leave that way wherein he should
go, in which his parents trained him long, long since. He may feel
that his parents are near him in the spirit, though absent in the
flesh. Yes, though they may have passed altogether out of this
world, they may be to him present and near at hand; and he may be
kept from doing many a wrong thing and encouraged to do many a right
one, by the ennobling thought, My father would have had it so, my
mother would have had it so, had they been here on earth. And
though in this world he may never see them again, he may look
forward steadily and longingly to the day when, this life's battle
over, he shall meet again in heaven those who gave him life on
earth.

My friends, if this be the education which is natural and necessary
from our earthly parents, made in God's image, appointed by God's
eternal laws for each of us, why should it not be the education
which God himself has appointed for mankind? All which is truly
human (not sinful or fallen) is an image and pattern of something
Divine. May not therefore the training which we find, by the very
facts of nature, fit and necessary for our children, be the same as
God's training, by which he fashioneth the hearts of the children of
men? Therefore we can believe the Bible when it tells us that so it
is. That God began the education of man by appearing to him
directly, keeping him, as it were, close to his hand, and teaching
him by direct and open revelation. That as time went on, God left
men more and more to themselves outwardly: but only that he might
raise their minds to higher notions of religion--that he might make
them live by faith, and not merely by sight; and obey him of their
own hearty free will, and not merely from fear or wonder. And
therefore, in these days, when miraculous appearances have, as far
as we know, entirely ceased, yet God is not changed. He is still as
near as ever to men; still caring for them, still teaching them; and
his very stopping of all miracles, so far from being a sign of God's
anger or neglect, is a part of his gracious plan for the training of
his Church.

For consider--Man was first put upon this earth, with all things
round him new and strange to him; seeing himself weak and unarmed
before the wild beasts of the forest, not even sheltered from the
cold, as they are; and yet feeling in himself a power of mind, a
cunning, a courage, which made him the lord of all the beasts by
virtue of his MIND