other respects, they act up to their own principles ? Do they inculcate on their children no elements of knowledge, no motives of action, no rules of conduct? They will express surprise at the absurdity of the question. They will tell us, and they will tell us truly (and they might extend their observation with equal justice to religion), that to train up children without. knowledge, without maxims of moral behaviour, lest their opinions on those subjects should be biassed, would be as unphilosophical as it would be to prohibit them from walking, that when arrived at years of discretion they might decide, uninfluenced by the prejudices of habit, whether they would travel on two legs or on four. The usual defect of judgment in the manner of impressing the principles of Christianity appears to me to consist in two circumstances: 1st, they are commonly inculcated in the form of a dry authoritative lecture, whence religion is rather dreaded as an austere monitor and relentless judge, than loved as the giver of present and future happiness, 2dly, They are presented to the understanding rather as truths to be implicitly received on the credit of the teacher, and on the ground of their established prevalence, than as truths resting on the solid basis of fact and judgment, and inviting at all times the closest investigation of their certainty of which the mind is capable. I am aware that, during a certain period of childhood, it is true no less in the case of religion, than of other branches of instruction, that the truths and propriety of many things must be received by the pupil on the credit of the instructor, because the mind is not then competent to judge of the proofs by which they are established. Yet even during that period it seems to me generally desirable, and particularly on the subject of religion, that the pupil should be apprized both of this necessity and the cause of it; and should be taught to expect that ample information will be afforded as soon as he shall become fully capable of understanding it. As the intellectual faculties expand, the more obvious proofs of revealed religion ought to be gradually developed. And in the concluding years of education, the prescribed studies unquestionably ought to comprehend the leading evidences of Christianity arranged with simplicity, but in regular order, conveyed in familiar, but not uninteresting language, comprised within a moderate compass, and divested of learned references and critical disquisitions. The practice of requiring children to employ French prayer-books and bibles, ought to be universally abolished. Its effect is to withdraw the mind from every sense of devotion, and to make the acquisition of a few foreign words and phrases rank higher than the heartfelt performance of public worship.-Gisborne. While we are instilling religious principles into the tender mind, it is undoubtedly our duty to take peculiar care that those principles be sound and just; that the religion we teach be the religion of the Bible, and not the invention of human error or superstition; that the principles we infuse into others be such as we ourselves have well scrutinized, and not the result of our credulity or bigotry; nor the mere hereditary unexamined prejudices of our undiscerning childhood. It may also be granted, that it is the duty of every parent to inform his child that when his faculties have so unfolded themselves, as to enable him to examine for himself those principles which the parent is now instilling, it will be his duty to examine them. But after making these concessions, I would most seriously insist, that there are certain leading and fundamental truths; that there are certain sentiments on the side of Christianity, as well as of virtue and benevolence, in favour of which every child ought to be prepossessed; and may it not be added, that to expect to keep the mind void of all prepossession, even upon any subject, appears to be altogether a vain and unpracticable attempt; an attempt, the very suggestion of which argues much ignorance of human nature. Let philosophers say what they will, it is much to give youth prepossessions in favour of religion, to secure their prejudices on its side before you turn them adrift in the world; a world in which, before they can be completely armed with arguments and reasons, they will be assailed by a number whose prepossessions and prejudices, far more than their arguments and reasons, attach them to the other side. Why should not the Christian youth furnish himself in a good cause with the same natural armour which the enemies of religion wear in a bad one? It is unreasonable to suggest that we should in Christianity, as in the arts and sciences, or languages, begin with the beginning, set out with the simple elements, and thus go on unto perfection. Do young persons then become musicians, and painters, and linguists, and mathematicians, by early study and regular labour; and shall they become Christians by accident? Shall this most important knowledge be by Christian parents deferred, or taught slightly, or be superseded by things of little comparative worth? Or shall we, with an unaccountable deliberation, defer an anxiety about religion till the busy man or dissipated woman are become so immersed in the cares of life, and so entangled in its pleasures, that they will have little heart or spirit to embrace a new principle? A principle whose precise object it will be to condemn that very life into which they will have already embarked, nay to condemn almost all that they have been doing and thinking ever since they first began to act and think. Begin then with considering that religion is a part, and the most prominent part in your system of instruction. Do not communicate its principles in a random desultory way; nor scantily stint this business to only such scraps and remnants of time as may be casually picked up from the gleanings of other acquirements. Confine not your instructions to mere verbal rituals and dry systems, but instruct them in the way that shall interest their feelings, by lively images and by a warm practical application of what they read to their own hearts and circumstances. There seems to be no good reason, that while every other thing is to be made amusing, religion alone must be dry and uninviting. Do not fancy that a thing is good merely because it is dull. Why should not the most entertaining power of the human mind be supremely consecrated to that subject which is most worthy of their full exercise? The misfortune is, that religious learning is too often rather considered as an act of the memory than of the heart and feelings, and that children are turned over to the dry work of getting by rote as a task, that which they should get from example and animated conversation, or from lively discussion in which the pupil should learn to bear a part. Teach them rather, as our Blessed Saviour taught, by seizing on surrounding objects, by calling in all creation, animate and inanimate, to your aid, and accustom your young audience to "Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, In your communications with young people take care to convince them that, as religion is not a business to be laid aside with the lesson, so neither is it a single branch of duty; some detached thing which, like the acquisition of an art or a language, is to be practised separately, and to have its distinct periods and modes of operation. But let them understand, that common acts, by the spirit in which they are to be performed, are to be made acts of religion, and that as she who has true personal grace has it uniformly, and is not sometimes awkward and sometimes graceful, so religion is not an occasional act, but an indwelling principle, an inwrought habit, a pervading and informing spirit, from which indeed every act derives its life, and energy, and beauty. An intelligent mother will seize the first occasion which the child's opening understanding shall allow, for making a little course of lectures on the Lord's prayer, taking every division or short sentence separately, for each furnishes valuable materials for a dis |