whom God has said, “I will be their God.” They may claim, too, as they ought to receive, a special solicitude on the part of ministers, officers and members of the church, in their instruction, and in the tender interest which those of the same body should feel in each other.  They are to be watched over, sought out and cared for in private and in public; to be borne with in their weakness and reclaimed in their wanderings.  They are “Lambs” of the flock, dear to the good Shepherd, and to be loved and labored for, therefore, for his sake.  Though they become openly wicked it is not beyond the province of the church to rebuke them for their sins, warn them of their danger, and by all the moral means in her power to seek for their reformation.  And these considerations are fraught with benefit.  It was the lament of one of old, a lament that may be taken up by numbers in our day—­“No man careth for my soul.”  But the church does care for the souls of her baptized children.  She recognizes them as within her pale, provides in her standards for their nurture, and though not faultless in her treatment of them, she does seek their improvement, through the influence of her ministers, and by urging upon parents their responsibility.—­There is in these facts, moreover, a tendency to draw them to the church, to bring them within hearing of the Gospel and within the scope of its ordinances.  They will be attracted to the sanctuary of their fathers and attached to the faith and worship of those among whom they have been solemnly dedicated to God.  How often in after years do we in fact see them coming themselves and esteeming it a privilege to bring their own children to receive, as they have received, the seal of the covenant!—­The baptized are, further, candidates for all the immunities of Christ’s house.  They may come to the Lord’s table as soon as they have attained to the requisite knowledge and piety.  It is a distinguished honor, and exalted privilege, to be a guest at Christ’s table, to partake of that feast which is a type of the marriage supper of the Lamb, and to this they are invited whenever they are ready publicly to avow their faith and love as his professed disciples.  They are for the present excluded, as children in their minority are forbidden to exercise the rights of citizens; or rather in virtue of their power to discipline, as well as instruct, the officers of the church may exclude them, like other unworthy members, from the communion.  But it is the aim and desire of the church that they may speedily acquire the knowledge, faith and godliness that shall qualify them for this delightful service.—­Now, all this is happy in its tendency and beneficial in its effects.  It is a high honor to sustain a covenant relation to God, and to be favored with the peculiar regard of his people.  It is a privilege to stand in a different relation to the church of Christ from that of a mere heathen, and to share in the kind offices and be objects of the prayers of