RECOLLECTIONS OF A SERMON TO CHILDREN ON EASTER TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 1822. Exod. ii. 5, 6. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river, and her maidens walked along by the river's side: and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it; and when she had opened it, she saw the child: and behold the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children. I AM now going, according to our annual custom, to talk to children. I preach to men, but I talk to children; and I now speak to you, my dear children, about Moses, little Moses, who was drawn out of the water. I shall speak to you about his wonderful birth; his determinate choice of God when he came to years; his meekness; his prayers to God; and his faith in the promised Saviour. 1. I am to talk to you about the wonderful birth of Moses. There was a wicked king of Egypt, called Pharaoh, who commanded all the little boys to be killed as soon as they were born; but when Moses was born, and his parents saw that he was a goodly child, they kept him at home as long as they could; and when they could keep him no longer for fear of his being found out and killed, they put him into a little ark, and laid it in the flags by the river's side, where it was found by Pharaoh's daughter, who preserved the child alive. Now see, my dear children, God's providence in taking care of little children. God gave you your good and kind parents; it is God that takes care of you; God notices a little child's tears, and puts it down in his book, and tells us here that the little babe wept. It is God that has kept you from dangers and accidents, and has provided for you even to this day; and there fore should not every little boy and girl be thankful to God for his good providence and care? Should not every one thank God that he was not born a poor little negro, or a gipsy's child, as your hymn says: I was not born, as thousands are, I was not born a little slavé, I was not born without a home, My God, I thank thee who hast plann'd And plac'd me in this happy land, Where I may hear of thee? 2. I am to talk to you about Moses's determinate choice of God when he was come to years. When Moses was come to years he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. He might have had every pleasure of this world, but he deliberately chose the service of God before any thing else. Now I want you children, you who have grown up four or five or more years, I want you to choose God as Moses did, and I therefore say to you, don't seek great things, fine clothes, vain and sinful pleasures: prefer suffering rather than sinning; this was the choice of Moses, he chose rather to suffer affliction than to sin. Let not the pleasures of sin cheat your souls; let not the want of them render you sad; those pleasures end in eternal pain; don't let them deceive and ruin you. Don't mind wicked boys and girls laughing at you; two or three perhaps in a family may laugh at a pious child; but rather let all the wicked laugh, than displease God. Be you, as Moses was, determined in choosing God's service. Therefore seek of God to change your hearts and make them new; to take away the heart of stone, and make you a heart of flesh. Your hearts are naturally hard, but God by his grace can soften and make them tender, and dispose them to love and serve him in sincerity. 3. I am to speak about Moses's meekness. You know, when you are asked in your little catechism, Who was the meekest man? you answer, Moses. He was a patient man, a man that subdued his bad tempers; though brought up in a court, placed in a most honourable situation, tried with many great and grievous provocations, such as the rebellion of Korah, the making of the golden calf, the murmurings of the people, &c. he never appears to have been overcome, except in the one instance at Rephidim, for which he was sentenced not to enter into Canaan. Learn, my children, to govern your bad tempers, to obey your parents, not to fall into a passion, or become fretful or pettish when any thing happens which you don't like. Moses once forgot himself, and God punished him. God has marked his being once out of humour, his once giving way to bad tempers, that we might learn how evil and wicked a thing it is; that we might learn to mortify our inbred sin, who, as it is represented in the Infant Pilgrim, is always trying to prevail against the young Christian. Little children, if you overcome bad tempers in childhood, all will, in a measure, love you; but if you let them grow up with you, they will prevail to such a degree, that at last people will scarcely be able to live with you. 4. I am to speak of Moses's earnest prayers to God. Moses was an eminent example of prayer when Israel fought with Amalek, he was employed in prayer on their behalf; when he held up his hand, Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hands, Amalek prevailed: so that at length Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side and the other on the other side, until the going down of the sun, when the victory remained to Israel. So, when God was angry with the people on account of the golden calf, he prayed for them; and again, when forty days on the Mount at the giving of the law, he continued in prayer to God. Let me call upon you, little children, to copy Moses in prayer. Pray God to give you his grace, that you may overcome your enemies; overcome all your naughty tempers and bad passions; and that you may