this great influence over your little ones; and if any have wandered from your earlier lessons, taught from the gospel of God their Saviour, into the ways, and are now entangled in the sins and evils of a worldly life, still have you some influence left, which, discreetly exercised, may, in the mercy of God, bring back your child that is lost.

But what if your personal influence seem altogether gone? Prayer remains; the blood of Christ remains; the mercy of God remains. Be much in prayer; and reminding your heavenly Father how he graciously pities his children, the rebellious sons of men; beseech him to have pity upon the son of your love, and to bring him back to the forsaken paths. Pray more and more fervently that this prodigal, now in a far country, wasting his goods with riotous living, may come to himself, and return to his father's house.

As CHRISTIAN SISTERS, your brothers

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are much influenced by what you are, and by what you say and do. Exert that influence. A sister may oftentimes win the mere natural affection of a brother, than all the tenderness of parental anxiety and controul upon the obedience of a son. For when our youth grows toward manhood, we are prone to cast off, or to make light of parental remonstrance, when, perhaps we might turn an ear to the representations of a sister's love. Sisters herein are oftentimes brothers' confidential friends.

AS CHRISTIAN HEADS OF HOUSEHOLDS, your influence is confessedly great. The character of the family is at all times. marked by the complexion of its female head. In the exercise of this influence, you have a most responsible talent; and it must not be hid in a napkin. Be active in remembering this: in spiritual watchfulness and temporal duties, strive to realize the character of what should be the Christian mistress: "She giveth meat

to her household, and a portion to her maidens. She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness." (Prov. xxxi. 15. 26.) Then, though of all the external advantages of your sex, which only the foolish woman seeketh after, it is written, "Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain ;" yet of the truly Christian mistress of her household we read that the "woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised; her price is far above rubies." (Prov. xxxi. 10.)

But as all subjects treated of in the word of God are intended for the spiritual edification of mankind at large, so the character and duties of women there much spoken of, and there, by example, much illustrated, and enforced, are designed for universal application. The subject, therefore, will not be so confined to the specific instance of female duties, as not to be most strictly applicable to us all. We are bound together in our whole pilgrimage through this world, from the cradle to the grave, by

bonds of mutual interest, by strong obligations tying us to reciprocal duties. If husbands hear the character and duties of Christian wives, it is a subject closely connected with what they also owe to God and man, in virtue of the marriage bond. The Christian mother is a living argument of what the father is called upon, in his responsible station, to believe and do of parental obligation. The sister's influence should remind brothers of what is due, in kindred tie of natural affection and religious obligation, from them; "for all ye are brethren:" and the duties of the Christian mistress of the household should not pass on in the hearing of the other sex, without reminding them also of the allotted task and stewardship in the government and responsibilities of him who is the appointed head. Thus what is said of some may be made applicable to all; inasmuch as the doctrines of the Gospel, upon which alone it shall be grounded, belong to all, and the precepts adapted to our respective con

ditions are, in their proper character and due measure, obligatory upon all.

There is, also, this consideration arising from such a plan as that which I have proposed. It may lead some to a right view of what the female character should be in every department of life, from the very prominent station it holds in the sacred Scriptures. As a minister of Christ, not shunning "to declare unto you all the counsel of God," I would say to the female members of the congregation, In the divine word you are undoubtedly greatly disgraced: but, in the same word, you are also most highly honoured. If, in one part, it is written that "Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression, " (1 Tim. ii. 14,) and that God therefore would "greatly multiply" her "sorrow and" her "conception," (Gen. iii. 16;) yet, in the covenant of grace is she perfectly restored; and it is written, "Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in child