occasion or lust prompt; repels injuries, and takes alternate res and repose, is like a tree of the forest, purely of nature's growth. But this same savage, hath within him the seeds of the logician, the man of taste and breeding, the orator, the statesman, the man of virtue, and the saint; which seeds, though planted in his mind by nature, yet, through want of culture and exercise, must lie for ever buried and be hardly perceivable by himself or others."

Though this opinion of the philosopher needs an important qualification in one point at least, it is yet too clearly true as a whole to admit of question. Every mind is rich in native wealth though it be yet in the ore, and is capable of an expansion large enough to embrace an amount of knowledge and love as yet unattained by the most exalted spirits of heaven, and, if sanctified, it will pour into the treasury of God a boundless revenue of imperishable riches. But abandon it to wasteness, or allow its susceptibilities to be engrossed with the dreamings of infidelity, and the pleasures of sense, and it had been better for it at the moment of its birth, to have been blotted out from among Jehovah's works.

3. It has passed into a maxim that "knowledge is power.' The sceptre awes nations into submission to individual will; the sword slays thousands, and the arm of the victor binds millions in chains; but it is instructed mind that sways the sceptre, wields the sword, and nerves the conqueror's arm. Without some knowledge of the philosophy of man, and the principles of science, and without a warm imagination, an eloquent tongue, or a vigorous pen no man within the domains of civilization, can maintain a permanent ascendancy over his brethren. He may stir up strife and contention; he may shed torrents of blood, and pile up mountains of human bones, but he leaves the world as destitute of every monument of well directed skill and power, as are the wilds of Africa, or the untrodden forests of America, while his own name perishes, or becomes the loathing of mankind. Knowledge, indeed, like every other gift of heaven, not excepting even the blood of Christ, is often perverted to purposes of mischief, for

"Perversion marks man's guilty way"

from the cradle to the grave, but it nullifies the value of no blessing of God; and not wealth or honor, health or pleasure, instinct or conscience, are less justly contemned for their frequent abuse and prostitution to ignoble ends, than that furniture of the mind which is sometimes desecrated by ambition and revenge. Shall heaven's bounties be dashed from existence because of their misuse, and the darkness of primeval chaos be thrown over the manifested goodness of God, because man employs it to accomplish wicked devices?

And then no wealth like that of mind rises superior to the plottings of knavery, the fluctuations of fortune, and the capricious action of the elements of nature. Disease may dim its lustre, and age abate its force, and an overruling Providence defeat its immediate aims; but not even death itself, sweeping away all that is earthly beside, lays upon it the hand of violence. Man carries it with him, unharmed by the convulsion that rends asunder the body and spirit, beyond the grave, where it secures him a place but little lower than the angels, and forms an amount of capital, if I may so speak, proportioned to his present acquisitions, with which he enters on the holy commerce of heaven. Of course you will not understand me to speak of knowledge and piety as synonymous. They may live and flourish to some extent independently. But wherever they co-exist, knowledge is the most efficient handmaid of religion, while in their separation, ignorance is religion's most powerful antagonist.

"Blessed is he who knoweth wisdom and instruction and perceiveth the words of understanding." Connect love and knowledge, as they have not unfrequently been connected in ancient and modern times, and give them a fair field for their united labors, and none can estimate fully the amount of their happy results to the lory of God, and the welfare of the world.

True it is that Baxter and Owen, Leighton and Edwards, to say nothing of thousands more, endeared to Christian recollection by learning and piety, with Noah and Moses, Elijah and Paul had entered heaven though possessed of a faith no more intelligent than that which sustains her who

"Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true."

Yet with only a common measure of intellectual resources and cultivation, the luminous productions of their pens, and the holy example of their lives had done little to strengthen the faith of their brethren, and bless the world. Learning gave lustre and efficiency to their piety. Knowledge, sanctified by communion with Heaven gave them the mighty influence they threw over the generations in which they lived; an influence that has come down to our own times, and will flow onward, in ever-widening streams, till time shall be no more.

Their intellectual treasures embalm their piety in sweet and everlasting remembrance. Not the wealth of Croesus, combined with the valor of Hannibal, and the rhetoric of Tully, and the clemency of Augustus, and the virtues of all the wise men and great men of pagan antiquity, had they fallen to the share of these holy men had left upon their memory the perfumes they now bear and which the lapse of ages will not exhale; nor have placed on their heads, crowns so studded with gems of unfading lustre.

And these are the more cogent reasons for urging onward the march of intellectual improvement, because the day has arrived when infidelity, throwing aside to some extent, its distinctive name, and the philosophical garb of other years, penetrates every community in more specious guise and spreads abroad

"Its legions, angel forms

Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks

Of Vallambrosa"

Or, if circumstances permit, assumes a bold and haughty front and challenges "the sacramental host of God's elect" in the boastful spirit of Philistia's champion; when Romanism too, half-healed of its deadly wound, resolves to strengthen the despotisms of the Old World, and crush the liberties of the New, and fastens upon all nations, the yoke of a baptized Paganism, heavier far than ever Boodh or Brama laid upon the neck of China or Hindostan ; and when errors in every shape lulling individual and public conscience into profound repose, banishing the fear of future retribution, and cherishing illusory hopes of heaven, start up like mushrooms among the fens and marshes of abounding ignorance, and multiply like venomous reptiles in solitudes penetrated by the rays of a vertical sun; now is the time for every friend of God and man to disengage himself from the folds of a voluntary supineness, to put on zeal as a cloak and take the word of God for his sword, and press onward, cleaving his way through the thickest of the foe, maintaining in simplicity the claims of God, vindicating the honor of the Cross, and opening the door for thousands around him, and coming after him, to enter the kingdom of heaven. And for labors and conflicts such as these, let the young be qualified by teaching them knowledge, and making them understand doctrine, giving them "precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little."

