se
about them, but dwelt upon the Son of God as the Redeemer of Abraham's
seed, and in whom all the promises of God, including those made to
Abraham, are yea, and in him amen.

I said to my friends, "The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are about to
write their several and joint names on this child's forehead.

"As a lamb has the owner's mark upon his side, this child is to be
claimed by them, to be brought up for the service and glory of its
redeeming God.

"You are to give him away, to be disposed of by the Most High. You are
to be, for Him, what the mother of Moses was for Pharaoh's
daughter--nurses to your own child. This dear child lay helpless and
exposed, with all of us, to destruction; the Redeemer passed that way;
he heard its cries: he had compassion upon it; he saved it from the
condemning sentence of divine justice; and now he calls you, and says,
'Take this child, and bring it up for me, and I will give thee thy
wages.' He does not commit the child to church, nor pastor, nor
Sabbath-school, but to its own father and mother, who may and will avail
themselves of all the appointed and the useful helps for its nurture and
admonition in the Lord; but he looks to you, as having the chief and
principal responsibility, to bring up this child for God.

"You covenant to lay your plans for this child, so that he may, by the
surest means, live for God. To this end you will pray with him and for
him; teach him what was done for him in baptism, and before, and
afterwards; how God was beforehand with him, and was found of him who
sought him not. He is to be trained up as a Christian child, with a view
to his early conversion, and your great concern is not to be, how he may
promote his private happiness, or yours, but how he may best serve God.

"To this end, you will, from the first, watch over all his moral
faculties, and instil into him the principles of truth and uprightness;
not letting him run loose among the vanities of the world, and feed
upon its miserable, corrupted sentiments, and choose worldly and godless
persons for his intimate associates, his manners and his habits being
like a garden which runs to weeds, and his whole nature left to the
perils of sin, trusting to some sudden act of conversion to bring him
right; but you will rather be diligent to 'fill the water-pots with
water,' and wait for Christ to turn it into wine. You intend, and you
promise, that you will educate this child from the beginning with