Page images
PDF
EPUB

make some exertions in the cause, for although they might not be able to do much, still the parish had a fair claim upon them and their friends for assistance, as you had accommodated them with sittings for a long period, for which they never as yet had paid anything. I did not, then, my friends, tell them of the obligations you were under to them, neither that it was my duty or your interest to accommodate them to the utmost of our power.

I was not satisfied with merely giving those who were with me at present an opportunity of doing good, but wrote to several of those who had been with me before; from one little boy, about ten years of age, who was removed about this time last year when it pleased divine providence to visit my family with affliction, in order to join his brother who was at college in town, I received a letter which much gratified me. After recounting his success in his school exploits, he says, "I have just carried off two prizes,

and I have been monitor of my class;" he then closes his letter with a postscript— "I shall do all I can for the card." And these, my brethren, are, I believe, the last words he ever wrote. I heard no

more of him until I saw his death a few days after announced in the daily obituary. And if this had been all, I should have perhaps forgotten that he had been thus at last employed; but in reply to a letter which I wrote, his afflicted parent says, "I have to return you my sincere thanks for your very kind note of sympathy and condolence. We had before felt much for you on the occasion of your own late affliction, but knew that no consolation would be available, save only the hand from which the affliction came; and this we knew you would have recourse to. I have endeavoured to seek the same in my recent loss, and I trust it has pleased God to grant me grace to meet his will with due submission. My dear little boy was ill for ten days, during which time he appeared to undergo much suffering,

but as he was delirious most of the time, I trust he was in some degree unconscious of it. Among his mental ramblings, he talked of going to Hanwell with his little card." If no other good had resulted, my friends, this would have amply repaid me. To think that the sweet little fellow whom we had trained from his very childhood, whose intellectual powers were of the highest order, and whose disposition was most lovely, should have thus at last been employed; that in his last moments, Hanwell had been associated with doing good; with him it was Hanwell and happiness, and we trust that with him it was Hanwell and heaven. These, my These, my brethren, are the glorious rewards for our exertions; rewards with which no earthly titles, no earthly honours, can be for a moment compared. And if this affords joy to me, tell me, ye who are parents, what comfort his afflicted father must receive from the consideration that his beloved child was in his last moments thus employed! But may not this soon be

your case? may not that beloved boy be soon prostrate on the bed of death? may not that sweet girl to whom you are so devoted, be ere long a pale livid corpse before you? Death spares not because we love. And should this be the case, would you not rejoice to have taught your children to have promoted that joy of which you will then trust they are partakers. And even should they survive you, it will afford you consolation when you leave them, to know that you have taught them that their first efforts must be in the service of their God.

But I must conclude. I have been led on much longer than I anticipated, but the subject is one of the utmost importance, both for the present and future generations.

In the Sermons lately addressed to you, having first pointed out the way to raise the means, I have endeavoured to show that your duty calls upon you, as Christians, to provide for the preaching of the Gospel to the poor, and that your welfare

will be promoted by giving liberally; and I now intreat you to assist us by your regard for the immortal souls of those who are ready to perish around you, by your love to your children, by the interest you have in your own eternal happiness, and above all, by your affection to those you have gone before you, whom, though you see not, still your love, remembering that angels and the glorified spirits above are interested in the work, since "there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth."

« PreviousContinue »