conscious insignificence before his Creator, and, at the same time, exalts Him who is the "Majesty of heaven and earth."

(7.) Hope.-As an intelligent inspiration, of intellect, heart, and will, in activity connected with the sense of duty, hope, the expectation of success, becomes an element of high moral value and power.

It is congenial with the conscious happiness of being which naturally belongs to the joyous associations of early childhood, and, indeed, of young life in all its various stages. It inspires and sustains the aspirations of boyhood and youth, and invigorates the exertions of manhood. It is a silent tribute from the heart of man to Divine benignity; and when elevated and hallowed by faith, it rejoices in the anticipation of a future life of perfect felicity. Its rank, and its efficacy as a moral influence, constitute it one of the highest powers by which man's moral nature is actuated.

7. THE BENIGNANT AFFECTIONS, as elements of moral life and power.—(1.) Love.-By the great pervading attribute of sensibility, inherent in his constitution, man learns to feel his condition before he knows it, and to sympathize with his fellow-beings before he is сараble of understanding them. The law of Sympathy, written on his whole nature, as a primary element of his being, which ultimately developed into every form of social and benevolent feeling, brings him, unconsciously, at first, under the dominion of the paramount law of Love, which attracts him toward his fellow-beings by a genial and kindly influence which he delights to feel, and which, as his conscious intelligence gradually unfolds itself, he learns to understand as mutual and reciprocal. This mysterious power ties the heart of the infant to that of the mother, and that of the mother to the infant with an affection stronger than life. In the little community of home, it links the souls of brothers and sisters in fraternal union of affection. It is the sacred law of parental and filial duty, and moves the whole moral machinery of human life in its hallowed and blessed sphere of privacy.

There virtue has its purest forms and dearest aspects, its genuine, spontaneous amenities; and though unknown beyond its own quiet sphere, has its own unseen record of generous self-sacrifice, and of fortitude more than heroic. Among the noblest motive powers of moral action, the affections of home are those to which the enlightened educator will ever assign the highest place, as regards the capabilities of the human heart for living development.

(2.) Gratitude. This peculiar benignant reäction of love, in view of favor or kindness experienced, mingles largely with the exercise of filial and fraternal affection, and enters into every emotion called forth by the consciousness of benefit conferred, in whatever degree-from

the ordinary acts of human kindness and courtesy, to those greater expressions of benevolence, which bestow safety or comfort and happiness, in valuable and lasting forms of beneficent action. This generous emotion is not always accompanied with the satisfaction of being able to remunerate a benefactor by any adequate return. The service or the favor which calls it forth, is sometimes greater than language or action, or any form of external expression, can equal. It may be sometimes so great as to prompt the devotion of a whole life to the friend or benefactor toward whom it is directed. Such is true filial attachment. Such is man's position toward his Creator.

The promptings of this generous emotion lead, sometimes, to the noblest manifestations of true sensibility and self-renouncing devotion. Some of the brightest passages on the page of history are those which record the heroic actions to which this feeling has given birth.

In the relations of education, its influence on the ingenuous mind and heart of youth, forms one of the most sacred attachments of human life. A grateful feeling of returning love for the guardian mental care which, in our early years, watched over, and served to form and mould within us, the ideal image of excellence at which we were taught to aspire, the filial reverence which the heart, in such circumstances, so gladly pays as a tribute to wisdom and worth, insure the inspiration of the noblest aims in all subsequent life, to the heart which is conscious of them.

8. THE GENEROUS AFFECTIONS, as Moral Powers.-(1.) Friendship. The cordialities of disinterested friendship, and the mutual good offices of human kindness and reciprocal obligation are but expansions of fraternal feeling from the primary sphere of home; and their efficacy in promoting human well-being, on a broad scale, render them powerful instruments of good, as well as rich elements of moral life in the heart.

(2.) Patriotism.-On a yet wider field, patriotic attachment and principle, as they cherish the generous spirit of self-devotion, give ample scope for the cultivation of the virtues which adorn and dignify human life. The noblest pages of history are those which exhibit the magnanimity of genuine patriotism. As a feeling of the heart, or a principle of duty, this sentiment possesses peculiar power in inspiring man to noble deeds; and as a spring of development to personal character, it must ever rank high among the moral capabilities of

man.

(3.) Philanthropy.-The expansive feeling which embraces the whole human family in the wide open arms of brotherhood, is a virtue yet more disinterested, and more true to God and man, than even the truest and the warmest patriotism. It is eminently the Christian's

virtue, so far as he is true to the teachings and example of Him who came to proclaim "good will to men," and charged his followers with a message of love to "the whole world." The history of genuine Christianity is chiefly the record of those who went forth on this errand, "with their life in their hand," and who were ever cheerfully ready to deposit it in pledge of their devotion to the well-being of "Barbarian, Scythian, bond, or free."

Among the powers which characterize man as a moral being capable of culture, and of advancement in the scale of excellence, no trait of disposition gives larger promise than this; and on noue does humanizing culture produce larger effects.

(4.) Humanity toward Animal Nature. As the offspring of Divine love, the human spirit, though its lustre has been dimmed by the breath of sin, yet retains something of the characteristic benignity of its Source; and the range of its benevolent sympathy is not limited to the circle of its fellow beings, but flows forth, if not unnaturally diverted from its channel, to the wider sphere of universal being. In its relation even to the humbler races of the creation, which have been subjected to its dominion, by the appointed gradations in the scale of life, it manifests itself capable of a beneficence for which the designation of "humanity" has been suggestively chosen.

