paradoxes shall arrive; who can assure them, that while they are withholding the good seed, the great and ever-vigilant enemy, who assiduously seizes hold on every opportunity which we slight, and cultivates every advantage which we neglect, may not be stocking the fallow ground with tares? Nay, who, in this fluctuating scene of things, can be assured, even if this were not certainly to be the case, that to them the promised period ever shall arrive at all? Who shall ascertain to them, that their now neglected child shall certainly live to receive the delayed instruction? Who can assure them that they themselves will live to communicate it?

It is almost needless to observe, that parents who are indifferent about religion, much more those who treat it with scorn, are not likely to be anxious on this subject; it is therefore the attention of religious parents which is here chiefly called upon; and the more so, as there seems, on this point, an unaccountable negligence in many of these, whether it arise from indolence, false principles, or whatever other motive.

But independent of knowledge, it is something, nay, 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 into the world; a world in which, before they can be completely armed with arguments and reasons, they will be assailed by numbers 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 the best cause with the same natural armour which the enemies of religion wear in the worst? It is certain that to set out in life with sentiments in favour of the religion of our country is no more an error or a weakness, than to grow up with a fondness for our country itself. If the love of our country be judged a fair principle, surely a Christian who is a citizen of no mean city," may lawfully have his attachments too. If patriotism be an honest prejudice, Christianity is not a servile one. Nay, let us teach the youth to hug his prejudices, to glory in his prepossessions, rather than to acquire that versatile and accommodating citizenship of the world, by which he may be an infidel in Paris, a papist at Rome, and a mussulman at Cairo.

Let me not be supposed so to elevate politics, or so to depress religion, as to make any comparision of the value of the one with the other, when I observe, that between the true British patriot and the true Christian, there will be this common resemblance; the more deeply each of them inquires, the more will he be confirmed in his respective attachment-the one to his country, the other to his religion. I speak with reverence of the immeasurable distance; but the more the one presses on the firm arch of our constitution, and the other on that of Christianity, the stronger he will find them both. Each challenges scrutiny; each has nothing to dread but from shallow politicians and shallow philosophers: in each, intimate knowledge justifies prepossession; in each, investigation confirms attachment.

If we divide the human being into three component parts, the bodily, the intellectual, and the spiritual, is it not reasonable that a portion of care and attention be assigned to each, in some degree adequate to its importance? Should I venture to say a due portion, a portion adapted to

* Rousseau.

the real comparative value of each, would not that condemn in one word the whole system of modern education? The rational and intellectual part being avowedly more valuable than the bodily, while the spiritual and immortal part exceeds even the intellectual still more than that surpasses what is corporeal; is it acting according to the common rules of proportion; is it acting on the principles of distributive justice; is it acting with that good sense and right judgment with which the ordinary business of this world is usually transacted, to give the larger proportion of time and care to that which is worth the least? Is it fair that what relates to the body and the organs of the body, I mean those accomplishments which address themselves to the eye and the ear, should occupy almost the whole thoughts; while the intellectual part should be robbed of its due proportion, and the spiritual part should have almost no proportion at all? Is not this preparing your children for an awful disappointment in the tremendous day when they shall be stripped of that body, of those senses and organs, which have been made almost the sole objects of their attention, and shall feel themselves left in possession of nothing but that spiritual part which in education was scarcely taken into the account of their existence?

Surely it should be thought a reasonable compromise (and I am, in fact, undervaluing the object for the importance of which I plead) to suggest, that at least two thirds of that time which is now usurped by externals, should be restored to the rightful owners, the understanding and the heart; and that the acquisition of religious knowledge in early youth should at least be no less an object of sedulous attention than the cultivation of human learning or of outward embellishments. It is also not unreasonable to suggest, that we should in Christianity, as in arts, sciences, or languages, begin with the beginning, set out with the simple elements, and thus " go on unto perfection."

