le, and gentle thought or feeling which ever crosses his
little heart, does not come from himself, is not part of his own
nature or character, but is nothing less than the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit, nothing less than the voice of Almighty God Himself,
speaking to the child's heart, that he may answer with Samuel--
'Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth?' Is it likely to make a
child careless about losing eternal life, to tell him that God has
already given to him eternal life, and that that life is in His Son
Jesus Christ, to whom the child belongs, body, soul, and spirit?

Judge for yourselves, my friends. Think what awe, what reverence,
purity, dread of sin, would grow up in a child who was really taught
all this, and yet what faith and love to God, what freedom, and
joyfulness, and good courage about his own duty and calling in life.

And then look at the fruits which in general follow a religious
education, as it is miscalled; and take warning. For if you really
train up your children in the way in which they should go, be sure
that when they are old they will not depart from it--a promise which
is not fulfilled to most religious education which we see around us
now-a-days; from which sad fact, if Scripture be inspired and
infallible, we can only judge that such is not the way in which the
children should go; and that because it is a wrong way, therefore
God will not, and man cannot, keep them in it.

SERMON IV. NAMES

Matthew i. 21. And thou shall call his name Jesus.

Did it ever seem to you a curious thing that the Catechism begins by
asking the child its name? 'What is your name?' 'Who gave you this
name?' I think that if you were not all of you accustomed to the
Church Catechism from your childhood, that would seem a strange way
of beginning to teach a child about religion.

But the more I consider, the more sure I am that it is the right way
to begin teaching a child what the Catechism wishes to teach.

Do not fancy that it begins by asking the child's name just because
it must begin somehow, and then go on to religion afterwards. Do
not fancy that it merely supposes that the clergyman does not know
the child's name, and must ask it; for this Catechism is intended to
be taught by parents to their children, and masters to their
apprentices and servants; by people, therefore, who know the child's
name perfectly well already, and yet they are to begin by asking the
child his name.