what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints." Yea and in his language in the same Epistle, the third chapter and fourteenth verse, I too would "bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man ; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." And again I would pray for you, as the same Apostle does for the Philippians, the first chapter and the ninth verse, "that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; that ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere, and without offence till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God.”

It has been a great satisfaction and encouragement to me to see that these addresses have been attended by so many of the congregation. It gives me hope that many of you are interested in the spiritual welfare of these lambs of our flock. I ask you, (the parents and sponsors especially, from whom indeed I may well demand it,) that you will help me to prepare them for a right and profitable observance of this ceremony, by

your additional instructions and admonitions to those of them for whom you are more particularly concerned. Above all, and what I can ask of all, for this is what all may do, I intreat your prayers for me and for them, that I may be enabled so to teach, and that they may so effectually learn, these early principles of our holy religion, and the meaning of this ceremony of our national church, as that they may go to it with minds well instructed and with hearts rightly disposed, and thus become partakers of the great spiritual benefit which it is intended to convey to them. Oh! pray for them that the Holy Spirit of God may himself be their teacher, that so being all taught of God they may fully understand and faithfully receive all things that relate to their everlasting salvation.

ADDRESS IV.

On proper Behaviour before, at, and after, the Ceremony.

My dear young people, I have great reason to be satisfied with the attendance which you have given upon these my endeavours to prepare you for the very interesting ceremony, in which you will now have soon to engage. I trust that you may have derived some profit from them, and that you have gained some information on the origin of Confirmation, on the meaning and obligations of those promises which you are now about to make for yourselves, and also on the nature and great importance of that spiritual blessing, which you may expect in your right observance of it. If you have given that attention to the three preceding addresses which you appear to have done, you will be sufficiently informed on each of these particulars, and I now proceed, in this my last address to you, to endeavour to point out how you ought to employ your thoughts in the remaining time previous to your presenting yourselves before the Bishop, what your behaviour ought to be when you are engaged in the ceremony, and finally how you should conduct yourselves after you have thus ratified and confirmed the engagements of your baptism.

With respect then to the manner in which you ought to employ your thoughts on what you are going so soon to do, I advise you to make a very serious examination of yourselves as to your views and desires and sincerity in thus presenting yourselves for Confirmation; whether you think that you sufficiently understand the nature of the ceremony; whether you are really willing to renounce the devil, and all vanity wickedness and sin; whether you truly believe all the principal doctrines of the gospel; and whether you feel an earnest desire in your soul and a full purpose, by divine help, to keep all God's commandments, and to walk in them all the days of your life. On every one of those three things make a faithful and minute enquiry of your own heart, whether with all simplicity and godly sincerity you can make those professions and promises, and whether it is indeed your desire purpose and determination faithfully to observe them. I further advise you to examine in what particulars you have already broken the promises which you made in your baptism, and to humble yourselves before God, confessing and repenting of all your sins. Oh! think that you have thus brought guilt upon your souls, and that you greatly need the pardoning mercy of God, and the atoning sacrifice of the blessed Jesus for its removal.

I also recommend that you should carefully read over, again and again, the office of Baptism, the Catechism, and the order for Confirmation, as you find them in your Prayer-book. These are all connected with each other; they are specially intended for the young; they

have all been drawn up for your instruction and benefit; and the careful study of them cannot but inform you respecting your duty, and strengthen all your good resolutions to perform it. Read also frequently that useful little tract on Confirmation which I have put into your hands. It contains an excellent form of selfexamination on all the subjects, into which you ought now to be particularly enquiring, with a form also of confession of sin, and many other things well adapted both to inform and affect you rightly.*

Most earnestly do I also call on you to be much in prayer between this time and the day of Confirmation. Oh! my children, we can none of us learn any thing that is good, or do any thing that is good, but by the teaching and help of God's Holy Spirit. Therefore, as you examine yourselves, pray in the language of David in the close of the hundred and thirty ninth Psalm, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." You should pray that God may shew to you any wickedness that is in you, that you may put it away from you altogether. As you read the things to which I have directed you, you may pray in the words of the Collect for the first Sunday after the Epiphany, beseeching God to grant that you may both perceive and know what things you ought to do, and also may have grace

* A Method of Preparation for Confirmation, by the Rev. W. H. Hale, M. A.-No. 81 on the list of the Society of Promoting Christian Knowledge.