Since I announced the heading of this address, I have looked over the record of lectures which have been delivered here and elsewhere before the Union which I have now the honour and pleasure of addressing. I see that many matters of detail have been dealt with by those who were obviously competent to bring them before the Society. I purpose, therefore, to modify to some extent the subject of my own lecture, believing, however, that those who are kind enough to follow my line of thought will find that they have been brought face to face with several helps and hindrances in that vital matter of education, upon the successful handling of which depends the well-being alike of the nation and of the individual.

The right end and aim, then of every intelligent human being is to be a follower of God--or, as it may more rightly translated in the Revised Version, an imitator of God. "Be ye imitators of God," says the Holy Spirit, speaking by the mouth of the Apostle Paul.

When St. John had to strengthen the faith of the early Christians amid the entanglements of a fallen world, he was first taught to acquaint himself with the being and character of God. He heard a voice, as of a trumpet, bidding him ascend into the heavenly places, and gaze upon the Eternal Throne and the face of Him who was to look on like the jasper and the sardine stone. He saw the emerald rainbow, the emblem of the mercy and refreshment which has come to sinful man through Christ our Redeemer. He saw the seven lamps of fire, symbols of the sevenfold gifts of the Blessed Spirit. He saw, in vivid contrast with the troubled waters of this world, the glassy sea like unto crystal, and--above the babel of human voices--he listened to the calm, never-ending song of an adoring creation: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God--the Almighty--which was, and which is, and which is to come.

In sympathy with the beloved apostle, let us also pause awhile before we address ourselves to this difficult work of education. If we desire to become, in any true sense, imitators of God in this matter, we must first acquire the habit of meditation, By reading and marking and inwardly digesting God's Word we must learn something of God's character, in order that we may fashion our thoughts and words and deeds after the pattern which has been shewn us in the Mount.

May God the Holy Ghost, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, so manifest His presence amongst us this day that our meeting may issue in His glory and in the strengthening of His power over our minds and hearts, for Jesus Christ's sake.

There is then but one God--the living and true God--but there are three persons in this Godhead, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

God the Father is evidently set forth to us as the Model of every Christian parent, He is not merely revealed as a Father. The Word, which specially belongs to motherhood, is also applied to our heavenly parent. Of His own will, says St. James, He brought us forth (He mothered us). This Fatherhood of the first person of the Blessed Trinity is made known to us, partly by what are called natural instincts, implanted in us by our Creator; partly by the direct teaching of the written word: but more especially by the manifestation of God the Father, vouchsafed to us in the life and character of the Incarnate Word.

Let us then this afternoon consider the Fatherhood of God as the ideal for every parent.

If we desire to be imitators of God in our dealings with our children,

I. We must be reverent. A moment's thought would surely help to steady the most flippant young mother, if she could only be made to realize that, by His own election, she has become to her child the representative of God. Imagine a parent, fully conscious that he is manifesting God to the little family that sit around him at the Sunday dinner. With what a sense of awe in the realised presence of Jehovah would he put a stop to the idle talk about holy things, the careless criticism of God's ministers, which has done more perhaps than anything else to swell the ranks of infidelity, by robbing the members of a Godly family of any belief in a religion which their parents can discuss so lightly.

II. We must be true. "This is life eternal to know Thee, the only true God." Natural instinct prevents the child from doubting a parent's word; but when once it has ceased to believe in its father and mother, the foundations of Christian education are practically destroyed, because the representative of God has lied. We shudder at the poor rough woman howling after her child in some back street, "I will kill you if you don't put that thing down"--and the thing is not put down and the child is not killed. Do not angels sometimes shudder at us, when our children are in the room, and every kind of courtesy and affection is heaped upon the parents' visitor--and then the visitor departs and the pitiable round of criticism and ridicule begins, and the child is puzzled, and seems to ask, What is Truth?

