is only as we tread on the pit-fall that we meditate a retreat. Nay, even then, such is the Satanic pride and obstinacy of man, that it is deemed better to rush desperately forward than confess an error or solicit help. Hence the suicide-hence the termination of the traitor Judas! Repentant, but not religiously repentant —ashamed of having betrayed the blood of innocence, but destitute of faith, hopeless of the future, wrung with the scorpion agony of guilt —the miserable wretch "departed and went and hanged himself."

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:

His

It was Peter's happier lot to have possessed faith and even love while he denied and repentance with him was not only the consciousness and bitterness of crime, but it was the hope and the resolve to work out his own salvation." tears were not the unproductive issue of temporary grief-they were not the passionate effusion of despair. They were bitter, but they were true. His guilt stood before him, open and confessed his heart knew and acknowledged what his tongue disowned. He felt that he had yet a remedy-yet a means of reparation within his power; and he turned to the Lord his God with all his heart and with all his soul. For this reason, therefore, our Lord's first message, after His resurrection, was directed to him, "Go your way, and tell Peter-tell Peter that he is G 3

forgiven that his genuine contrition has removed his offence, and that I again acknowledge him as my Apostle." And while the disciples fished in the sea of Tiberias, and Jesus, newly risen from the dead, stood upon the shore, Peter demonstrated not only his contrition, but also his belief of its acceptance. For he, more ardent than the rest, paused but to gird around him his fisher's coat, and then leaped into the sea, two hundred cubits from the land. 66 Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" inquired our Lord; and it is singular that the demand was repeated as many times as Peter had denied Him. Grieved that He said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? he answered, "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee."

From hence, then, we deduce that man's infirmities require the most incessant vigilance, and that no one ought to deem himself secure ; that the possibility of our own fate should make us charitable toward the transgressions of our neighbour; that repentance ever produces pardon, but that it must ever be pure and active -ever demonstrated by its fruits. To be sorry for our faults and to persist in them-much too frequently the case-is precisely to defy the Grace of God-to deny our Saviour. It is to catch His reproachful look-to be ashamed like Judas, but not like Peter to " weep bitterly."

In short, my brethren, as the best means of avoiding that necessary but bitter repentance, let each look narrowly into himself. Let him be more ready to examine his own secret faults than the manifest errors of another-let him arraign himself-let him judge himself—and, especially, while he thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.

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SERMON X.

THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN.

“And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it."-EXOD. ii. 9.

THE very interesting story from which this passage has been selected most manifestly evidences the overruling Providence of God. The Despot of Egypt had strictly "charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive." A Hebrew woman has a son, and seeing that he was a goodly child-or to speak more correctly, seeing that he was her own son, the son of her bosom-with the affection natural to a mother, she contrived how she might secure him from the barbarous edict of the savage King. The quickness of female invention-the ingenuity of maternal solicitude did not here desert her. With a cunning, which in a less noble cause might have been liable to censure, she did indeed "cast him into the river." She did, indeed, comply with the inhuman mandate of Pharaoh, for she laid him amid the flags

at the river's edge. It is true, she first constructed "an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch," so as to exclude the moisture; but she nevertheless observed the letter, if she avoided the spirit of the law. The equivocation saved her child, and no doubt satisfied her conscience; and he in truth must be the Draco of morality, who would pass an austere judgment upon such a deviation from the line of moral right. Yet it is a dangerous path for human delinquency to adventure. Another motive-a less positive virtue-but a slight advance further toward the side of human frailty, would have enforced us to pronounce it guilt. So minute-so extremely subtle is the boundary between vice and virtue! Never is there more need of caution than when we are the most secure of being right-never have we more reason to be apprehensive, than when we entertain no doubt that we may be going wrong!

The Hebrew woman, not content with having thus far satisfied the law, next proceeds to attempt the entire fulfilment of her fondest wishes. She watches the moment when the daughter of Pharaoh, who, in those primitive times, was wont to "wash herself at the river," walked with her maidens along the bank. The princess, it may be presumed, had a character for tenderness and goodness of heart. Her aversion to her father's harsh proceedings must have been well ascer