life, respected the aged, the weeping Mary, who stood by the cross, and sustained the most tremendous shock of which maternal feelings are susceptible, by witnessing the death of her own Son. Amidst the variety and pressure of his own sorrows, at the very moment when he is occupied in the redemption of his people, even then, he does not forget, he does not neglect, the duty which he owes to a mother: solicitous for her ease and comfort, he says to his beloved disciple, "Behold thy mother!" The disciple fully entered into the solicitude of his divine master, and "took her unto his own house."

If the recital of remarkable instances of filial duty and affection will not allure you to imitate their example, perhaps the recital of instances of a directly opposite kind may produce fear, and deter you from that disobedience which you have hitherto discovered; and which, if longer continned, bids fair very soon to finish the cares and anxieties of your aged and afflicted parents. Sacred history furnishes the young with many awful examples of disobedient children, whose folly and sin involved them in irrevocable disgrace and ruin. The history of the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas, and also of the three sons of David, Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah, illustrates and confirms this remark. They despised parental instruction and authority, they followed vain and lewd practices, they kept evil and profane company, and by these means they plunged daggers in the bleeding hearts of their parents. In short, of too many disobedient children, it is hardly too much to say, that they are murderers of fathers, and murderers of mothers." 1 Tim. i. 9. But mark, ye disobedient children, their days were not long in the land of the living; they all came to a miserable end; they fell like untimely fruit: they died' without honour, without peace, without the cheering, the well founded hope of a blissful immortality; they died as every undutiful child may expect to die. Carefully read their history, and take warning by their example. Come to your heart-broken parents with the language of repentance and submission. They stand waiting with open arms to receive you; their hearts are yet full of the tenderest emotions of pity toward you. O let them see the tear of repentance fall from your eyes; let them hear those affecting

66

accents fall from your lips, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight:" they will not only run to meet you, and fall on your neck and embrace you, but the joy of your return shall be to them as life from the dead.

Are Bible-precepts, are Bible-examples, all lost upon disobedient children? There remains yet one weapon more; we will assail the stout-hearted with this: Solomon sent the sluggard to the little ant, to learn wisdom and industry. We will send you to the unenlightened heathen, to learn the duties which you owe to parents. There may be a few tribes, a few individuals among the heathen, who are so totally void of natural affection, as to leave their aged fathers and mothers to be drowned by a flowing tide, to be devoured by beasts of prey, or to perish through want and neglect; these instances are very few, and they are monsters in human shapes. But shall the children of New-England imitate such a foul example? You descend from ancestors, who are not more famed for the love of liberty, and for their heroic deeds in the martial field, than they are for those humane and social affections, which are the ornament of human nature, which are so strenuously inculcated in the religion of Jesus Christ, and are so powerfully strengthened by its principles and consolations. If then Solon pronounces those ignoble and dishonourable, who neglect the care of their parents even among heathen, how inexcusable, how criminal must they be, who fall into this sin, surrounded by the light and influence of the glorious gospel of Jesus! Who can read without admiration, the story of that justly celebrated female Xantippe, who nourished her sick and dying father Cymons, while in prison, with that breast of milk, which nature and providence furnished her with for the use of her darling infant? This action was so striking, that it obtained the honourable appellation of The Roman Charity. Yes, such is the ardent warmth of filial affection in this instance, that a mother, a mother among the hea then, devotes herself, with unheard of tenderness, to the preservation of the spark of life, in an aged and imprisoned father. Who can read such peculiar, such devout expressions of filial affection and duty, without approving and admiring them, and secretly wishing to imitate them?

Reader, question yourself as to the manner and spirit, in

which you have conducted yourself toward your parents. It may be, that you have reason to be deeply humbled on this account. Instead of manifesting every expression of respect, submission and obedience, have you not gone far into the contrary line of conduct, treating the most sensible and excellent parental advice with contempt? Have you not, with a proud and obstinate spirit, followed your own foolish and wicked inclinations, and by your idle, changeable, and extravagant disposition, wasted that property which your parents procured by industry and frugality? Has not your undutiful conduct in general imbittered all their joys, caused so many wearisome days and sleepless nights, fixed in their breasts such deep anxiety, and abiding alarm, as to what might be the final and dreadful issue of these evil courses, and all this at a time when their age and infirmities made an unusual measure of repose necessary; so that their spirits have sunk under the pressure of their woes, their grey hairs have gone to the grave with sorrow, and left you to the bitter reflection, that you have acted the part of a Parricide?

