parents, it can give us little satisfaction to see them possessed of perfect and healthy bodies, and sound and cultivated minds, if at the same time, we are compelled to behold them employing their varied powers and acquisitions, in the service of error, and staining all their glory in the dark waters of licentiousness and guilt. Nothing can be plainer than that in proportion as we strive to discipline, liberalize, and elevate the minds of our children, and thereby increase their ascendency and influence over other minds, in the same proportion ought we to feel solicitous that this ascendancy and influence should be directed by sound principle, and be employed for wise and salutary ends. No human being is less to be envied than that parent, who by bending all his ef-, forts to improve the intellect of his child, while he neglects to cultivate the moral sense, to subdue evil passions, and bring the whole soul under the influence of christian principle, becomes the instrument of training up and giving increased power to a viper, only that he may become a deadlier foe to all about him; and strike his fangs deeper and pierce with keener sorrows the bosom that warmed and nourished him into life.

Results of education not unlike what is here described, are so common, and yet so deplorable,

that the inquiry is naturally raised whether they are unavoidable; and if not, why do they so often occur? If any light can be thrown upon this subject, I am sure an acceptable service will be rendered to parents.

As I can offer only general remarks upon the extensive topic before us, your interests will, it is apprehended, be best consulted, by pointing out some of the more prominent causes of failure, in the great business of moral education.

The progress of the discussion may do something to decide the question above raised, whether failure be unavoidable-whether, do what we will for our children, their future course must be altogether uncertain; but it seems desirable that this important point should be settled at the outset. For this purpose, we introduce a decision from which there is no appeal. Train up a child, saith Inspiration, in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. It is admitted that the sacred writer, here establishes only a general principle, and not one absolutely without exception. But such a principle he does establish; and in doing so, virtually decides the question which has been proposed. He affirms the practicability of parents exerting over their children, such a moral influence, as shall be ef

fectual in forming their character, and in controling their subsequent course through life.

The introduction of the above passage from the records of unerring Wisdom, leads me to lay down, at the very threshold of this subject, the important principle which it embraces; trusting that in the subsequent remarks, it will be a light to our feet and a lamp to our paths.

Train up a child in the way he should go.' I fully assent to the following observations of a late able writer, in applying this passage to the subject of early moral cultivation.* "If then you would know what a right moral education is, or learn in what way to train up a child, consider in what way he should go, when he has become a man. What a man ought to be, he ought to begin to be, while he is a child. In external featuresin intellectual powers-such as memory, reason, taste, imagination, and in all our moral powers— in conscience, in the whole circle of the affections and passions, which make up our moral nature, the man is only a full grown child. Therefore, with the strictest propriety it is said, train up a child in the way he should go-accustom a child from the beginning, to think, to feel and to act, in his little sphere, as you would have him think, feel,

See the excellent Tract entitled Christian Education,' No. 194.

and act in the larger sphere of manhood-as you would have him do, indeed, forever."

Though it is not strictly proper in assigning the causes of failure in moral education, to advert to cases where the necessity of such education is denied or wholly disregarded by parents, yet considering the number of these cases, I cannot forbear a passing notice of them. It is as painful as it is surprising, that fathers and mothers should be found within the limits of christianized society, who feel themselves under no obligation to impart to their offspring, moral and religious instruction. It seems next to impossible that they should be left to doubt, for a moment, the importance of this great interest. Do they adopt the unwarranted sentiment that their children are naturally disposed to do right, that they will act according to intelligence, and that all which they need is to have their minds cultivated and their understandings illuminated by general knowledge? I know that this has been a fashionable doctrine of infidel philosophy, and seems indeed, not unsuited to the madness of that system; but it might well have been hoped that it would never have been associated with any thing which bore a fairer name. It not only contradicts the Scriptures, but all history and all sober obser

vation.

This was a favorite sentiment of the Continental Illuminati. It was extensively prevalent in France, at the period of the Revolution; and the scenes of that dark and awful day, furnish the best practical comment upon its soundness. The men who had the largest share in those scenes, were among the number that taught, that light and knowledge were elevating men to the point of perfectibility.

I am unwilling to believe that there are, at this time, many parents who, upon the ground here supposed, neglect to combine moral with literary culture. Will they then say, that direct endeavours to influence the moral course of children, are altogether unavailing, and attempt, as some have done, to sustain their position by adverting to facts? Will they say, as has often been said, that those children who have been educated the most strictly, and carefully, with respect to their religious principles and moral habits, have proved to be the worst, certainly as. bad men, as any in the community? I reply that it is not to be doubted that there have, in some instances, been positive and material defects in the system adopted in such cases, which, combining with other causes, have occasioned unhappy results: Still the position here assumed, and held up in the