It includes both believers and their seed, and the seal of the covenant is equally applicable to them both. Baptism, therefore, which is the sign of the Christian's faith, under the new dispensation is to be applied to all believers and to their children.

We have time only briefly to speak of the nature of the relation which the children of believers sustain to the Church, together with a few practical duties which this relation involves. The children of believers sustain a real relation to the Church. This is no fiction. They have a most important interest in the promised blessings of the covenant of grace; an interest which can in no wise be neglected or trifled with, without sin and the most fearful consequences. This relation has its peculiarities. The subjects of it are not active in the original transaction. They are represented in their parental head; he acts for them. It is he that believes. To him the promises are made, and he assumes the responsibility of "commanding them after him;" of so training them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, that, in accordance with his gracious economy, he may fulfil all his promises concerning them. Their interest and their claims are through the parent, secondary and mediate; and so, too, are their responsibilities. The children of the covenant, as children, have no separate and independent rights and privileges in the Church, which they can assert for themselves. The parent only can assert them in accordance with the principles of the Gospel. They have not an independent claim upon the ordinances of the Church. The parent can claim them so far as their end can be accomplished through the children. Whatever he finds them qualified to do, or to have done for them, without violating any of the great principles of the Gospel, and in accordance with its spirit, the parent may, and is in duty bound, to have done. He may have them baptized, because, from the nature of the ordinance, its design can be realized without activity in the subjects. It is a visible token of the covenanted blessings, whether they know it and can appre ciate the fact or not. But he may not bring them to the Lord's table while they are incapable of appreciating its design (whether it be for want of intellectual or moral qualifications), because the right use of this ordinance requires activity in the subjects. "Do this as oft as ye do it in remembrance of me."

And the same principle holds true in respect to the discipline and censures of the Church; their liability is not direct and immediate, but it is mediate, through the parent. They are bound to obey him, and at his command to yield conformity in their lives to all the requirements of the Gospel; and he is bound to God and the Church, as well as in fidelity to their souls, to see to it that they do so. If the children of believers walk disorderly and are not restrained, the natural and the proper course on the part of the Church in the first instance is to call the believers themselves to account; and if need be, to discipline them until, as the responsible and imperative heads of their families, they do com

mand their children and their households after them, that they shall keep the way of the Lord. Is it asked, then, whether baptized children are the subjects of Church discipline? We answer, yes. Not, however, directly, to the neglect of the parent, by the Church in her organized capacity; but through the natural organ which God has appointed-their own parents in the Church. Is it asked, who is responsible for the orderly walk and exemplary lives of baptized children? We answer as we have done already, the children are directly responsible to their parents, and their parents to the Church. Let the Church be vigilant and faithful in watching over the conduct of the parents, and in assisting them in the discharge of their duties toward their children; and let parents feel the extent of their responsibility and privilege in this matter, and endeavor to act worthily of the high and solemn position in which the Divine Author of the covenant has placed them, and we doubt not the wisdom and benevolence of his economy in the Church, will abundantly appear in the rich fruits of Divine grace which shall manifest themselves among the seed of the faithful.

We can add but a few remarks more upon the subject of parental duty, and the duty of the Church to the seed of believers within her pale. 1st. It is the duty of every Christian parent to make himself thoroughly acquainted with his own relations and the relations of his children to the Church, and with all the duties which are involved in these relations. They occupy a solemn position. Eventful consequences depend upon them. Neglect of any known duty, or even ignorance of duty, may result in an evil which, throughout eternity, they cannot sufficiently bewail. 2d. It is the duty of all Christian parents to have their children baptized. This duty grows out of their relation to the Church. The relation is a reality, and the duty is a real and imperative one; and it cannot be neglected or treated with remissness without sin. 3d. It is the duty of Christian parents to train up their children strictly in the ways of virtue; to restrain them from all courses of immorality, and of sinful or dangerous pleasure; and to cause them to conform their lives to all the requirements of the Gospel. Do any say this is too hard a requirement-they cannot do it? We can only answer them now by saying, it is their duty. God will strictly require it of them, and will admit of no apology to justify or extenuate their failures. 4th. It is the duty of the Church, as an organized body, to supervise the whole subject of the training of baptized children; to see to it that professedly Christian parents do their duty, and to assist them, as far as is necessary, to secure their proper instruction, discipline and moral culture; and to pray earnestly for them that the promise of the covenant may be fulfilled, and that they may be saved. 5th. It is the special duty of ministers of the Gospel who have the charge of the souls both of parents and children, to watch over this great work in all its departments, and with faith and untiring zeal, to labor for its accomplishment.

Finally, It is the duty of all parents, whether professedly Christian or not, to remember that they sustain very important and so'lemn relations to their children. That their conduct toward them is destined to have a most decisive influence in the formation of their characters, and an equally decisive bearing upon their eternal destinies. God will exact of them all, faithfulness in the parental relation, and he will soon call them to an awfully solemn account for what they have done to fit their children for heaven or hell,

BY THE REV. LYMAN BEECHER, D.D.,

PRESIDENT OF LANE SEMINARY, CINCINNATI, OHIO.

GOD IN THE STORM.*

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;
These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.

For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.

They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble.

They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end.

Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.

He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.

Then are they glad because they be quiet, so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.

Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men !-PSALM CVII. 23-31.

I HAVE never before been called to speak in circumstances like these. A few days since, we stood here before God, to supplicate deliverance from a threatened speedy death. I have before supposed myself not far from the grave, but it was at home, surrounded by my family and friends, and whatever could cheer the dying hour. But never, till recently, did I realize, that probably there might be but a step between me and death; and in full health, amid the war of elements, await in suspense the stroke which at any moment might fall upon us all. But the storm is past, and we are all alive, to praise Him who heard our supplications and preserved us. And what direction of our thoughts can be more proper, than a brief review of the perils we have passed through? The evidence of the Divine interposition in answer to prayer to save us, and the returns which it becomes us to make for our signal and merciful preservation.

In respect to our dangers, I need not say to you, who passed through them, that they were great.

For thirty-six hours the wind raved and the waves rolled with a fury and power unknown, for so long a time, to the most experienced navigators on board. Travelling mountains, with the power of the Iceberg, the Avalanche, or the Niagara, for one day and two nights, as far as eye could reach, covered the surface

*This discourse or address was delivered at the meeting of the passen gers, convened on board the Great Western, Sept. 22, 1846, to offer thanksgivings to God for their preservation through the recent protracted storm.

ween the arm dour pove to the tax for in. The **** * road the wrent mat deep and dirt 17 De pare dock's one of which struck the Ciplaid on the bend vile sible to the stern of the stop, where the WOWOTE GA Dut tare y save him from an oceas grate

Avent 1 dobit, while many were seated in the ower mba a wa struck the ship. A tremendo a crash was heard cc deck, and instantly the cabin was darkened, and torrents of water cane pouring down through the scp-lights; a sprang to their feet: and a wcream of terror rang through the ship. At this time, the ship petched and rolled so fearfully, that with no little diffinity we could maintain our position upon our seats, and not a few received bruises and contusions, notwithstanding their efforts.

In these circumstances, you remember, a proposition was made, and accepted, I believe, by all who could attend, to meet in the lower cabin for prayer. It was prayer, not in words and forms merely, but the importunity of the heart; crushed by peri's from which it could not escape, and pressed by the complex interests of time and eternity; looking up to the only Power in the universe that could save. Subsequently to this meeting, in the evening, Dr. Balch concluded to administer the sacramental communion in his