Children are great blessings; "Happy is the man that hath his quiver," that is, his house, "full of them." Under the direction of a prudent parent, they are 66 as arrows in the hand of a mighty man," and will fly here and there to execute his orders. These children have every thing to learn, and they will learn every thing of those who are the nearest to them. To them example is better than all the books in the world, and indeed it is the only book they study. Let us not cheat ourselves into a neglect of them by groaning about Old Adam, nor by chanting over what nobody denies, that God only can make a Christian, which is equal to saying, God only can make a cucumber. God made the first fruit immediately by his own power; but he hath made fruit ever since by means, and the most industrious will always have the best garden. Let us use our children early to do with little sleep. To put them to bed very early, to give them sleeping doses, and such other customs, are generally the practices of idle or impatient Let us never under pretence of fondness give them strong liquors. The water-bucket is the best supply of a poor child. Let us not lacquer their appetites, and learn them to be dainty, or voracious. It is a great misfortune to the poor to have remarkably great appetites. Such habits poison and kill. Let us accustom them to cleanliness and industry, to civility in their manners, and to reverence for their God. Let us nev

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er think of the savage custom of beating them, nor ever spoil them by the contrary folly of cockering and fondling. Above all, let us teach them to think and reason about religion, and to interpret Scripture for themselves. Let us take care to inform them that religion is justice, and nothing else. What is the religion. of a poor woman's little girl, but to spin a groat a day; for it is just and right, that she should contribute what little she can toward the maintenance of the family? And what is the religion of a poor under boy on a farm in a cold winter day, but to rise early, to milk the cows clean, to breakfast the sties, to tend the cattle constant`ly and kindly, and so on; for it is just and right that he should do so for the benefit of his master, who supplies

all his wants. Justice makes a good shepherd, a good herdman, a good tasker, a good man in every work and business of life. We should inculcate this principle in these little folks early in life by every thing we do, and this will settle them in services, and preserve them from idleness, which leads to vagrancy, as that does to pilfering and public punishment.

Let us now turn this subject into prayer, and for five minutes address God, in whose hand is life, and breath, and all things, that he would vouchsafe to prosper the works of our hands while we are well, to grant us relief when we are sick, and to crown all when we die with a blessed immortality, saying to each of us, "Well done, good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful in a few things, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

EXERCISE III.

FRUGALITY.

[AT HAUXTON.]

JOHN vi, 12.

Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost.

THE end of all instruction is to enable people to instruct themselves. With this view allow me to inform you how to edify yourselves by interpreting Scripture, which you read, by the world in which you live, and which you every day see. It would mean nothing here, to say the Gospel is best proved true by analogy; I might as well say nothing, for such hard words have not yet found their way into this village. Let us try to do without them. Mark what I am going to say.

All the comfort we derive from the Gospel is on supposition the Gospel is true: but we are not to suppose the Gospel is true without examining whether it be so. Now what are we to examine it by? Suppose I should

give you a letter, and require you to determine whose hand-writing it was, what would you say? We cannot tell, say you, by this single paper; we must compare it with other papers. Suppose by comparing it with some of your landlord's receipts, I should observe, that every word, and every letter, and every mark and flourish were alike in both, what would you say then? You would allow, for you know your landlord's hand, that he wrote the letter, and especially as all the contents agree with his known character.

Now apply this. I bring you a history of the glad tidings of an exemplary Saviour written by a Jew, named John, who says, God employed him to write it; and who adds, that the Saviour was like God, and we must be like him. Am I to believe him? Yes, certainly, if I find that his book agrees with the works, and the character of God, as I have remarked it in a world, which I am sure he created: but not else.

