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fit the character for manly duties at an age when under another system such duties would be impracticable; that there is not imposed on you too heavy a burden, but that you are capable of bearing without injury what to others might be a burden; and therefore to diminish your duties and lessen your responsibility, would be no kindness but a degradation; it would be an affront to you, and to the school,-for it would either be saying that you had been incapable of benefiting from the training of a public school system, or that that training, in our particular case, had degenerated; a confession, either way, which God forbid that we should ever be obliged to make, as none could be more disgraceful.

I would say, however, a few words to another class of persons among you, to those whose station in the school is high, but yet does not invest them with actual authority, while their age is often such as to give them really an influence equal to that of those above them, or it may be superior. I will not say that these exercise an influence for evil, for such a charge can only apply to particular persons; none exercise a direct influence for evil without being in some way evil themselves; but I am sure that, as a class, they have much to answer for in standing aloof, and not discouraging evil and encouraging good. They forget that if they have not authority, they have what really

amounts to the same thing; they know that they are looked up to,—that what they say and do has its effect on others; they know, in short, that they are of some consequence and weight in the school. But being so, they cannot escape the responsibility of their position. It matters nothing that the rules of the school confer on them no direct power. One far above any school authority has given them a power, and will call them to a strict account for its exercise. We may lay no official responsibility upon you, but God does. He has given you a talent which it is your sin to waste, or to lay by unimproved. And as it is most certain that you have an influence and power, and you well know it; so remember that where there is power, there is ever a duty attached to it ;—if you can influence others,-as beyond all doubt you can, and do influence them daily,—if you do not influence them against evil and for good, you are wasting the talent entrusted to you, and sinning against God.

Again, I will speak to those who are yet younger, whose age and station in the school confer on them, it may be, no general influence. But see whether you too have not your influence, and whether you also do not sin often by neglecting it or misusing it. By whom is it that new boys are for the most part corrupted? Not certainly by those much above them in the school, but necessarily by their own immediate companions. By

whom are they laughed at for their conscientiousness, or reviled and annoyed for their knowledge or their diligence? Not certainly by those at or

near the head of the

school, but by those of their

own age and form. To whose annoyance does many a new boy owe the wretchedness of his life here? To whose influence and example has he owed the corruption of his practice, and of his principles, his ruin here and for ever? Is it not to those nearly of his own age, with whom he is most led to associate? And can boys say that they have no influence, when they influence so notoriously the comfort and character of their neighbours? At this moment particularly, when so many new boys are just come amongst us, the younger or middle-aged boys have an especial influence, and let them beware who they use it. I know not what greater sin can be committed, than the so talking, and so acting, to a new boy, as to make him ashamed of any thing good, or not ashamed of any thing evil. It matters very little what is the age of a boy who exercises an influence like this. He too has anticipated the power of more advanced years, and in like manner he has contracted their guilt, and is liable to their punishment.

And now one word for those who are newly come among us, and who form at this moment no very minute portion of our society. If they have brought here good principles and a good practice,

let them beware how they suffer them to be lost. They are numerous enough not to be swallowed up at once, as it were, in the society which they have joined; there is some influence which they ought to communicate as well as one which they must receive. The evil which they find may be the most noisy and forward part of our society; let them be satisfied that it does not represent us wholly. Let them be sure that there is much good also amongst us, which would gladly league itself to theirs. Let them not lightly surrender their consciences to a few of the vilest amongst us, as if these few spoke the sentiments and acted the practice of us all.

I must pause-but how much remains to be said, if we would follow up on the one hand the process of profanation by which God's temple is made a den of thieves,-or its worthy use, when Christ teaches daily in it, and His teaching is loved and followed. Surely the contrast between such a depth and such a height would not be uninstructive, to see what we may be for good or for evil, and then to see what we are, and this may perhaps form a subject to which I may call your attention again.

RUGBY CHAPEL,

Aug. 23, 1840.

SERMON VI.

CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS.

ST. LUKE, xix. 45, 46, 47.

And He went into the Temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought; saying unto them, My house is the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves. And He taught daily in the Temple.

THE subject which I began last Sunday, appeared to me to be far from exhausted by what I then said. I spoke then of the influence which might be exercised by those of almost every age amongst us. I said how much that influence might do one way or the other towards making this our temple truly a house of prayer, or towards profaning it into a den of thieves. But it seemed that we might well go farther than this, and endeavour to represent to ourselves rather more distinctly what this profanation would be on the one hand, and what would be our fit sanctification on the other hand; that every one who is at all in earnest may

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