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ness, to war against sin, the world, and the devil, "and to bring them into subjection;" whereas the latter were destitute of a real and living belief in the true God, and in the message of mercy which He had sent by his Son Jesus Christ, and, consequently, without the fruit of works good and acceptable in the sight of God, which can no more exist where there is no faith, than a tree can live without its root: on the other hand, the former had beholden the glory of God manifested in the person of Jesus Christ, and had believed and embraced the promises made by Him; and the result was, that they were to be persons who lived no more to themselves but to Christ, who died for them walking in the way of his commandments, and studying to serve and please Him in true holiness and righteousness all the days of their lives. And as a necessary consequence, the former would be contra-distinguished from the latter in the clearest and most decided manner; accordingly, we read of them that they were to be the "light of the "world," showing forth the excellency of the Gospel not only with their lips but in their lives; again, they were to be as "a city set upon a hill," conspicuous in character, and attracting towards themselves, by their conduct and demeanour, the attention, and, to a certain extent, the respect of mankind. In a word, they were to be distinguished from the rest of the world by this, that they did from their hearts

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renounce the devil 1," &c.; or,

to express the same

thing in two Scriptural words, they were to have Faith and Repentance.

And that the members of the Christian Church should really be thus distinguished, is the proper end and aim of every system of Christian education that is worthy of the name. The object then of a system of Church education ought to be, to impress these great guiding principles on the mind and on the heart of every member of the Church as early and as deeply as possible, so that they may serve as a nucleus around which his future acquisitions of religious knowledge may, as it were, crystallize in a gradual and orderly manner, and as a standard to which his conduct may be referred, and by which the conscience may be enabled to pronounce a correct, rapid, and, as it were, instinctive judgment on thought, word, and action. It is not easy," says Francis, in his discourse on errors in education, "to estimate the in'fluence even of what may seem to be an incon

siderable effort, when directed to such an object as "education. It has been said that a stone thrown "into the sea agitates more or less every drop in

that vast expanse of waters. So it may be with "the influence we exert on the minds and hearts of "the young. Who can tell what may be the effect

1 See Church Catechism.

"

of a single principle deeply fixed, a single pure and "virtuous association strongly riveted, a single happy "turn effectually given to the thoughts and affections. "It may spread a salutary and sacred influence over the whole life, and through the whole mass of the "character of the child."

Now mark how admirably these principles are applied by our Church. Whenever an infant is admitted into that Church by baptism, he is required to promise by his sureties that he will do those things which, as we have already reminded you, the member of a Church of Christ ought to do, to believe what a member of Christ's Church ought to believe, for he promises that he will" renounce ...all the days "of his life." And in order that the child may, if possible, be prevented from growing up in utter ignorance of the solemn obligation under which he is placed (not so much by the Baptismal vow as by the commands and revelations of God, of which, as we have just seen, the Baptismal vow is the echo and the counterpart), the promise is made not by the father and mother of the child, who are already fully bound to attend his religious education, but by persons called godfathers and godmothers, who voluntarily promise these things on the child's behalf, and by so doing bind themselves, as they are solemnly admonished by the Baptizing Minister, to "take care

that the child is taught, so soon as it shall be able

"to learn, what a solemn vow, promise, and profes"sion it has made by them." We know that this important duty is too often wholly neglected by the godparent, and it has in consequence been overhastily concluded that this provision of our Church, however excellent in theory, is in practice a complete failure; but before we adopt this conclusion, we ought to inquire whether the plan has been carried out according to the directions of the Church, and we shall find that one important injunction has been notoriously disregarded, I mean that contained in the Twenty-ninth Canon, in which it is expressly ordered, that "no person shall be admitted godfather or god"mother to any child at Christening or Confirmation "before the said person so undertaking hath received

the Holy Communion ;" and when the Church requires that the godparent should be a communicant, it is no part of her intention that he should profane that Holy Sacrament in order to qualify himself for his office; but her object is to provide, that the persons who fill it should be persons who having been baptized, and having undergone all that careful preparatory discipline and instruction which was intended to be given, and at the time of the Reformation actually was given, to every member of the Church before he was allowed to come to the Holy Communion, may be reasonably expected to partake of that Sacrament worthily, and to have a strict regard

to any engagement into which he may have entered, and especially one so sacred and so important as that of a godparent. Depend upon it, if these injunctions had been faithfully carried out, the office of a sponsor would never have become that solemn mockery which it now too often is; nor would the children of nominally Christian parents have been suffered to grow up to manhood in utter ignorance of the terms of the covenant into which they have entered, of the privileges to which they have been admitted, or the duties they have been pledged to perform.

But however conscientious a godparent may be, and however desirous to discharge faithfully the duties of his office, he may lack the ability to impress and engrave on the mind of the godchild the importance of his Baptismal privileges, and the high standard of duty to which he has been called; and therefore the Church puts into his hands her Catechism, which is nothing more than a short exposition of the Baptismal vow, and a statement of the means of grace to which the baptized person must have recourse, in order that he may be enabled to fulfil his Covenant engagements. The excellence of the catechetical method of instruction is thus admirably shown by Dean Comber :-" Catechizing is one of the most necessary of all Christian duties: Hegesippus tells us that, by this way of