teaching them to avoid sin, even when it may have the sanction of
parental example. The Bible, they must remember, and not men, especially
ungodly men, should be their direction. By this law we shall all be
judged, and must stand or fall. In Jolin’s last address, he said, “Avoid
bad company, drinking spirits, vicious habits.” “I exhort young people
not to violate the Sabbath, but to frequent church, and attend to their
religious duties. Would that this tremendous example of punishment might
lead every young person who hears it to inquire into his own state, and
to remember how soon one act of sin may bring judgment upon him; and how
tremendous will be his judgment, if, after this warning, he is found
unprepared.”
This history also speaks most loudly and awfully _to parents_. “You see
in me,” Jolin said from the scaffold, “the effect of bad education and
example. From early youth I have been addicted to intemperance. My duty
to God was never pointed out to me. Those who have children committed to
their care, I beseech to send them regularly to church, and to the
Sunday-school, and teach them their duty to God and man.” Let those,
then, who are teaching Sabbath-breaking, swearing, passion, habits of
drinking and vice, to their children, by their own example, look at the
horrible instance of sin and its consequences, which this case presents—a
parent, murdered, and a son hanged! from the _effects of a father’s
example_! The case speaks for itself: and may the Holy Spirit enable us
to learn the lesson which it teaches.
May we all who read or hear this account, apply its lessons to ourselves.
Let us adore the astonishing love of God in the case of this poor outcast
sinner; His sovereign power, His boundless mercy, His all-sufficient
grace. May we seek to lay all the burden of our transgressions upon that
Sacrifice in whom Jolin trusted. May we, with him, find the Holy Spirit
making us as fit to live, as, we trust, he was fit to die: so that when
we have fought the good fight, we shall receive the crown of glory,
which, we may trust, this believing penitent has been called to wear in
the presence of Him who gave him the victory, through his own blood.
* * * * *
LONDON:
IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.
Footnotes
{45} Durell’s account.