scheme which makes nothing of baptism and the organic unity of the house; that looks upon the children as being heathens or aliens, requiring, of course, to be converted. But, according to the scheme here presented, they are not heathens or aliens, but they are in and of the household of faith, and their growing up is to be in the same. Parents, therefore, in the religious teaching of their children, are not to have it as a point of fidelity to press them into some crisis of high experience, called conversion. Their teaching is to be that which feeds a growth, not that which stirs a revolution. It is to be nurture, presuming on grace already and always given, and, for just that reason, jealously careful to raise no thought of some high climax to be passed.-P. 381. On p. 372 he says: As little are young children to be taught that they are of course unregenerated. This, with many, is even a fixed point of orthodoxy, and of course they have no doubt of it. They put their children on the precise footing of heathens, and take it for granted that they are to be converted in the same manner. But they ought not to be in the same condition as heathens. Now it seems to us that very little room is left here for depravity, and it is putting a very fine edge on conversion if it be taught at all. Yet the developments of depravity, and the beginning of the Christian life in an infant soul, may be quite imperceptible. We have found that all the advocates of this theory of Christian nurture mingle the shadings of nature and grace very delicately at this point. The case of a conversion in adult years is thus narrated: A young man happens accidentally one Sunday, while his friends are gone to ride, to take down a book on the evidences of Christianity. His eye floating over one of the pages, becomes fixed, and he is surprised to find his feelings flowing out strangely into its holy truths. He is conscious of no struggle of hostility, but a new joy dawns in his being. Henceforth, to the end of a long and useful life, he is a Christian man.-P. 19. Now this is changing masters, passing from death unto life, being born again, and made a new creature in Christ Jesus very quietly indeed. This easy, almost imperceptible transition from nature to grace presented by our author is one of the principal points upon which we hesitate. The book is divided into two parts: I. The doctrine, with its definition and the arguments sustaining it. Christian nurture, is nurturing infant Christians. It is not a process to make Christians by seeking to bring about a change, but taking the subjects as we find them, simply training and developing them into Christians. The arguments in favor of the doctrine are drawn from "the organic unity of the family," which is a strong and beautiful one, and from the ordinance of "infant baptism," and the right of "children to Church membership." The importance of the doctrine to the Christian Church is presented in a chapter on "the outpopulating power of the Christian stock." Of this doctrine and the arguments sustaining it we must say they are beautiful, beneficial, reasonable, traditional, and not anti-scriptural. The author is very severe on the present mode of religious training, by which children are brought up for conversion in converting times. It is characterized as very much like raising sheep for the shambles. There is a remarkable coincidence between the author's views as to the duties of the Church toward baptized children and the chapter on the same subject in the Discipline of the M. E. Church. One might readily suppose that they were the product of the same mind. Part II contains eight chapters, on the MODE of Christian nurture: 1. When it begins. 2. Parental qualifications. 3. Physical nurture. 4. That which discourages children. 5. Family government. 6. Plays and pastimes, holidays and Sundays. 7. Christian teaching of children. 8. Family prayers. The author thinks that "the age of impressions" is the most important of a child's life, and the period when the parent can do most for it. On this subject he says: I have no scales to measure quantities of effect in this matter of early training, but I may be allowed to express my solemn conviction that more, as a general fact, is done, or lost by neglect of doing, on a child's immortality in the first three years of his life, than in all his years of discipline afterward. The age of impressions, he thinks, covers three or four times this number of years. Let every Christian father and mother understand, when their child is threes months old, that they have done more than half of all they will ever do for his character.-P. 248. No Christian parent can read this portion of the book without having his views of responsibility to his children quickened, if not greatly enlarged, and the humbling conviction of past delinquency. pressed heavily upon him. Notices of the following works, lately received, will appear inour next number. Bancroft's History of the United States. Vols. 7 and 8, from Little & Brown. Carthage and her Remains. By DAVIS. Harper & Brothers. Recreations of a Country Parson. Second Series. Ticknor & Fields. The new edition of Dr. HICKOK's Rational Psychology. Phinney. Ivison & The gulf stream.. 887 Influence of marine currents on climate.. 885 Coins, Medals, etc., by Prime... 848 468 Cotton State Confederacy, Future of a. Page 467 | Fast-Day Sermons. 469 470 Page 852 166 254 679 127 Origin and career of the French. 198 182 The Druids... 188 Introduction of Christianity. 184 Monasticism 185 478 Ultimate conflict between the two races. 480 Social and moral decay of the Roman 137 Invasion of the Huns. 138 481 Councils, Migne's Complete Collection of Frankland's Intuitionalism... 674 the. 678 Frederic William IV. and the Church. 677 Culdees, the. 628 Early planting of Christianity in the Brit- Church discipline for.. 506 628 |