And why should it be thought that there is any insurmountable difficulty in bringing infant life under religious influence? In moral beings, intelligence and conscience are simultaneously developed; and where there is sin, conscience may be made to take cognizance of it, and under just instruction, conscience in a child, can scarcely be opposed; and with a quickened conscience in the presence of moral evil, a sense of the necessity of an atonement springs up; thus in the spirit of a little child, the groundwork may be laid of an experimental knowledge of the gospel.

We give it, therefore, as our full conviction, our absolute and abiding testimony, that there is scarcely a more egregious and pernicious mistake among mankind, than that of disparaging and neglecting the first years of human life.

III. Overlooking, or not duly considering the depravity of human nature in conducting the business of education, leads to inefficiency and failure. Human nature is depraved in our children; it is much more depraved in the world, amongst whom, if death does not prematurely remove them, they must pass their days. To disown or disregard the truth in respect to either fact, is to open a floodgate of practical error.

Christianity in all its peculiar provisions and teachings, assumes that moral depravity even in children, is a poisonous infection of such terrible power, that it bids utter defiance to all lenitives, all management, in every form, from man and creatures; and will yield to no other than the renewing agency of the Spirit of God. The influence of education apart from this agency, may accomplish many things. It may develope in a beautiful symmetry the constitutional excellencies. It may repress constitutional excesses. It may correct constitutional vices. It may cultivate the natural sentiments, refine the tastes, exalt and ennoble the temper and tone of the mind, give dignity and grace to the manners, light and authority to conscience, force and principle to character. It may inspire respect and reverence for the rites and solemnities of religion; form religious habits, and fill the breast with high religious veneration. All this, and more it may do. But there are some things it cannot do: it cannot shed abroad the love of God in the heart, nor displace our natural enmity to God, nor bring the soul under the power of the cross, nor diffuse through it the spirit of Jesus, nor teach it to live by faith, nor introduce into it any one of those fruits of the Holy Spirit, without which all virtue is reprobate, all religion a name or a delusion, and all check upon native depravity ineffectual and temporary.

Now we submit the question, what is, what must be the difference in educational appliances, of justly regarding, or of diregarding this grand cardinal fact concerning the potency of moral evil in our fallen nature? With what difference in parental views and im

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pressions will the business be conducted? Will the parent who keeps it in mind, that amidst the highest of earth's advantages and influences, amidst the purest society and best preceptors he can find among men, his child will remain subject to an inward vitiosity, which will soon prove its remediless ruin, if the Spirit of God withhold his renewing power-will such a parent, we ask, in training his child, have no difference of feeling from one who disbelieves this fact, or does not give it just consideration? Or will an abiding difference of feeling here make no difference in practice? We assume that no one denies the necessity of education. We assume farther, that the parent of whom we speak, looks for the cooperation of the Spirit only as sought for and depended on, in the use of appropriate means; and our question relates to the difference which this parent's convictions on the point before us, must make in the sort of educational power which he uses. We cannot stay to trace out this difference particularly. will spontaneously occur to every one, how such a parent will address himself to his work, with a holy fear and trembling, and with an earnestness and importunity of prayer, which, in the other case, must needs be wanting, And it will also occur to every one, how an education thus conducted, must differ from one not having this grand peculiarity, though in all other respects equal or superior, as the influence of heaven differs from that of earth. We will mention but one thing wherein the difference will reveal itself directly in the consciousness of the child. It is the impression which the child receives of what so deeply affects the parent's heart. The child cannot but learn through the parent's feelings, its own need of, and dependence on, the Holy Spirit.It learns this, provided the parent abides in the lively conviction of the same fact, more effectually than it could by any other means. The momentous lesson is incessantly inculcated, day and night, directly and indirectly, by silence as well as by speech, under the great advantage which the parental and filial relations afford. Now what we wish to be pondered here, is the probable difference in result, as to the religious character and destiny of a child, whose soul is kept under an educational influence of this sort, and of one who wants this specific influence, however favored in all other respects.

IV. The effect of misbelief or misjudgment as to the moral state of the world is scarcely less unfavorable.

As Christianity presupposes the entire depravity of our nature even in infancy, so it presupposes and declares that the advance of unrenewed man in years, is a progressive subjugation to the power of moral evil; and accordingly it represents the state of human society-the unrenewed world-in its relations to God and eternity, as most deplorably and desperately corrupt. The manner of

its testimony on this subject, shows plainly that it intends to make the strongest possible impression; declaring of the world, that it lieth in wickedness, that it is in the interest and service of Satan, the great enemy of God, nay, that it hath taken Satan for its god; and demanding the utter renunciation of worldliness, as the unchangeable condition of the Divine mercy. It has ever been a risk of reputation in the teachers of Christianity to affirm this, but they are not its teachers, who do not declare it with much distinctness and earnestness. While the record stands in the Book of God that whatsoever is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world, so that if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him; and not only so, but that the friendship of the world is enmity with God; while these with a great multitude of parallel scriptures, stand in the sacred volume in such bold relief; the ministry were false to Christ, if its voice on this subject were either silent, or such as to the world's ear would be acceptable or tolerable. Now what if the parental heart, in conducting the education of children, has habitual misgiving, or is without an assured and living faith in respect to the view given by Christianity of the moral state of this world? Is not such an unconvinced parent, in one most important particular, disqualified for his work? Our children are to go into the world, where they must either enter into conflict with the powers of evil, and by the grace of God overcome them, or else fall in and be workers together with them against Christ and his Church. If we bring them up in the nurture of the Lord, we train them for battle and for triumph on the world's rebellious stage. But shall we, or can we so train them, if instead of recognizing the world as lying in wickedness, and hastening to destruction, we look upon it with eyes of complacency or desire, or allowance? It will be the world's spirit in us, that will give the world favor in our view, and having that spirit ourselves, we shall with entire certainty, yea, even of necessity, if Divine grace do not prevent, infuse it into the hearts of our children. We cannot do otherwise. We shall teach them worldliness even in our silence, and the spirit of the world which is in them, will make them apt and swift learners without any other instruction. We may teach them religion too, but we shall give them impressions on religious subjects, which will rather prepare them for relations of friendship with the world, than those of a determined and triumphant disconformity to it. To a certain style or manner of religion, the world makes no objection. Man is constitutionally formed for religion, and of all characters, that which tastefully interblends religion with worldliness, so as to give the latter its chosen place, stands highest, especially among the more respectable and elevated classes.

