you, and, perhaps, inquires for you, of those who come to heaven, as Joseph did concerning his father. If your bereavement shall be the means of making you a Christian, it will prove that God, in his kind and wise providence, sent the child before you "to preserve life," in the sense of saving your soul.

Have your children ever heard you sing, or repeat, a hymn in praise of Christ, or seen you bow the knee to him? You love your children, and, it may be, idolize them. What if you be bereaved, in the other world, of parental joys; what if you fail to look on that heavenly society, where the young now make it perpetual morning and spring; where children are not unlike flowers and birds to the earth, and where the redemption which was bestowed upon millions of them will pour forth treasures of its love forever, on the happy spirits of the redeemed. Childhood, with some of you, is gone, and Christ had no worship from you. Youth is gone, and the Saviour had no dew of your youth. Ripe years, with you, are falling into the sere and yellow leaf,' and you are without Christ. You have a great work to do, and much time to redeem, if you would be found in the number of those who will, at last, appear before Christ, and say, BEHOLD, I AND THE CHILDREN WHICH GOD HATH GIVEN ME."

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SERMON VII.

THE WOMAN WITH THE ALABASTER BOX.

LUKE VII. 37, 38.

AND BEHOLD, A WOMAN IN THE CITY, WHICH WAS A SINNER, WHEN SHE KNEW THAT JESUS SAT AT MEAT IN THE PHARISEE'S HOUSE, BROUGHT AN ALABASTER BOX OF OINTMENT, AND STOOD AT HIS FEET BEHIND HIM, WEEPING, AND BEGAN TO WASH HIS FEET WITH TEARS, AND DID WIPE THEM WITH THE HAIRS OF HER HEAD, AND KISSED HIS FEET, AND ANOINTED THEM WITH THE OINTMENT.

HERE is a scene and a transaction, expressing the most intense love, in which not a word is spoken by the principal character. Her feelings were too deep for words. The whole occurrence will appear natural and easy, if we transfer it to our own times.

Suppose that you are sitting at your table, with a company of friends. A stranger glides into the room, with an air of deep grief, earnest, negligent in apparel, yet interesting and striking in her whole appearance. Passing round to one of your guests, and standing behind him, with a look that indicates love blended with sorrow, she bursts into a flood of tears.

If there were any reason to suspect her of insanity, or of a design to insult that guest, or to obtain redress from him by exposing his offences against her to the company, your first impulse would be to have her removed. But if you saw that she was overcome by love and tenderness, and that your guest turned toward her with no forbidding look, but in a way that encouraged her tears, and especially if that guest were a distinguished and good man, for whom you had made that company, your respect for him, and confidence in him, would make you wait in silence to see what he would say and do with regard to that incident, which you would suspect had a meaning and an object, with which you would not feel at liberty to interfere.

We may account, therefore, for the intrusion of this woman into the Pharisee's house at dinner, and his not commanding her to be removed, by making his case our own. He saw that there was some connection between his guest and this stranger, which made it unsuitable for him to interpose. He felt that Christ would treat the stranger in a way becoming the civility and courtesy due to the master of the house. We see his sense of propriety in not making the remark to Christ, but within himself': "This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him; for she is a sinner."

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