be completely understood by the pupil, we should soon be overwhelmed by a race of barbarians; and the next generation would find themselves thousands of years behind their progenitors.

But, in fact, the principles of our religion are some of the most simple and intelligible, which can be proposed to the human mind. Is there any thing so peculiar, so transcendently incomprehensible in the obligations of your children to their Creator, that these cannot be explained and illustrated by their obligations to yourselves? Must they be able to conceive distinctly of what is meant by spirit, by omnipresence, by eternity, before they can learn to fear and love their Father who is in heaven? What if they do cherish some gross and corporeal notions of God, they are only a little less imperfect than our own. Or must they be able to comprehend the nature of evidence, nicely to balance probabilities, and decide on the relative value of testimony, and the miracles of Christ, before you will venture to tell them of his death and resurrection, or hold up to their opening imaginations the solemnities of a judgment, and a retribution to come?

3. A third mistake on this subject is, that, to furnish children early with religious ideas, is to infuse into them prejudices; as if a creature, introduced, as man is, into the world, helpless, unfurnished, dependent, and inexperienced, could live, or act, or think, a single day, without the aid of some kind of prejudices. This mistake, indeed, would be hardly worth rectifying, had it not been, sometimes, advanced as a serious objection against every kind of religious instruction. Prejudice is an unexamined opinion. Now the slightest observation discovers, that such is the condition of man, and such the progressive nature of his powers, from their feebleness in infancy to their maturity in manhood, that it is a law of his condition, which omnipotence only can

abrogate, that, during the years of childhood, he should depend on authority, and lean on the understandings of others. His opinions, during this period, in distinction from his knowledge, can be nothing, and ought to be nothing, but prepossessions. And do you think, that, by withholding from him instruction on subjects of religion, you secure him, for any season, from the slavery of prejudice? Believe me, by this very neglect, you infuse into his susceptible mind one of the most baneful and captivating of prejudices; for you tempt him unavoidably to this dangerous conclusion, that religious opinions are unworthy his concern, or make no part of his interests, and are unnecessary, or unimportant to society. Be sides, do you think, that no prejudices will grow up and deform his fruitful mind, of which you have not dropped the seeds? Think you, the opinions, he will entertain on these subjects-opinions, which he will gather from his first intercourse with societywill possess less of the nature of prejudices, than those, which might have been instilled by parental affection, and enforced by parental authority? I fear, you will be disappointed.

But on what other subject, which concerns the formation of the minds of children, do you make so absurd a mistake? Wherein do you forbear to tincture their tender minds with your own opinions? It is not politics. We early hear them lisping out your antipathies, and repeating on this subject, as they grow older, your oracular decisions. It is not literature. The earliest care is taken to form their rising taste on established principles, and to lead them to the perception of beauties, which have been sanctioned by the concurrent praise of successive generations. These are prejudices, which you think you cannot too early, or too plentifully pour into their empty minds. And are the elements of the religion of Christ less fixed, than the principles of taste, less

certain, than the doctrines of party? Why must these alone be picked up by chance, or be left to be gathered by your children, at an age, when all their habits shall be formed, all their prejudices rooted, and parental recommendation have lost its supreme authority? The same motives, which induce you to inform your child of the being of a God, and of his universal presence-truths, which you will call, perhaps, the uncorrupted dictates of natural religionshould also induce you to instruct him in the facts, the nature, and the precepts of christianity; for, let me assure you, that the difficulties and doubts, which respect the simple being and providence of a God, are much greater, and more numerous, than the difficulties, which belong to revelation, after the exist ence of a God is once granted. In the undistinguishing mind of a child, these truths are all equally prejudices; and they are noble ones too. They are prejudices, for which all nature cries aloud through all her works; prejudices, which past experience, from ten thousand tongues, calls upon you to inculcate. You will not, indeed, enforce doubtful, or merely speculative opinions; but you cannot do wrong in instructing your children in those principles, which have an immediate influence on their conduct. It is true, that, through your want of caution, they may find hereafter, that much, which they received from you, must be relinquished as doubtful; and you should remember, with solemnity, that this discovery will give a shock to their whole system of belief, proportioned to the importance of your mistakes. But it is better, that they should encounter even this hazard, than that they should rush, unprincipled, upon the world, in all the presumptuous poverty of skepticism.

4. Another most unfortunate errour upon this subject is this, that your children will certainly acquire at school, and by the public institutions of the gos

pel, an adequate sentiment and knowledge of religious truths, without the necessity of your interference. It is not necessary, you think, to waste your own time in giving supplementary lessons; for, on this subject, as on every part of education, the progress of the child is provided for in the customary way. This mistake, if indeed it can be called one, baffles all exposure. For, if any thing in life deserves to be considered as at once the exquisite bliss, and preeminent duty of a parent, it is this: to watch the dawning disposition and capacity of a favourite child; to discover the earliest buds of thought; to feed with useful truths the inquisitiveness of a young and curious mind; to direct the eyes, yet unsullied with the waters of contrition, to a bounteous benefactor; to lift the little hands, yet unstained with vice, in prayer to their Father who is in heaven. But so it is. The child, as soon as it is released from the bondage of the nurse, and needs no longer a careful eye to look after its steps and guard it from external injury, is too often surrendered to instructers, some of whom are employed to polish the surface of the character, and regulate the motions of the limbs, others, to furnish the memory, and accomplish the imagination, while religion gets admission as she can, sometimes in aid of authority, and sometimes as a Saturday's task, or a Sunday's peculiarity, but how rarely as a sentiment. Their little hearts are made to flutter with vanity, encouraged to pant with emulation, persuaded to contract with parsimony, allowed to glow with revenge, or reduced to absolute numbness by worldliness and cares, before they have ever felt a sentiment of devotion, or beat with a pulsation of sorrow for an offence, or gratitude for a benefit, in the presence of God. Believe me, parents, you have no right to expect, that the sense of religion will be infused by the labours of others. It is peculiarly the business-I should say, the pleasure of the parent.

So natural is the transition, from filial duty and filial affection, to those sentiments, which ought to be cherished toward the Father of mercies, that any teacher, whether in the pulpit or the school, who is not aided by parental co-operation, must despair of exciting sentiments of piety, or of impressing principles of religion in the youthful mind. But if, beside supplying your deficiencies, he must, also, counteract your example, he will not, indeed, lose his reward hereafter, but he will look in vain for any present success. Abjure, then, I beseech you, the delusions, that your children are learning all that is necessary of christianity, without any encouragement or instruction from yourselves. When parents have ceased to be teachers, religion has ceased to be taught.

III. Though I have by no means exhausted this second branch of my subject, the time compels me to add something on the third and last division: that is, the most proper topics and modes of religious in

struction.

1. You will, at once, perceive, that you should never begin with what is most difficult. It is not of so much importance, what particular manual of instruction you adopt, as that it should contain those facts and doctrines, which have the most direct influence on conduct, and are expressed in the most perspicuous language. It is of primary importance, that you make your children feel their perpetual dependence upon God, and acknowledge his continual omnipresence, in the darkness and in the light, through the night and through the day, at home and abroad, in solitude and in the presence of numbers, marking every action they perform, understanding all their petty concealments, comprehending all their subtile equivocations, overhearing all their profane or untrue expressions. They can easily understand, that there is one being whom they cannot deceive.