have minded what he said; you were not carried there to show your fine clothes.

Child. Why, father, I thought so; for when it rained, and I could not wear my best clothes, my mother would not let me go out; or when the wind blowed the powder out of my hair, my mother would not let me go. And I heard you say, father, last Sunday, that you could not go to church, because the barber had not brought your new perriwig home: and another Sunday, for want of a pair of gloves, you stayed at home, and played with me all Sunday long, or lay down on the couch to sleep. I thought father, I had gone thither for nothing but to show my fine clothes.

Fath. No, child, there is other work to be done there.

Child. What, father, to remember what fine clothes other folks have on, is not that it? I know my sisters go to church, and they do nothing but look about them, to see how every body is dressed; and when they come home, my mother and they, you know, father, take up the whole night in telling one another what every body had on: and they do it so well, I wondered, father, and I thought I'd try if I could do so too: but I could not remember half of it.

Fath. They might have been better employed, my dear. Child. What, my mother? Indeed, father, I thought it had been all they went for; and I could not think any thing else, you know, when my mother did so too. I am sure my mother would not have done so, if it had not been good: for 'tis my dear mother, and I love her dearly; and I am sure she would not do a naughty thing.

[O see here the mischief of evil examples in parents.] Fath. Well, child, thou wilt know better in time. The business of going to church is quite of another nature. It is to hear the word of God expounded and preached; and it is hearing for thy life. It is a duty in the ministers to preach they were first sent by our Saviour himself, who appointed apostles and prophets for the work of the ministry, and gave them their errand in his command, "Go,

preach the gospel to every creature:" and it is a duty to us to hear, and to hear diligently, and not to forsake assembling ourselves together.

Child. Why, father, you seldom go yourself. It is only for little boys to learn then, is it?

Fath. No, child, it is every one's duty to hear the word preached, and to mix it with faith in the hearing.

Child. Then you will let me go to church: won't you, father? for sometimes my mother won't let me go to church, if it be but a little ill weather, and if a little wind does but blow: and if God requires me to go, and my mother won't let me, what must I do? Won't God be angry with me for not going to hear his word preached?

Fath. If your mother won't let you go, then, child, it is none of your fault.

Child. But will not God be angry with my mother, dear father, for not letting me go? that's all one.

Fath. Well, child, be not troubled at that: thou shalt go to church every day, and not be hindered. Come, my dear, thou wilt catch cold to be so long out; let us go home to your mother.

The father, as may be well imagined, warmed with the various thoughts that occurred to him upon this surprising discourse, was willing to get the child away, that he might give vent to his own mind: and bringing the child in, walks out again, till he was got to retirement, and then breaks out in a most passionate manner upon himself, giving full vent to convictions in such a manner as this:

"What an ungrateful creature have I been to the goodness and bounty of God! that goodness and bounty which have given me so much advantage, and so many ways to glorify him and honour him in the world, and to whom I owe my life, my being, and well-being in the world! And how has God reproved me in this little dear creature!

Wretch that I am! how I have lived as without God in the world, and in my family! that I have not so much as told my children who made them, or let them know or

guess, by my behaviour, that there is such a thing as a God in the world, or that any worship is due to a sovereign Almighty Being! How has the little lamb complained to me, that he has never heard me pray to God in all his life! and it is but too true! How did it reproach me when I spoke to it of Jesus Christ, to hear the little creature say, 'Who is that, father?' and of the Holy Ghost, Who is that, father?' and of serving God, Do you serve him, father?"

"What a life have I led! Good Lord, what have I been doing! How shall I account to thee for the souls committed to my charge! that I should have the blessing of children given to me, and my children have the curse of a prayerless uninstructing father to them!"

Tears followed the parent's speech; and he prays earnestly to God to forgive him the neglect and omission of his duty to his children and family; and enters into a secret engagement between God and his own soul, and that for the future he will set up the due and daily worship of God in his family, and will diligently and carefully instruct his children, teaching them the knowledge of God, and how to serve him, and walk in his ways.

After some composure of mind upon this resolution, a new trouble breaks in upon him. He had elder children than this; and he had lived in a continual neglect of his duty, either in teaching them the knowledge of God, or showing them a religious example. These children had contracted a profane habit, both in words, manners, and constant practice: had little inclination to religion; less knowledge, and no thoughts at all about their souls; and began to be too old and too big to be wrought upon by instruction, or persuasion, much less by violence and correction.

When this reflection came upon the parent's thoughts, after the convictions he had met with from the little inquirer aforesaid, it brought a second flood of tears from him, and he breaks out thus:

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Lord, what will become of my poor wretched family;

my other children, my uninstructed, unreproved children! What an instrument have I been in the ruin of their souls! How does it all lie upon me as a weight never to be removed! They are grown up, yet they know nothing of God but to take his name in vain! They neither call upon him, nor have I taught them to do so! If this poor lamb reproaches me with having never prayed with it, or for it: and too true it is, God knows! what these may say to me, that have let them go on thus far in a loose, profane, ignorant, irreligious life, and have neither reproved nor instructed them either by word or example, prayed with them, or taught them to pray for themselves? Merciful God! why have I not been removed, and in mercy to them, as well as in judgment to myself, been snatched from them, that some other person might have been set over them for the good of their souls?"

Upon these convictions the man prays earnestly to the Lord to pardon the heinous offence of his neglecting his duty to his children; that God would supply, by the teaching of his blessed Spirit, that great want of family instruction in his children, which he had been the cause of: that he would work convictions upon them, and would continue to stir him up to his duty in the future, directing, teaching, and governing his family.

But what a hard task he has with his other children, and how difficult a work it is to bring children to a sense of God and religion, after their green and tender years are past, in which they are moulded like wax to a seal, to receive such first impressions as the persuasion and example of parents are apt to make, will be apparent in the following dialogues.

Notes on the First Dialogue.

The observing reader will see here, that the author, to keep a just equality between all opinions, and in order to make this work generally useful and acceptable to all de

nominations of Christians, and to all among them who seriously apply themselves to the great business of their eternal salvation, has kept himself in the answers to this little child's inquiry, to the plain general principles of the Christian religion: wherein he has neither prescribed himself, in method or in words, to the catechisms of either the church of England, the Assembly's catechism, or any other; but laid down the principles of religion consonant to them all, as plainly as he could, as they are deduced from the holy scriptures: and as they agree with the several confessions of faith, and doctrinal articles, as well of the church of England, as of all the Protestant churches and congregations in Europe, who profess the same faith, believe the same God, and hope for eternal life through faith in the same for ever blessed Intercessor and Redeemer.

If any particular Christian's opinions may carry them further, or not so far as the author has expressed himself here in the doctrines of original sin, election, of grace, repentance, and faith in Christ: he prays, that while they can allow what is laid down here to be orthodox in the substance, they will extend the same charity to his design as he does to their opinion, viz. to leave room for further explanations, to judge the best, and to consider, that as this part is spoken to a child, and is for children to read for their instruction, it requires to be plain and concise, and so be it, that it be essentially right: the more adapted it is to the meanest understandings, the better it answers the design of this undertaking.

sooner.

Some may think, the child here is brought in too often falling upon the father with a charge of not instructing him, and not praying with him, and not telling him these things But to such it may be sufficient to say, that as this is one of the great designs of this work, and is not spoken so directly to in any other part, it required to be more than ordinarily pointed out here: especially, because that upon these little reprehensions of this infant, are grounded the several most considerable parts of the dialogues which