absolute and without limitation, that God should be a God to him entirely, and without reserve? and that he should be his, absolutely, and be disposed of by him, at his pleasure? Otherwise, there was a repugnancy and contradiction in the very terms of your covenant. Is not God, the name of a being incapable of limitation?--And when he makes his demand from us of what we, on our part, are to be and do; he demands our all, absolutely; that we surrender ourselves and ours, whatsoever we are and have, to his pleasure and dispose, without other exception or restriction, than by his promise, he hath laid upon himself."

I felt most deeply the importance of the charge which Providence had devolved upon me. Not utterly a stranger to the state of human nature, to the waywardness of the heart, to the dangers which beset every part of the path of life; I trembled, lest, through a defect in his education, through any impropriety in our example, or through some foreign influence, he might become an injury to the world, a dishonor to his God;—and looking

upon him, I uttered the language of another father, similarly circumstanced:

"Now thou art listed in the war of life, "The prize immense, and O! severe the strife! "Thou embryo-angel, or thou infant fiend, "A being now begun, but ne'er to end, "What boding fears a father's heart torment, "Trembling and anxious for the grand event, "Lest thy young soul, so late by Heaven bestowed,

"Forget her father, and forget her God! "Lest, while imprison'd in this house of clay, "To tyrant lusts she fall an helpless prey! "And lest, descending still from bad to worse, “Her immortality should prove her curse!

"Maker of souls! avert so dire a doom, "Or snatch her back to native nothing's gloom!"-DAVIS.

These apprehensions of possible evil did not destroy the pleasure which our lovely boy produced. We called to remembrance the promises of God to the faithful; the assistances

which he had afforded many of our friends in training up their families; and the happy success which had crowned labors as humble as our own. They gave, however, a tone of deep and anxious feeling to our hearts, awakened within us the spirit of prayer, and roused us to the exercise of our judgments respecting the pleasing but solemn duties assigned us. On many particular occasions, did both his mother and myself jointly make these the special subjects of our petitions. Nor had we, in after life, neither have I to this moment, reason to doubt, that He, "who heareth prayer," approved and answered ours. can be ignorant that the direct and immediate influence produced by exercises of this kind on the mind is great and most salutary: they bind us, in common consistency, to act as we pray. Philosophy, which, on such subjects, only skims the surface, may maintain, that this is the sole effect; but that word, on which I have long rested my hopes, and which now affords, not merely my richest, but my only consolation, assures us, that, however immutable the plans of the "only wise God" may be,

Few

our prayers, when sincere and fervent, avail much in heaven.

Besides the abundant consolation which flowed to us from the word of truth, I found my burden most materially alleviated by a knowledge of the sound sense, cultivated understanding, affectionate heart and christian principle of his beloved mother; who possessed, in a high degree, almost every mental and moral excellency, for which her son was afterwards so distinguished. I knew, from the experience of three years, that she was deficient in no single qualification of a “help meet" for me in the education of our common charge.

He passed through his earliest years, with no more than the ordinary share of infantile diseases; which sometimes alarmed us for a season, but never produced any lasting fears. We enjoyed him greatly; nor did either our tempers or our principles permit us to refuse the comfort with which Providence had sup plied us in the health and sprightliness of our

child: we were not disposed to dash the cup of happiness with the bitterly tormenting inquiry, How could we endure to lose him?' This disposition accompanied us through life: and, except in cases of real or apparent danger, neither his mother nor myself ever endured, on this ground, a moment's anxiety. She, in adverting to it, has often said, "The probability is, that he will survive us both; and why should we torment ourselves with the voluntary apprehension of an evil which may never arrive? God may take him from us; "sufficient for the day will be the evil thereof;" and sufficient, unquestionably, will be our strength from above to bear it but why should we not enjoy him while he lives, instead of embittering the present by the agonies of anticipation? It will be enough”—(Alas! I find it so!)—" it will be enough to endure his actual death, without enduring the dread of meeting the evil at every turn of his passage through life." Thus have been secured to me nineteen entire years of parental blissa larger share, I fear, than falls to the lot of