The universal law of Love, if obeyed, expands and elevates the soul of man to that moral comprehensiveness of being which ranks him "but little lower than the angels ;" and while he is thus permitted to see "all earthly things put under his feet," his crown of royalty is indeed one of "glory and honor," because it invests him with the conscious responsibility of an intelligent and moral sovereign. This true majesty of man is the source at once of his just self-respect, and of some of his noblest regal attributes and virtues, to cherish and confirm which is among the special offices of appropriate human cul

ture.

9. RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLE, as a Moral Power.-(1.) Reverence.The feeling of which the young mind is conscious, as one of the dawning intimations of the development of its own reflective powers, when contemplating the dignity, the authority, the wisdom, and the benignity of the parental character on which it consciously depends for being and happiness-is although not yet fully or distinctly developed to its own consciousness, one of the profoundest emotions of which it is susceptible; and to the unperverted heart it is one of the strongest cords of sacred obligation by which it is bound to all filial duty.

The emotion thus experienced is naturally transferred, by the mind's law of association to all forms of venerable human worth and dignity. It is called forth by the wisdom of age, by nobility of charac

ter in exalted station, and, in degree, by all authority justly exercised. It marks alike, in such circumstances, the deportment of ingenuous youth and of true manliness. Its indications in the intercourse of life are the assurance of that susceptibility by which judicious cultivation, and the inspiration of a genuine faith, are enabled to lift the human soul in reverence to the Father of spirits, and to create a sacred regard for all that Divine truth reveals as duty. Its value as an element in moral cultivation, is beyond expression, great, as regards its influence, whether in securing the respect and obedience due to parents and teachers, to seniority in years, and to eminence in attainments, or in conferring on education itself, its true character as a sacred relation in the business and duties of life, and as a connecting link in the chain which gives unity to man's being in its extension to a higher sphere of mental and spiritual existence.

(2.) Faith. Another element of the highest power in moral relations is the Faith which believes and trusts, and thus unites man to his fellow man, and man to the Author of his being. A great writer has denominated this principle as that "which holds the moral elements of the world together." Without it, man is an isolated, helpless, hopeless outcast, wandering on the shores of being without aim and without direction, ready to be "swallowed up and lost," at the end of his brief career of earthly life.

Faith is the source and spring of all moral life, and, as a capability in the relations of culture, its productive power is comparatively inexhaustible, or limited only by the measure of endeavor. It lifts man above himself, and supplies him with a power beyond his own. It gives the parent and the teacher an influence nearly unbounded. In its highest form, it solves, with light from above, the great Christian paradox, "When I am weak, then am I strong."

(3.) Conscience.-The primordial moral element which holds sway over all man's powers and faculties, is Conscience. This great regulator of the springs of action no competent educator can ever permit himself to regard in the merely popular light of a reporter and penal officer, following the acts of which it takes cognizance only after they have been committed, or irretrievably determined. As the sense of duty, it presides over the whole mental being. As an intelligent agent, it partakes in the work of consciousness and reason. It knows and judges. It remembers, indeed, with fearful exactness, the deeds of the past. But it has also the eyes of intuition and of inference for the present, and the power of prospection, prediction, and suggestion for the future. In feeling-unless blunted or extinguished-it is sensitive, to the utmost degree of acuteness; and it pierces to the very "joints and marrow" of the moral organ

ism. Its cautery is terrible in its unsparing intensity. By Creative ordination it is paramount to the will. It prompts, and threatens, aud remonstrates, and commands, and forbids, and impels or deters, with absolute authority;-irresponsible to any higher power within the whole domain of humanity, and acknowledging none without, but the one supreme authority of God and duty.

As an intelligent sentiment, and determining principle, it sums up man's moral capacities and powers in their whole extent of life and action. It constitutes him what he is in the sight of God, and in his own consciousness-a responsible moral agent, whose motto, written on his inmost being, is "Be perfect."

Under the prompting influence of conscience, as the law of duty, appointed by the supreme lawgiver, a devout regard to His authority, and a grateful sense of His benignant care, the young mind, enlightened by the teachings of "the wisdom which cometh from above," is betimes elevated to that piety toward the Father of all, which raises the personal worth and virtues of the human being, in his aspirations, to the height of sanctity, carries up all questions of moral action to the highest of all tribunals, and breathes into all his endeavors of duty the inspiring breath of a spiritual life and a divine power. Most justly did the fathers of New England require of the teacher of youth that he should regard himself as specially set apart for the "nurturing" of childhood in "piety," as the security for all those virtues which insure the safety of a community and are the adornment of humanity.

10. THE WILL, as a Moral Power.-Man's ability to determine the moral course of his actions, to choose the right and avoid the wrong, can never be made clearer to himself by the light of "science falsely so called," than it is in his own inmost convictions. It never is obscured to his consciousness till, wandering from his limited sphere of possible conception, he bedims it by some cloud of metaphysical speculation, and perplexing casuistry-"darkening counsel" by "skeptical doubts" and "words without knowledge." Conscience, the only competent court, adjudges him free, innocent or guilty, commendable or culpable, in every act within the limits of his power, yet-for that very reason, not independent of the authority which pronounces sentence on his actions, and which involves the existence of an authority higher than itself, to which he is strictly responsible, here and hereafter, though at liberty now to follow the bent of his individual will. To the doings of this determining and executive power, which directs and moves the arm, whether it is stretched forth to succor or to kill, attaches, then, a moral character of fearful power; and to influence it for good, and not for evil, to guide it in the path