III. We must be real. Our sons and daughters are very generous in the allowance which they make for our manifold defects, but there is one type of character which is so utterly contradictory to the nature of God that, I had almost said, all faith in God and man is destroyed when the sons and daughters have detected it in the man or woman who stands in their midst as the representative of heaven. What, for instance, can be the effect on a family of the unreality of the father who never neglects his place of worship on a Sunday, and comes to the front on every Christian platform, but whose son knows that, all the while, the dwellings of his work-people (his brethren in Christ) are being uncared for--who knows that, in the house of business, things, which would not bear the light, are being done on the week day? What can be the effect of the unreality of a mother who never fails to utter the accepted religious Shibboleths, but is quite prepared to sell her child to a godless husband because he is rich or to break her child's heart rather than allow her to marry the poor man who is walking in the fear of the Lord? What havoc must be wrought in a home by the unreality (my illustration is drawn from life) of the father who will quarrel with his son up to the very door of the church, and then come out at the end of the solemn service to finish with unabated temper the miserable squabble!

IV. If we would be imitators of the Eternal Father we must be just. The favouritism which condones the wrong-doing of the attractive child and is severe upon the failing of those who are dull and uninteresting. The selfishness which prompts us to be unduly indignant at faults which are specially repellent to our own temperament, or which bring public discredit upon our home training. The unfairness which is quick to note the one failure, but has no word of commendation for the many honest efforts after improvement. From these and such like snares may the Good Lord deliver us. May He enable us at all times and in all places to hear the song of the victorious host who stand by the sea of glass with the harps of God; Just are Thy ways, Thou King of Saints.

V. Remembering our high calling we must beware lest we lower the standard of that righteousness which proceeds from the throne of the unchanging God. This is, to some natures, a very real temptation. As our children get older, we recognize that a new individuality has been silently growing up in our home. Heredity, environment, and the like, have developed a being different in many respects from ourselves. As this fact is slowly forced upon our attention, our natural love of popularity makes us crave for the approval of the son just returned from college, the daughter fresh from the training of the high school. Sometimes they will propound a theory which takes for granted that the old Bible teaching need not be rigidly obeyed. They are themselves uncertain. They watch very narrowly for the reply which they may receive. Evil is it for their development of their obedience to God--evil is it for their respect to us as God's representatives, if, in order to be popular with our sons and daughters, we take a lower line than our conscience endorses--call evil good and good evil--put darkness for light and light for darkness.

VI. But this thought must be balanced by another if the due proportion of God's truth is to be maintained. In speaking to an intelligent audience I need not dwell at length upon one characteristic of God's dealings, by which our forefathers in the faith were sometimes perplexed. When we study the Bible as a whole under the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, we see clearly that among heathen people, and even in the Old Testament dispensation God did not exact that high standard of obedience which he demand in these latter days.

The times of ignorance, says St. Paul in his address at Athens, God winked at--or, as it is more exactly translated in the Revised Version, God overlooked; and the same Apostle in his Epistle to the Romans (chap. Iii., ver. 24) explains that the atonement of our Blessed Lord was necessary lest men should be deceived by the merciful way in which God had passed over transgressions, and should imagine on that account that He was not a righteous God, the High and Lofty One, whose name was Holy. Here, then, is a principle well worthy of our consideration.

When in God's infinite mercy our eyes have been opened to see the transcendent difference between things visible and invisible, when we have realized even the alphabet of the Gospel, when we have tasted something at any rate of the joy of Forgiveness through the Precious Blood--have realised something of what is involved in having been baptized into Christ, of having had the hands laid upon us at our Confirmation, of being allowed week after week to draw nigh to the Table of the Lord and to receive the ineffable gift, which His dying love provided for the strengthening and refreshing of our souls-when, in fact, we know anything of real religion, we are distressed if we see our children throwing away these blessed privileges, and given up even to the innocent amusements of a world which is passing away. We are upset if they are wearied with the long devotional exercises, which bring strength and comfort to our own souls. We cannot rest till we have persuaded them to make an open profession of devotion to our Lord, to undertake Christian work and so forth. All these feelings are natural, but if they are allowed to develop unchecked, the result with our children will be either rebellion or hypocrisy. Our sons and daughters are tender, and "if we overdrive them, the flock will die."

It is the part of Christian prudence to meditate on God's forbearance with the world in its childhood--to consider our Lord Jesus Christ in His patient dealing with the slow progress and dull understanding even of His chosen Apostles--to watch against condemning as sin anything which, even if manifest the Divine love which is not angered by a slow response to our teaching--to take a real interest in our children's pleasures and occupations--to make friends with their companions--to respect in fact their individuality--and then, tarrying the Lord's leisure, to wait quietly till, in answer to our prayers, His power is manifested in their behalf, and they learn in their own experience the expulsive power of a new affection.