4. Scriptural knowledge is not only of surpassing value, but is more easily imparted to the young than most of that human knowledge for which the opening powers are often severely tasked. Said a great and holy man of old, whose counsellors were eminent men and learned in all the wisdom of their generation, "I have more understanding than all my teachers." Spending his youth amid his father's flocks at Bethlehem and blessed no doubt with pious parental instruction, he made the testimonies of the Lord his meditation by day and by night. God, in all his greatness was ever before him. The Holy Spirit instructed him. He searched the scriptures and pondered the path of his feet. Wonderful is the adaptation of the book of God to the demands of the immortal mind, whether in youth or old age. "Blessed is the man" and blessed is the child, "whose delight is in the law of the Lord;

for he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of waters, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. He has comfort in the depths of affliction, strength in the hour of temptation, and comes forth unharmed from the perils of the world, rejoicing in the labors and tears that assure him a rich harvest of glory. Whether the powers of reason crave the loftiest subjects for their exercise; or the imagination asks the widest field wherein to expatiate; or the spirit of devotion seeks an exhaustless store of aliment; or the powers of eloquence require appropriate argument and diction to move the senate chamber or the sch ol room, all is found here. For the ignorant there is overflowing instruction in its simplest forms; for the learned there are mysteries without end, profound enough to engage and baffle an angel's powers: for the careless and the headstrong there is reproof uttered in the strongest terms; for the timid and irresolute there are encouragement and assurance in the most soothing language; for the erring there are directions. that none can misunderstand; for the presumptuous warnings given in tones of thunder, and for the broken-hearted, consolation is poured forth in strains as sweet as angels use." It is a mine of unfathomable wealth, and fully yields its soul-enriching treasures to the search of the diligent while it leaveth poverty enough to him that dealeth in it with a slack hand. And if the unstable and unbelieving find therein things hard to be understood which they wrest to their own destruction, the humble and devout find more therein which are intelligible and plain as they

"Read and revere the sacred page

Which not the whole creation could produce,

Which not the conflagration shall destroy,"

they hide it in their hearts, con it over in their hours of retirement, and pour it forth with joy on the ears of the children of folly. When Tertullian spends year after year in reading only the sacred volume -and Jerome commits it all to memory-and Theodosius, burdened with the cares of empire all the day, devotes to it the night-watches-and Locke, a prince among philosophers, gives the last fifteen years of life to perfecting his acquaintance with it, because it hath God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter"-we have a practical demonstration of its value in the estimation of the highest order of human intellect. And a better argument still is supplied to us on this point by Paul's commendation of the noble Bercans, and ofthe youthful Timothy and the humble Priscilla and Aquila, whose diligence and proficiency in the study of the scriptures prepared them to contend earnestly for the faith and to expound the way of God more perfectly than even the eloquent Apollos.

Was it worthy the care of Heaven to give to man such revelations of principles lying at the foundation of the whole moral govern

ment of God? It cannot then be unworthy of the care of man to write them as with the point of a diamond on the enduring tablets of his soul. Unless his affections cluster around them until they control his movements, and impel him to extend their influence over the world, he achieves no permanent victory over spiritual enemies, and is shut out from the Paradise of God.

Can this sublime knowledge be imparted to the young? Why question it? If difficulties arise from immaturity and levity of mind, they are more than balanced by freedom from the prejudices of age, and the perplexing cares of life; by their docility and instinctive desire to penetrate the unknown; and by their unsuspecting confidence in the ability of their appointed teachers. Their natural aversion to God is but partially developed, and waits the coming of riper years to mature its strong resistance to the Divine claims. In the mean time skill, tenderness, and perseverance will interest the kindlier feelings of their social nature, and bring their expanding energies into successful operation, so that when followed by the "power from on high" in answer to prayer, each opposing influence will give way, and they will bow to the force of truth. Nor is this affirmed so much as a matter of just theory as of facts, for in all generations the youthful mind has readily yielded to the continued dropping of Divine instruction; leaving it to be inferred that in the present and future generations the same experiment faithfully made shall be equally successful. And the eagerness with which children and youth seize upon the explanation of facts in the kingdoms of nature and Providence, or the historical illustration of great principles; upon similitudes and allegories, whether from the lips of Jesus Christ, of Solomon, or Bunyan, discloses a foundation on which the man of benevolence may place himself, and pour instruction into their minds on the most sublime themes of revelation with little danger of labouring in vain. Even those difficulties over which many mature but darkened minds stumble into perdition, may be removed from the path-way of the young; and the plainer preceptive and doctrinal teachings of the Holy Spirit may be indelibly inscribed on their understanding by familiar reference to the facts of natural science, to the movements of Providence among the nations, and to the laws, customs, manners, and religions prevailing in different tribes and generations of men. Harmless curiosity ever awake and vigorous in childhood derives gratification from illustrations like these, and the mind nourished and cheered by constant accessions to its fund of information, arises to new and animated effort, and brings within its grasp that knowledge of God and the unseen world which purifies and elevates all its aspirations.

As a matter of fact, children have often been thus taught divine knowledge beyond those of riper years; and what has been already done, may be again done on an enlarged scale. And whatever