istence, but existence in its highest and happiest developments. Existence in connection with all that can make it valuable and blessed. Such is a prosperous life. Wealth, honour, and life, growing out of humility and the fear of the Lord.

II. A PERILOUS phase. "Thorns and snares are in the way of the froward." Observe three things.

First: The perils of life described, "Thorns and snares." There are lives vexed, fretted, wounded, lives of entanglements, and risks, lives, in fact, in which men seem to be walking every step on prickling thorns beneath which lie hid serpents, precipices, and ravenous beasts of prey. Life to some men is nothing but pains and perplexities.

Secondly: The perils of life incurred. Who are the men exposed to these perils of life? The text answers the question. "Thorns and snares are in the way of the froward." The "froward" man stands in contrast to the man of humility and the "fear of the Lord. He is the man of unbridled will, stubborn. and headstrong. Self-willed stubbornness has always led men into perplexities. Sarah, Jacob and Balaam found the way of stubbornness full of "thorns and snares," pains and perplexities. What a wretched destiny is that of a sinner: his footway is distressing, his end is ruinous.

Thirdly: The perils of life avoided. "He that doth keep his soul shall be far from them." The word 66 them " may refer either to the "froward" character or to the "thorns and snares. Either sense gives the idea that the man who keeps his soul, keeps it in humility in

the "fear of the Lord, keeps it in holy fellowship and love, will avoid the perils to which the wicked are exposed.

CONCLUSION: What a solemn yet glorious thing is life!

""Tis not for man to trifle! Life is brief, And sin is here.

Our age is but the falling of a leaf,
A dropping tear:

We have no time to sport away the hours;
All must be earnest in a world like ours.
"Not many lives, but only one have we-
One, only one!

How sacred should that one life ever be,
That narrow span!

Day after day filled up with blessed toil,
Hour after hour still bringing in new
spoil."
DR. BONAR.

(No. CCLXVIII.)

CHILD-TRAINING.

"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."-Prov. xxii. 6.

THERE are four important subjects implied in this verse.

I. THE SPECIAL TRAINABILITY

OF CHILDHOOD. "Train up a What is training? Not A child may

child."

mere teaching. be taught the art of reading and writing, and the elements of general knowledge, and yet be untrained. Instruction is one thing, education is another. There are many well instructed who are miserably educated, who are in fact not educated at all. Training and education mean the developement of the intellectual and moral powers of the soul, the bringing out into right and vigorous action the germinant elements of the mind and heart. Now childhood is the special period for this. If you turn the river into a new direction, do not wait until it approaches the Ocean and the waters become a volume of resistless force. Begin as near to the fountain head as

possible. If you train a tree do not wait until its trunk has grown stiff and bulky with years. Begin when it is in a sapling stage. If you train a horse, you must begin with the colt. Youth is the period for training. Indeed all life is trained in youth, and children are trained, either rightly or wrongly, a process of training is going on. The soul is ever running into hideous crookedness and deformity or into stately forms of strength. It is not a question with parents and guardians whether those committed to their charge shall be educated or not, educated they will be in some form or other.

Another subject implied in this verse is

II. THE RIGHTEOUS PATH OF LIFE. "In the way which he should go." Not in the way in which a child would go. That would in all probability be in most cases a false and wicked way, the way of error and ruin. Not the way in which the world would have him go, the way of selfishness, carnality, &c. But in the way in which he should go. What is that way? The way of Christ. Christ is the way. He is the example. "Follow me comprehends the totality of man's moral obligation. To follow Christ is to follow truth, benevolence, happiness. This is the way, the only way. Christ is the great example. Another subject implied in this verse is

III. THE TERRIBLE FORCE OF HABIT. "When he is old he will not depart from it." If the way in which the child has been trained, is evil when old he will not depart from it. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin?" The statistics of conversions

show that but few bad men turn into the ways of rectitude and religion after forty years of age. The tree is too stiff, and too gnarled to bend, the river of influence has become too voluminous, too near the ocean to be turned in another direction at that period of life. But where the course has been right in youth, the improbability of a change we think is greatly increased. Conscience does not back the bad man in his habits however strong they become. Conscience, this divine faculty. is ever against him. But the good man in his habits is ever borne on by the whole might of his moral nature, and a conversion from goodness in old age grows almost into an impossibility.