It would be very interesting, if time permitted, to consider other principles of the Divine economy in connection with education.

Ho full of instruction, for instance, is the principle of delegation, which is manifested both in the Old and New Testament. How generously God associates human beings with Himself in the government of the world, handing over, as it were, His divine authority to kings and prophets and judges, to apostles and pastors and teachers.

How different would be the results of home training, if, in this respect, we became imitators of our Father in Heaven! How many a mother would deliver her daughter from the temptations of an aimless, useless life, if she were to put herself aside, and delegate to her child some of the responsibilities of the house!

Instead of being jealous of their influence over our children, how gladly should we take masters and mistresses, tutors and governesses into our confidence, regarding them as friends and fellow-workers in Christ. How to the utmost of our ability should we strengthen their hands.

But I must hurry on, and content myself, in conclusion, with three brief hints.

(a) Parents, so saith the Holy Spirit, provoke not your children, lest they be discouraged.

As I go about from place to place, how often do I hear a Christian mother speak some work by which I know her daughter will be upset. It is quickly uttered, and the mother goes on eating her breakfast, utterly unconscious of the wound which she has inflected; but it is not hard to mark the change in the girl's face--the half-vexed, half-hopeless look which that lack of understanding has provoked. How many a child has lost all its enthusiasm by some thoughtless sneer at its ideal, because it was badly expressed or perhaps somewhat exaggerated.

(b) Treat your children not as a whole on one set system, but as individuals. One child differs from another child. Without individual sympathy and individual training Christian education is impossible. God educates His children one by one. He has a different system for Abraham, and For Jacob, and for Joseph, and for David. By separate methods Christ deals with the pride of St. Peter, and the passion of St. John, and the unbelief of St. Thomas, while a stake is driven into the flesh of St. Paul, that his pride may be destroyed, that through the wounded flesh the power of God may enter into his inmost being. Even so a wise parent will individualize his methods of education. "One by one shall ye be gathered, O ye sons of Israel." Who does not remember the power of those few moments when his mother sat by his bed-side at night, and with her hand in his, spoke wise and tender words, as if there was no other child save himself upon whom all his mother's love was concentrated?

(c) Finally. When the Pharisees found fault with Christ, and declared that He could not be the Son of God because He welcomed those who were unworthy of His kindness, our

Lord turned upon them with righteous indignation. You know nothing, He seems to say (in the fifteenth of St. Luke), of the character of My Father. He does not wait for people to qualify before He bestows His mercy upon them. He loves them because it is His nature to love. He makes His sun to shine on the evil and on the good. He sends His rain on the just and on the unjust. He is prepared for the manifestation of the crafts and assaults of that spirit of evil whom, in His mysterious wisdom, He allows for the time to hinder His divine work. He has given permission to the dragon to make war with the saints, and to overcome them, and to sow tares in the ground which He Himself has prepared for the heavenly seed. So, in His eternal calm, Christ seems to say, My Father waits and forgives and loves and hopes. If the poor prodigal is driven at last by the husks of the far land to come a little way towards home, He runs to meet him, and stops his half-uttered confession with the cry of joyous welcome.

Christian parents, we can accept no lower standard than that which Christ has here enunciated. "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Give, looking for nothing in return. As God your Father has loved and forgiven and blessed you, so deal with the unsatisfactory, irresponsive, apparently hopeless child. Whatever happens, look calmly at the powers of evil by which your work with that child is being hindered. That wayward son, that disappointing daughter, is the child of God. On God, then, with humble reverence, let the responsibility of their life be cast. God has at His command eternal forces, beyond the ken of our finite understanding--an infinite reserve of forgiveness through the precious blood-shedding of Calvary--an infinite power of restoration through the indwelling Spirit. With God all things are possible. Be it yours to watch and to pray; to love, not the soul which best rewards your trouble, but the soul which most needs your love; to hope with a hope which refuses to be conquered, because it is based upon the unchanging Fatherhood of the Eternal God.

So loving and so hoping you shall, please God, either now, or in the day of His appearing, find that your labour has not been in vain in the Lord.

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