Page:A semi-centenary discourse.djvu/39

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—whether it was in person for the want of care and attention to cleanliness—he never failed to impress upon them how necessary, in order to health and respectability, this necessary observance. If they were careless of their children, not training them properly and taking care to keep them in becoming attire, and sending them to school regularly and punctually to time, he would never leave that house until he had given a lecture upon parental duties to children; and so wherever he went he instructed the people on moral training, and preached to them the Gospel of the Son of God. "In labors there-fore he was abundant." I will take occasion here to remark that Mr. Gloucester during his life, and in the discharge of his pastoral duties over the Church, kept a day school for the education of children, and in which department of labor he took considerable delight. It was not to him the least interesting part of his duties, for he was fond of children, a peculiarity by no means discreditable to him. From it in connection with the Sabbath school a nursery was in training wherein was to be reared trees of righteousness that in God's own time were to bloom in the garden of the Lord, and be established in the mountains of his house.

What an auxiliary, also, to the Sabbath School. Many now living can attest, that through this school they were brought under the direct training of the minister. So it can be perceived, in this case, that being taught each day, they became habituated to his instructions, in his manner and mode; thus, in a large majority of cases, pupils learn to reverence and honor the teacher. By this course there is laid up in the youthful mind the buddings of future confidence and respect, that time nor influence can never completely eradicate, but will more or less exert a beneficial control over the conduct of the

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