serve God truly all the days of your life. When you pray, always think what you are saying. Be serious, don't go in a light, or trifling, or playful frame; but wait a little while, and consider before you begin; and beside the prayer that you are taught by your kind mamma or nurse, try and make a little prayer out of your own hearts; pray against any naughty temper; pray for any sick brother or sister, any thing recollect from any books you may have read, or any thing you have heard; pray especially for the grace of God's holy Spirit to teach, assist, and strengthen you in all things. you 5. I am to speak of the faith of Moses in a promised Saviour. Moses lived fifteen hundred years before the coming of Jesus Christ; yet we are told that he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; and our Lord himself says, Had ye believed Moses ye would me. have believed me, for he wrote of He foretold Christ when he said, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me; him shall you hear. He pointed him out when he put up the serpent of brass on a pole, that whosoever had been bitten by the fiery serpents might look upon it and live. Thus Christ was crucified, that we might live; that through faith in him we might be delivered: without this every thing else would be to no purpose. Why was Jesus Christ born of a Virgin, and laid in a manger, and stretched upon the cross, the iron nails driven through his hands and his feet, and left to die in misery and torment? It was for your sins and mine. Thy naughtiness, thy wicked tempers, thy foolishness and sin, nailed the Son of God to the cross. Sin placed the crown of thorns on his temples, and caused him to bow his head and die. All we, like sheep, had gone astray; we had turned every one to his own way, and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. You must, therefore, believe in Christ, put your whole trust in the merits of Jesus, and seek for mercy for his sake. Now, children, I have gone through my sermon. You must either be all like Moses, or like Korah and Pharaoh. You are either perishing in your sins, or, like Moses, going to heaven. If you have faith in Jesus Christ, if you are living in prayer, then you will go to heaven; but if not, like Korah and Pharaoh, you are the enemies of God, bent on your own destruction. O go not on in this evil way. Go not on and perish, but go hence, and pray that God, whö has taken care of you in his providence, may enable you to determine on the choice of Moses, make you partakers of the same spirit of prayer, meekness, and faith in the Saviour, that we may all meet together in God's heavenly kingdom. MAY 1822. THE KNELL. OFT as I hear the solemn knell Was he a sinner unrenew'd? Was sin his great delight? His pleasures end in endless woe, Was he a Christian?-one who look'd His spirit stands before the throne, Lord! let me live thy people's life, Then, though my knell to-morrow toll, BB C. P. N. W. REVIEW OF BOOKS. The Life of William Hey, Esq. THOSE of our readers who are The life indeed of a medical man is not very often interesting to general readers, still less so to the religious public; nor do we recollect an instance in which an affectionate pupil of this profession has been able to render the last tribute of regard to his former instructor, in circumstances exactly similar to those in which Mr. Pearson is placed with respect to Mr. Hey. Both highly distinguished in the medical and religious world, and entertaining similar views on the most important topics, they have pursued their career of public duty and of private study with a zeal and, diligence which may well excite compunctious feelings in the minds of far younger men; while their remarkable success will naturally induce an inquiry into the means by which that success has been attained: such an inquiry, as far as relates to Mr. Hey, the volume before us is well calculated to answer, and we therefore proceed immediately to some of its important topics. William Hey, the third son of Richard and Mary Hey, of Pudsey, near Leeds, was born August 23, O. S. (Sept. 3), 1736. At the age of four years, as he was cutting a piece of string, the point of the knife penetrated his right eye and totally destroyed its power of vision. His father was much affected by the simplicity of his reply to a question respecting the sight of the injured eye: "He saw light," he said, " with one eye, and darkness with the other." When he was between seven and eight years of age, he was sent to an academy at Heath, near Wakefield, where he was par ticularly noticed by his tutor, Dr. Dodgson : indeed, his unwearied application and per severing industry merited and gained the kind attentions of all his masters. When speaking on this subject, he has been heard to say, that he was never punished but once during the seven years that he remained at school, and the occasion of that was his not divulging (when monitor) the fault of a school-fellow. At this early period he displayed a great love of learning and science, which increased with his years, and was conspicuous through every subsequent period of his life. The assiduous care of the parents of William Hey to form his moral character was eminently successful: he was never known to utter a falsehood; and such was his dutiful and affectionate regard to them, that his sister cannot recollect his having been ever accused of a single act of disobedience to his father or mother. But the instructions of these worthy persons