Another subject implied in this verse is—

IV. THE SOLEMN ACCOUNTABILITY OF PARENTS. The great

duty oftraining children devolves upon their parents. If they have not the capacity and the time to give the necessary amount of their personal attention to the work, they should use their best judgment in the employment of substitutes. The parent, in consequence of the moral power which he exerts upon the susceptible nature of his children, becomes almost as much the author of the character as he is the instrument of their existence. What, then, is the child mere passive entity, possessing no moral spontaneity, no resisting force? little if any, in the first stages of being. Must we in all cases of immorality and wickedness in children ascribe culpable neglect, if nothing worse, to parental conduct? We are bound to think so from such

a passage as this. The great

philosopher Locke says "That of all the men we meet with nine parts out of ten are what they are, good or bad, useful or not, according to their education."

CONCLUSION. The subject presents-First: A lesson to the young. Let the young avoid the wrong and cultivate those habits that are in accordance with morality and religion.

Second: A warning to the guardians of youth. Let parents, Sunday-school teachers, public instructors, and statesmen look well to the young generation. If parents would certainly

know that their little child would, in the course of seven or eight years, fall into a deep river alone, would they wait until that catastrophe occurred before they taught him to swim? In the course of that period the infants now born will be thrown into the great social river of depravity and corruption; and should they not, in the earliest stages, be taught the moral art of keeping the current beneath them, and making it bear them to scenes of safety and peace.

"Oh, for the coming of that glorious time,

When, prizing knowledge as her noblest wealth.

And best protection, this imperial realm,
While she exacts allegiance, shall admit
An obligation, on her part, to teach
Them who are born to serve her and obey;
Binding herself, by statute, to secure
For all the children whom her soul main-
tains,

The rudiments of letters, and inform
The mind with moral and religious truth,
Both understood and practised-so that

none,

However destitute, be left to droop,
By timely culture unsustained, or run
Into a wild disorder; or be forced
To drudge through a weary life without
the help

Of intellectual implements and tools;
A savage horde among the civilized,
A servile band among the lordly free."
WORDSWORTH.

(CCLXIX.)

THE SOCIAL RULE OF WEALTH.

"The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender."Prov. xxii. 7.

WEALTH not only invests its possessor with the power to gratify his appetites, tastes and ambition, to cultivate his intellect and to furnish his mind with stores of choicest knowledge, to ameliorate human woe and to promote general happiness; but invests him at the same time with a regal influence. A wealthy man is the king of his dependants. Indeed, wealth rules commerce, and commerce rules the parliaments of the world.

In relation to this subject we offer three remarks.

I. That this rule should ALWAYS be a GENEROUS rule. When we see a wealthy man loved, honoured, and loyally served because of the benefits that he has conferred upon man, his Sovereignty is a matter for rejoicing. Such was the sovereignty which Job, in the days of his prosperity, enjoyed. "The young men saw me and hid themselves: and the aged arose and stood up. The princes refrained talking, and laid their hand on their mouth. The nobles held their peace, and their tongues cleaved to the roof of their mouth. When the ear heard me, then it blessed me, and when the eye saw me it gave witness to me. Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him."

In relation to this subject, we remark that

II. This rule is FREQUENTLY a TYRANNIC rule. To how many rich men of all ages do the thundering denunciations of St.

James apply, "Behold the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you." How often does the wealthy master exercise tyranny over his servants, the wealthy landlord over his tenants, the wealthy merchant over his customers, the wealthy nation over poorer countries. The rule of wealth is oft tyrannic.

In relation to this subject we remark

III. That this rule is EVER a TEMPORARY rule. There is an empire which a man may establish here over his fellows that might be permanent and ever extending; the empire of superior thoughts, purer sympathies, divine aims and deeds. By these men may become kings for ever under God. But the reign of mere wealth is always uncertain, and at most very brief. Riches lose their power the moment its possessor dies. The rich man's crown falls from his head, and his sceptre from his hand, with his last breath.

CONCLUSION.-From this subject we are reminded,

First: Of the responsibility of the rich. How great the power of wealth! In this world it is a talent often more influential than intellect or genius. Every man is responsible to God for all the good his wealth is capable of accomplishing.

We are reminded, Secondly: The temptation of the poor. What is the temptation? To become servile, cringing in spirit. Flunkeyism is the greatest curse of the people. It is a cancer in the heart of England. The men that bow down to wealth are in the majority everywhere, and they are parasites that devour the moral nobleness of nations. From this subject we are reminded,

Thirdly: The wisdom of the diligent. The diligent man is a wise man. Why? Because the more industrious he is, the more independent he becomes of wealthy men. Though he may bow at first, and thus become for a time a servant, he will soon by assiduous labour pay back his loan, and stand erect before his own master as an independent

man.

"Thy spirit, independence, let me share, Lord of the lion-heart and eagle eye; Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare, Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky."

SMOLLETT.