It is, therefore, palpable, how radical mistake in educating children, must needs proceed from a wrong view of the moral condi

tion of the world on the part of parents. No child receives a Christian education who is not trained to go into the world, not to pass smoothly and reputably along in the current of worldliness, but with enduring firmness and meekness, to maintain the most uncompromising opposition to it. This it is, and nothing short of this, to live among men the life of a Christian. The purpose and end of Christianity is, a complete moral revolution in human society-to make all things new' in the commanding principles and objects of human existence and they are not exemplyfying the spirit of Christ without which no one is entitled to the name of a Christian, or serving the cause for which Christ came into the world, who do not make this the grand purpose and endeavor of their own lives.

If, therefore, we would know whether we are earnestly and with probability of success, bringing up our children in the nurture of Christ, we should look well to ourselves, as to the impressions and feelings with which we habitually regard that mass of active being among which our dear offspring are so soon to intermingle. Has the world no such appearance to us, no such spiritual character and relations, no such prospects in reference to the future state, as to make us think it very important that our children, while in the midst of it, should be altogether distinct and heavenwide separate from it, as to its spirit, principles, purposes, and ends of life? Nay, let us propose the question to ourselves more narrowly. Let us inquire if we think there is but little to be excepted to, little to be renounced and resisted in the better, yea, even in the very best portion of worldly society? How do we look upon the accomplishments, the acquisitions, the company, the pleasures, the elegant modes and ways of life, of the highest class of all? Have we almost no objection to our children's falling in and taking their course here on account of these great advantages? Alas! if we do not think that all these advantages multiplied a thousand fold, would be infinitely unworthy of being coveted for our children at the sacrifice of their non-conformity to the world, how essentially, how completely are we disqualified for the work of their education? Nowhere is the spirit of the world in greater power and strength, nowhere is it more difficult to be opposed, nowhere is it more ensnaring, more seducing, more triumphant, than in this upper sphere of its dominion. If when we look into it, we are so taken with its charms that we can no longer see much to be dreaded or deprecated from worldly influences here, our children will probably have an eternity of regret, that the business of their early training did not fall into different hands. With such a profound blindness to the true character and state of the world, we can give them no other education than one which assumes that man was made not to glorify God, and shine forever in his kingdom above the brightest of the firmanent, but to glitter for a moment to the eye of sense, and then pass away into the blackness of darkness forever.

V. We have now considered, briefly, what we take to be the chief sources of mistake in the education of children. There are certain particular errors, perhaps not easy to be classed, which if the time permitted, we might here expose with much advantage, but of them we must content ourselves with the briefest notice.

1. Children are often led by the example, if not by the instructions of their parents, to think of Christianity as unsocial and misanthropic; an enemy to innocent enjoyment, the cultivation of taste. and improvement in our temporal condition; indifferent if not unfriendly to the institutions of society and the progress of science and art. How fatally erroneous and hurtful is this impression concerning the holy religion of Christ. Christianity though antiworldly, is not morose or anti-social. It is in all respects the best friend of human happiness. It seeks the highest advancement of man in all his legitimate powers, tastes, capabilities and enjoyments. It does not identify worldliness with the work and ordinances of God, but directs us how to use every creature of God for our good, and bids us to rejoice therein with thanksgiving. To give children. the contrary persuasion, is to set the nature which God has given them, at variance with the instrument of their salvation.

2. Where Christianity is not thus made to frown with malignant severity on the institutions and customs of social life, it is still too often invested with the garb of despotism, in other respects, by parental influence and example. The parents, though Christians, are not habitually happy and heavenly in the frame of their minds; they do not abide in that spiritual mindedness which is life and peace. They are not sufficiently free of legalism with its attendant bondage of fear and doubt, of severity and sternness; and it is well if they do not either infuse the same unlovely spirit into their children, or prejudice them fatally against the gospel, by leading them to identify evangelical piety with inward gloom and austerity.

3. Very unhappy results often spring from the want of discrimination in suiting discipline to the constitutional peculiarities of children. Christianity is always one and the same, but in applying it to individuals, it may be essential to our success, that our manner vary, to correspond with their varying characters and circumstances; and the rule of becoming all things to all, is as important to parents in educating their children, as it is to ministers of the gospel in winning the souls of men. Some children need indulgence which to others would be ruinous; and some require the intermixture of indulgence with severity, in a proportion which only the wisdom that cometh from above can adjust.