did not terminate in teaching him a sacred regard to truth in his words, fidelity and uprightness in his conduct, and the duty of cheerful obedience to themselves: they inculcated, both by precept and example, the important obligations of religion, the fear of God, the importance and advantage of public worship and of private devotion; and so injunctions on the subject of this duty, that strongly was his mind impressed by their on no occasion would be tolerate the omis sion of it. Habits of piety, formed thus early, lost none of their beneficial influence with his advancing years: his adult age was distinguished by self-government, temperance, purity, and a conscientious regard to his several duties; and over his more mature and declining years, the power of religion shed a bright and increasing influence, which actuated and life, and conducted him through those vaadorned every subsequent period of his rious scenes of useful exertion, which procured for him a just yeneration while living, and crowned his memory with honour. To this assiduous care of the parents of Mr. Hey to form his moral character, and to inculcate right habits and views in very early years, his extraordinary eminence in subsequent life is, under the di vine blessing, especially to be attributed. His father was in the habit of warning his sons against three things specifically;-against being involved in debt; against intoxication; and against concealing their affairs from those to whom it was their duty and interest to open them. The change in the habits of society may render the second of these cautions somewhat less important now than sixty or seventy years ago; but there never can be a period when the inculcation of similar warnings can cease to be an imperious duty. With respect to young persons intended for the medical profession, indeed this early care is of indispensable import ance. That profession is one of peculiar danger and peculiar temptation, and hence it has often been accused of tending to infidelity. We are not sure that this charge is, strictly speaking, correct. We rather think that the number of real Christians bears about the same proportion to that of unbelievers in this as in other professions. At the same time it is clear, that there is much less nominal religion among medical men than among others; that the circumstances in which they are early placed preclude them from many advantages which others possess; -the rest of the Sabbath is continually intruded upon; a variety of subjects, on which "ignorance is bliss," are early forced upon their attention; they are placed at the most dangerous period of life, without the least restraint, in the midst of a crowded metropolis, among temptations of every kind, and in the society of young men from every part of the kingdom; and they have continually before their eyes those scenes of death which have a strong tendency to induce into the mind somewhat of a species of fatalism. Can we, therefore, wonder that many of them should throw off all regard to those Christian principles which are so widely at variance with their general practice; should retain just that degree of morality without which no medical man can possibly succeed, and yet cultivate that free and easy manner which may recommend them to the notice of those whose thoughtless and dissolute habits render medical aid so often necessary? Is not, then, every parent, who devotes a child to so dangerous a profession, doubly bound to impress deeply upon his mind those principles and that line of conduct which may preserve him from the fatal snare, and direct him in safety through his perilous course? as an apprentice with Mr. Dawson, surAt fourteen years of age he was placed geon and apothecary, at Leeds, and during his apprenticeship obtained the approbation and secured the permanent esteem of those with whom he resided; his moral tion to the duties of religion regular and conduct was irreproachable, and his attenexemplary. With a mind well regulated, and under the direction of principles firmly established by careful study and due reflection, he went to London in the autumn tion under the able teachers, which, at of 1757 to complete his professional educathat period, adorned their profession in the metropolis. Mr. Hey was attached to his studies; he was actuated by an ardent thirst after knowledge, and a steady determination of becoming the master of every subject to which he applied. It was a matter of duty with him to acquire a thorough knowledge of the profession he was to exercise, as far as that might be attainable, and he writes thus to his parents after his arrival in London:-" I would spare no pains to qualify myself for that state of life to which the providence of God has called me, and then trust him with the success of my endeavours." His assiduity, during this period, was exemplary, since he seldom emlecture and dissecting rooms, during the ployed less than twelve hours, daily, in the whole winter. While Mr. Hey was pursuing his endeavours with indefatigable industry, he was never influenced by his avidity of information, nor the less rational allurements presented by the metropolis, to deviate from his sense of the duty he owed to the Supreme Being, nor to violate the moral obligations of Chris tianity. The gentle persuasions, or the scoffs and ridicule of his fellow-students, were equally resisted by his unbending mind. He was kind, friendly, and obliging, in every thing that had utility for its |