Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 2.djvu/416

206 by nourishing up and multiplying sons and daughters of our common mother, far more than by the adoption of children not her own into the family of, that His kingdom has been enlarged; and secondarily, by the contact of Christian nations, the leaven working in them has spread beyond their bounds. The means are evidently prepared for rendering colonization a far more effective means than ever before of extending in either way kingdom: but before we think of so extending it, the leaven must have worked thoroughly through our own mass; and for this, and that we may not rather be the source of a moral infection, we must train up our children in their baptismal privileges, in the full confidence that the "promise, which  has made. He for His part will most surely keep and perform." Much of the responsibility rests with us, the clergy. It is ours to press upon the parents in our several congregations to educate their children as Christians. It is ours to tell them what Christian education is; to remind them of the promise of Him who cannot lie, and the might of His arm, which is not shortened. It is ours to tell them, in detail, the errors of prevailing practice, and what on our authority they will believe, the early capacity of every child to understand its faults to be sins, to repent of them, to pray for might to conquer them, to conquer them in that might, and to be thankful. It is ours, more especially, to habituate ourselves to look upon every child,—not only as what it may be, weak, ignorant, foolish, but also as what it is in privilege and in anticipation,—a co-heir with, as a member of Him. So will that "great reverence," which even a heathen saw to be due to a child, be, oh! how increased! and by uniformly treating the lambs of our flock as already Christians, bestowing proportionate labour and pains upon them, never treating them but as the temples of the, we shall inspire into their parents a portion of the awe, which we feel for those whose "angels behold our face." So shall our daily prayer be at the last accomplished—"Thy kingdom come!" The Christian minister would then have less occasion to address apostatizing Christians, and his office might nearly be confined to