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Let us try. Jesus fed a multitude. This is like God, who hath filled the world with mouths, and who daily fills the mouths of all with meat, and we should feed our families as he fed his. Jesus taught frugality, and bade his servants," Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost." Another character of God, who, amidst all the profusions of his bounty, hath so constituted the world, that there should be no waste, and there is none. Prophet says, The Creator "weighed" the dust, and "measured" the water, when he made the world. He calculated to a nicety, and so much fire, so much water, so much air, and so on, went to make up such a world as this. The first quantity is here still, and though man can gather and scatter, move, mix and unmix, yet he can destroy nothing, the putrefaction of one thing is a preparation for the being, and the bloom, and the beauty of another. Thus a tree gathers nourishment from its own fallen leaves, when they decay. Something "gathers up all fragments," and "nothing is lost."

Observe what passes in your own yards. The tasker in the barn takes down a floor of wheat sheaves, and threshes. The head-corn he throws and dresses, and puts up for market, The tail he screens, and fans, and

ries, or rids of its dust and rubbish, to grind for the use of the family. The chaff he carries to the horses, the straw he turns out for litter for the cattle, and manure for another crop. Mark how the small stock turn the straw over and over, beat out every grain that escaped the flail, and spread abroad all the rubbish, one class picking up the wheat, another the wild oats, a third the seeds of darnel and other weeds, and all "gathering up the fragments that nothing be lost." Hence we say, these animals live upon nothing, and there is no waste in a well-stocked farm yard. We mean, Almighty God hath created for the honour of his goodness, and for the comfort of our lives, a set of animals on purpose to put every particle to use, and to turn, as it were, the whole mass of dead matter into animal life. One of old said, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard;" we say, Go to the fowls, thou unthrift; or rather, Go to the Creator of fowls and ants, and learn that the voice that made the world spoke the text, "Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost."

We are, then, to consider frugality as an imitation of Christ, and of God. To be frugal is to resemble both. I shall not detain you long: but as frugality lies all along-side of covetousness, we must guard the path, lest we should step over the line and as we are apt to loiter even in a right road, we must try to animate ourselves. We will therefore observe what frugality is, and why we should practise it.

Let us be frugal in our dress. Clothes are for the safety, or ornament of the body. Becoming ornaments may be allowed to youth: but ornaments become none except the handsome. To all others ornaments only attract people's eyes to behold infirmity and ugliness. Adorn your persons with natural flowers, they are cheap and perfect or adorn yourselves with good, not gaudy needlework of your own. Neat work, on a ground of cleanliness, set off with the natural charms of innocence and virtue, are a character to a young woman, which all her neighbours can read. Most of us need only study the safety of our health in our dress. We should adapt this to our circumstances; we should buy them,

and wear them, and repair them without waste, and without a passion for fashion and finery. To be neat and clean, and dressed in habits fit for our employments, is the true decency of a plain countryman.

Let us be frugal in our diet. The end of taking food is the preservation of health. If food doth any thing more than keep us well, it does too much. In the long hot days of harvest, we require much nourishment, because we expend much strength: but the plenty that abounds then should not tempt us to intemperance. Enough of a plain, cheap, wholesome diet to keep us in perfect health, and equal to our work, is all that is requisite nor should we waste food or drink, for winter follows on the heels of harvest. Let us be frugal in our furniture, and not gratify a passion, excited in a market town, of filling our houses with expensive and useless lumber. There is a fitness between the house and its furniture. Strong, useful things, plain, whole and cheap, become the situation and the circumstances of inhabitants of villages.

Let us be thrifty of our money. There is a certain skill, which our forefathers used to call a knack, an art of doing things, and it is remarkably seen in many poor women's laying out the earnings of their husbands. Call it what we will, it is one of the highest qualifications of a poor man's wife, and nothing contributes more to the ease of his living than this female accomplishment. How she reckons I cannot tell but she keeps out of debt, lives in cleanliness and plenty, and can always spare half a dozen turves to warm a cold sick neighbour's cordial. She says, My husband's harvest wages clothe himself and the children, my gleaning pays the shoemaker, the orchard pays my rent, the garden does this, the flail procures that, the children's spinning wheels yield so and so; and, good heart! she crowns all by saying, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. He forgiveth all thine iniquities, and healeth all thy diseases. He redeemeth thy life from destruction, and crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies. He satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's