Why, in teaching to draw, do you begin with straight lines and curves, till by gentle steps the knowledge of outline and proportion be obtained, and your picture be completed; never losing sight, however, of the elementary lines and curves? Why, in music, do you set out with the simple notes, and pursue the acquisition through all its progress, still in every stage recurring to the notes? Why, in the science of numbers, do you invent the simplest methods of conveying just ideas of computation, still referring to the tables which involve the fundamental rules? Why, in the science of quantity, do men introduce the pupil at first to the plainest diagrams, and clear up one difficulty before they allow another to appear? Why, in teaching languages to the youth, do you sedulously infuse into his mind the rudiments of syntax? Why, in parsing, is he led to refer every word to its part of speech, to resolve every sentence into its elements, to reduce every term to its original, and from the first case of nouns, and the first tense of verbs, to explain their formations, changes, and dependences, till the principles of language become so grounded, that, by continually recurring to the rules, speaking and writing correctly are fixed into a habit? Why all this, but because you uniformly wish him to be grounded in each of his acquirements? why, but because you are persuaded that a slight, and slovenly, and superficial, and irregular way of instruction will never train him to excellence in anything.

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? or rather, is not this acting on that very principle of Dogberry *, at which you probably have often laughed? Is it not supposing that religion, like " reading and writing, comes by nature?" Shall all those accomplishments, "which perish in the using," be so assiduously, so systematically taught? Shall all those habits, which are limited to the things of this world, be so carefully formed, so persisted in, as to be interwoven with our very make, so as to become, as it were, a part of ourselves; and shall that knowledge, which is to make us "wise unto salvation" be picked up at random, cursorily, or, perhaps, not picked up at all? Shall that difficult divine science which requires "line upon line, and precept upon precept," here a little and there a little; that knowledge which parents, even under a darker dispensation, were required "to teach their children diligently, and to talk of it when they sat in their house, and when they walked by the way, and when they lay down, and when they rose up :" shall this knowledge be by Christian parents omitted or deferred, or taught slightly; or be superseded by things of comparatively little worth?

Shall the lively period of youth, the soft and impressible season when lasting habits are formed, when the seal cuts deep into the yielding wax, and the impression is more likely to be clear, and sharp, and strong, and lasting; shall this warm and favourable season be suffered to slide by, without being turned to the great purpose for which not only youth, but life, and breath, and being, were bestowed? Shall not that "faith, without which it is impossible to please God;" shall not that "holiness, without which no man can see the Lord;" shall not that knowledge, which is the foundation of faith and practice; shall not that charity, without which all knowledge is sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal," be impressed, be inculcated, be enforced, as early, as constantly, as fundamentally, with the same earnest pushing on to continual progress, with the same constant reference to first principles, as are used in the case of those arts which merely adorn human life? Shall we not seize the happy period when the memory is strong, the mind and all its powers vigorous and active, the imagination busy and all alive; the heart flexible, the temper ductile, the conscience tender, curiosity awake, fear powerful, hope eager, love ardent; shall we not seize this period for inculcating that knowledge, and impressing those principles, which are to form the character, and fix the destination for eternity?

I would now address myself to another, and a still more dilatory class, who are for procrastinating all concern about religion till they are driven to it by actual distress, and who do not think of praying till they are perishing, like the sailor who said, "he thought it was always time enough to begin to pray when the storm began." Of these I would ask, shall we, with an unaccountable deliberation, defer our anxiety about religion till the busy man and the dissipated woman are become so immersed in the cares of life, or 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 in which they

* See Shakspeare's "Much Ado about Nothing."

have already embarked; nay, to condemn almost all that they have been doing and thinking ever since they first began to act or think! Shall we, I say, begin now? or shall we suffer those instructions, to receive which requires all the concentrated powers of a strong and healthy mind, to be put off till the day of excruciating pain, till the period of debility and stupefaction? Shall we wait for that season, as if it were the most favourable for religious acquisitions, when the senses shall have been palled by excessive gratification, when the eye shall be tired with seeing, and the ear with hearing? Shall we, when the whole man is breaking up by disease or decay, expect that the dim apprehension will discern a new science, or the obtuse feelings delight themselves with a new pleasure?—a pleasure, too, not only incompatible with many of the hitherto indulged pleasures, but one which carries with it a strong intimation that those pleasures terminate in the death of the soul.