If such has been the case, you are indeed an object of great pity. Your guilt is not of an ordinary cast; you have sinned against nature; you have sinned against the law and the gospel; you have sinned against the most imperious obligations of gratitude; surely, you see the enormity of your crime; surely, you feel how greatly you have offended God! Were it possible for these parents to come back to life, would you not fly to prostrate yourself at their feet, and with shame and contrition implore their forgiveness? Ah! their tender hearts granted you this, before they expired: it may be, you were far from them when they sunk into the arms of death; but they did not, no! they could not forget you; their dying lips not only uttered the kind accents of pardon to their criminal and undutiful child, but they poured forth on your behalf the most devout and affectionate prayers to God, that his blessing might rest upon you. It may be, you did stand at the death-bed of your departed parents; conscience compelled you to hasten to receive their last blessing. May it also compel you to a constant remembrance of their suitable advice, of their solemn injunctions and exhortations, of their devout and af-. fectionate prayers. May the Spirit of God give efficacy to

these, draw you out of the snares of the world, and lead you into the paths of wisdom, whose ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. Prov. iii. 17.

You that are the children of godly parents, are under peculiar obligations to the duties which we are recommending. Before you ever saw the light, they felt anxiety for you; from the moment you first breathed the air, they have not ceased to watch over you, and to do you good. They have travailed in birth for your souls incessantly, and earnestly prayed for your present and everlasting happiness; and while doing this, they have shed over you tears of sincere and devout affection; in conversation, in temper, in action, they have instructed, admonished, and intreated you, and shown you the way to heaven: if you wander from the right way, if you go in the way of transgressors, and live and die estranged from the religion in which they have instructed you, nor trust in the God to whom they have most solemnly dedicated you then, most assuredly, their tears, their prayers, their warnings, and example, will not only reproach you in affliction and death, but will, inevitably rise up against you in the last day.

We will cherish a hope, that the disobedient child, after reading these plain, but friendly admonitions, will say to himself, "Verily I am guilty in this matter. I have been thoughtless in the extreme; I have slighted the most endearing counsels, and the most faithful reproofs. I have studied my own foolish inclinations, and indulged my unruly passions. I have exemplified the character of the young man described by Solomon, Eccles. xi. 9. I have walked in the ways of my own heart. I have walked in the sight of my eyes, and forgotten that awful truth, that for all these things, God will bring me into judgment. Oh! yes, I have sorely grieved the heart of that father who laboured early and late, who eat the bread of carefulness every day to procure for me, his rebellious child, food, raiment, and education; have deeply wounded the bosom of that fond mother, who with anxious solicitude watched over me by night and by day; who performed a thousand offices of kindness for my sake, and who sacrificed her very health to promote my welfare. Yes, I have multiplied the sorrows of the woman to whom I was under inexpressible obligations to whom I owed nothing but love, gratitude, and

obedience; that mother whose heart yearned over me with such tenderness, and whose affection to me, her ungrateful child, was such, that if it had been possible, she would have imparted to me her own soul. I well remember the tears, the prayers, the entreaties of these fond parents; but alas! my heart was callous to them all. 1 loved sin, I was insnared by evil company. I was intoxicated by the love of pleasure, and an insatiable thirst after public amusements. Now, how readily would I confess to them my errors, with what unfeigned submission would I ask their forgiveness, and implore their blessing: I would, if it were possible, make them ample amends for the injury I have done. I would recall the sighs I caused them to heave, the tears I forced them to shed, and all the pangs I occasioned them to feel. But it cannot be, it is too late, they are no more, and I, wretch that I am, helped to hurry them to the grave. I will however cherish one comfortable hope, which is, that in heaven they feel joy at least over one prodigal, and that prodigal, their once thoughtless and rebellious son. Eternal God! Father of mercies, grant me that grace which shall justify them in saying, " This our son was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found."

The Duty of Children to their Parents.

I am the happy father of a very towardly son, in whom I do not only see my life, but also my manner of life renewed. It would be extremely beneficial to society, if you would frequently resume subjects which serve to bind this sort of relations faster, and endear the ties of blood with those of good-will, protection, observance, indulgence, and veneration. I would, methinks, have this done after an uncommon method; and do not think any one, who is not capable of writing a good play, fit to undertake a work wherein there will necessarily occur so many secret instincts and biasses of human nature, which would pass unobserved by common eyes. I thank Heaven I have no outrageous offence against my own excellent parents to answer for; but when I am now and then alone, and look back upon my past life, from my earliest infancy to this time, there are many faults which I committed that did not apNo. XXXIX.

2.