Pg. 302

¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 14 THE SPOILED CHILD [302

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 Ghost employs, not the moral declamation, and the enticing words of the philosophy of this world; not the persuasions of ‘science falsely so called;’ these may be useful and ornamental in their place: they may be as choice pearls: but what are pearls to a hungering and thirsting soul ? what are pearls to the famished Arab in the dry and barren wilder- ness? It is the voice of God only that raises the dead: it is the precious truth of the Gospel alone which the Holy Ghost employs to convince and convert sinners; it is the bread and the water of life alone, that can bring back the fainting spirit of man, and can sustain the life of God in the soul. The words of our Lord are explicit on this point. ‘We are born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever, And this is the word which, by the Gospel, is preached unto you.’ And, under a deep sense of our responsibility, and in the faithful and diligent use of all the means and ordinances appointed of God, ‘we purify our souls in obeying the truth, through the Spirit, unto unfeigned love of the brethren,’ ‘and building up ourselves on our most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, we keep ourselves in the love of God,’ and ‘grow in grace,’ till we come unto the perfect man; to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.’

¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 1 “And, I need not tell you, my friend, how fruitless would be your labor in planting, in this beautiful orchard of yours, a tree, ‘twice dead,” which had been, long ago, ‘plucked up by the roots;’ or, how fruitless would be your utmost diligence and painstaking in plowing and sowing these fine fields of yours, if you throw in the wrong seed. He who resorts to human means, and human wisdom only, in the training of his family, and adopts the world’s cold and lifeless morality, instead of ‘the living and powerful word’ of God’s Gospel, is actually sowing tares instead of wheat, He may toil late and early; but he will, at the last, be mortified to find that the crop will be tares, and nothing but tares! This, my dear friend, is the dangerous result of erring in the matter of training.”

¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 “Ah! dear Pastor,” exclaimed Mr. C—1, “ it may be that I have erred in the skillful use of all this; but not, as I trust, in the matter itself. What you have kindly recited