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help to "bring down their grey hairs with sorrow to the grave." It is to the same cause, in these days of general insubordination to authority of any kind, that we must attribute the unyielding temper, the proud defiance, the insolent and contemptuous treatment to which parents are so much subject from the unnatural conduct of their sons and daughters of their sons, I would add, most especially, who mixing earlier with the world, and casting off control in the examples of this evil age, are helping to fill up the measure of their iniquity, and to accomplish the prophecies of the latter days, where disobedience to parents, the being "without natural affection, heady, highminded," are mentioned among a long catalogue of sins, which shall especially mark those "perilous times."

Now we have reason to expect that, whether in the training up of children, or in the discharge of any other duty, in exact proportion as we depart from the

principles of the doctrine of Christ, and most especially from the scripture doctrine of the original corruption of the heart, will these sins be made manifest. It is upon the foundation of those principles, that I have this evening endeavoured to bring to your consideration the character of the Christian daughter, and from that have sought to introduce matter which, through the grace of God, might be made profitable to us all. To you who know not, in your own experience in these your early days, as sons and daughters, or in these your later days, what that character is as founded upon the doctrines of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I have only to offer my earnest entreaty, that you will examine what you have heard, not by the judgment of the world, which you love, nor of your own heart, which is deceiving you; but simply by the pure word of God. Take no man's authority; for though we press upon you the weight of our message, and, as "am

bassadors for Christ, pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God," (2 Cor. v. 20,) we are not so foolish in our own imagination, nor so unscriptural in our views, as to forget ourselves, or to wish you to forget, that though we preach Christ crucified," our preaching is in vain, unless the Lord give the increase.

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But for you who have been wrought upon by the Spirit of God to form your characters, as sons and daughters, on the principles of the doctrine of Christ, and now, through the measure of grace bestowed upon you, adorn the doctrine in that, and in any other relationships into which God, by his providence, has brought you, it remains that you persevere unto the end. Be "faithful unto death;" be waiting upon Christ in humble duty; be looking for Christ in well-grounded hope; and then He, who in the days of his tribulation, and bowed down under the weight of his cross, could still so far forget his own sorrows, as to be mindful of the sorrows

which those who loved him would have

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to endure, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children,” (Luke xxiii. 28,) will be mindful of yours. He will be with you: for you and every one who shall quit the love and service of this vain world, and turn to Him, He will now, and in eternity, realize his unchangeable promise: "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." (2 Cor. vi. 17, 18.)

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SERMON V.

THE SISTER.

JOHN xi. 1.

Mary, and her sister Martha.

THERE is no relationship subsisting in human life, wherein the nearest and tenderest affections are called forth, which has not been exalted in the word of God as illustrative of the love of Christ towards his church. Is it not that we may ourselves be drawn, with understanding and love, towards our divine Saviour, who thus invites us, by appeals to those natural sympathies which we can so well comprehend?

To show us, as far as we can at pre

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