But, not to lose sight of the important analogy on which we have already dwelt so much; how preposterous would it seem to you to hear any one propose to an illiterate dying man, to set about learning even the plainest and easiest rudiments of any new art; to study the musical notes; to conjugate a verb; to learn, not the first problem in Euclid, but even the numeration table; and yet you do not think it absurd to postpone religious instruction, on principles which, if admitted at all, must terminate either in ignorance, or in your proposing too late to a dying man to begin to learn the totally unknown scheme of Christianity. You do not think it impossible that he should be brought to listen to the "voice of this charmer," when he can no longer listen to "the voice of singing men and singing women." You do not think it unreasonable that immortal beings should delay to devote their days to Heaven, till they have "no pleasure in them" themselves. You will not bring them to offer up the first-fruits of their lips, and hearts, and lives, to their Maker, because you persuade yourselves that he who has called himself a “jealous God," may, however, be contented hereafter with the wretched sacrifice of decayed appetites, and the worthless leavings of almost extinguished affections.

We can scarcely believe, even with all the melancholy procrastination we see around us, that there is any one, except he be a decided infidel, who does not consider religion as at least a good reversionary thing; as an object which ought always to occupy a little remote corner of his map of life; the study of which, though it is always to be postponed, is, however, not to be finally rejected; which, though it cannot conveniently come into his present scheme of life, it is intended somehow or other to take up before death. This awful deception, this defect in the intellectual vision, arises, partly from the bulk which the objects of time and sense acquire in our eyes by their nearness; while the invisible realities of eternity are but faintly discerned by a feeble faith, through a dim and distant medium. It arises, also, partly from a totally false idea of the nature of Christianity, from a fatal fancy that we can repent at any future period, and that, as amendment is a thing which will always be in our own power, it will be time enough to think of reforming our life, when we should think only of closing it.

But, depend upon it, that a heart long hardened, I do not mean by gross vices merely, but by a fondness for the world, by an habitual and

excessive indulgence in the pleasures of sense, will by no means be in a favourable state to admit the light of divine truth, or to receive the impressions of divine grace. God indeed sometimes shows us, by an act of his sovereignty, that this wonderful change, the conversion of a sinner's heart, may be produced without the intervention of human means, to show that the work is His. But as this is not the way in which the Almighty usually deals with his creatures, it would be nearly as preposterous for men to act on this presumption, and sin on in hopes of a miraculous conversion, as it would be to take no means for the preservation of their lives, because Jesus Christ raised Lazarus from the dead.

CHAPTER XII.

On the manner of instructing young persons in Religion.-General remarks on the
genius of Christianity.

I WOULD now, with great deference, address those respectable characters who are really concerned about the best interests of their children; those to whom Christianity is indeed an important consideration, but whose habits of life have hitherto hindered them from giving it its due degree in the scale of education.

Begin, then, with considering that religion is 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. "Will you bring to God for a sacrifice that which costs you' nothing?" Let the best part of the day, which with most people is the earliest part, be steadily and invariably dedicated to this work by your children, before they are tired with their other studies, while the intellect is clear, the spirits light, and the attention sharp and unfatigued.

Confine not your instructions to mere verbal rituals and dry systems ; but communicate them in a way which shall interest their feelings, by lively images, and by a warm practical application of what they read to their own hearts and circumstances. If you do not study the great, but too much slighted art of fixing, of commanding, of chaining the attention, you may throw away much time and labour, with little other effect than that of disgusting your pupil and wearying yourself. 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 powers 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 affections; as a dry duty, rather than a lively pleasure. The manner in which it is taught differs as much from their other learning as punishment from recreation. Children are turned over to the dull work of getting by rote as a task that which they should get from example, from animated conversation, from lively discussion, in which the pupil should learn to bear a part, instead of being merely a passive hearer.