On your sins towards your _children_. Neglect-bad example-prayerlessness-cross tempers-hasty slaps. Again you must say, "Pardon mine iniquity, for it is _great_."
2. On your _sorrows_.
Poverty-sickness-death. Yet your sorrows not so many as your sins.
How have you been helped through them! Have you _profited_? Heb. xii.
10. G.o.d has been teaching you, have you learnt the lesson?
3. On your mercies.
You can count your sorrows. Try and count your mercies, they are more than can be numbered. Ps. xl. 5. How undeserved they were! You have counted your days of sickness-have you those of health? Your hours of mourning-have you those of joy? Your children taken-have you counted your children spared? &c., &c. Were you thankful? Gen. x.x.xii. 10.
II. Look forward on the opening year.
On what? Can you tell?
How uncertain, you know not what will be even on the morrow. Jam. iv.
4. Prov. xxvii. 1. Who will be taken? Whose husband? Whose child?
You know not.
Therefore, "be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye _think not_ the Son of Man cometh." Matt. xxiv. 44.
Can _you_ say, "Even so come, Lord Jesus, _come quickly_?"
x.x.x. LAST MEETING IN THE YEAR.
THE CRADLE AND THE GRAVE.
G.o.d has been speaking to us during the past year. Two mothers have gone to their long home, and ten of our children. Let us reply, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." 1 Sam. iii. 9.
G.o.d speaks to us from the cradle, and the grave.
I. From the _cradle_, and says,
1. "Take this child, and nurse it for _me_." Exod. ii. 9.
2. Pray for it-train it-love it-comfort it.
3. He speaks in a voice of _comfort_ from our cradles to our souls, if we are His people. "Mother, can you forget this sucking child? Yea, you _may_ forget, yet will not I forget you." Isa. xlix. 15.
Again-Do you comfort your babe-do you soothe its fears? do you wipe its tears? Even so, believing mother, will G.o.d comfort you. Isa. lxvi.
13. Yes, even "wipe away all tears from your eyes."
Oh! precious voice from the cradle to your soul!
II. G.o.d speaks from the _grave_-and says,
1. "Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayst be no longer steward." Luke, xvi. 2.
2. "Time is short."
1 Cor. vii. 29. 1 Pet. iv. 7.
What a little life-gone as a spark!
You may die-your children may die-or Christ may come. Do not say, "to-morrow." Jam. iv. 13.
3. "Be ye also ready."
Matt. xxiv. 44.
4. Your child shall rise again.
"I am the resurrection and the life." John, xi. 25. (See Burial Service.) Jer. x.x.xi. 16, 17.
If both parent and child are in Christ, what a blessed reunion, for He adds, "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall _never die_!"
If it should be the Lord"s will during the coming year again to take many of our little ones from their mothers" arms, and to lay them in His own bosom, may each sorrowing one amongst us be enabled to say in the spirit of true and loving submission, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; _blessed be the name of the Lord_!"