soul has been cramped and enervated by ignorance, and corrupted and debased by crime. What a contrast between two things possessing the same elements! the one is like the sparkling and indestructible diamond, radiant with all the hues of heaven's own light, the other is like the charcoal,-black, crumbling, shapeless, and worthless. The great business of education, therefore, is not to eradicate any principle of our nature, but to direct all our faculties towards their proper objects,—to foster what is good and to check the development of what may tend to evil. All the moral faculties, without exception, should be trained from the earliest infancy; for they manifest themselves at a much earlier period than the higher faculties of intellect. "Train a child," says the inspired writer, "in the way in which he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." The moral training of a child is, of course, best conducted by his parents, and especially by his mother. Home is the proper sphere of moral training; the earthly parent possesses, in this respect, the delegated authority of the heavenly Parent; and any system of school education which seeks to ignore this heaven-stamped authority, must be bad, not only in its principle, but also inexpedient and erroneous in its practice. But do parents undertake this sacred duty? or are they always willing to perform it in an efficient manner? If parents do not (and we fear that many of them in the present state of society fall far short in this respect), is the teacher qualified, or is he authorised, to undertake the sacred function ? The question is difficult to answer, when put in this comprehensive form. At least, however, we may safely say, that he may fairly endeavour, to the best of his abilities and opportunities, to educate the child, placed under his care, in those grand and essential truths of morality and religion, which are recognised by the great body of the people in this country. But the teacher should always endeavour to enlist the co-operation of the parents, in training the moral faculties of their children. There are few parents so far sunk in ignorance and crime, as to remain callously indifferent to the remonstrances of a teacher relative to the future well-being of their own children. What parents would desire that their own moral degradation should be perpetuated in their children? The instinctive and disinterested love of the parent consecrates every moral lesson, which he may give to his offspring. No school teacher can possibly place himself in the same attitude in relation to his pupil. "There is a love of offspring," says the eloquent author of the Natural History of Enthusiasm, "that knows no restrictive reasons; that extends to any length of personal suffering or toil; a feeling of absolute self-renunciation, whenever the interests of children involve a compromise of the comfort or tastes of the parent. There is a love of children in which self-love is drowned; a love, which, when combined with intelligence and firmness, sees through, and casts aside, every pretext of personal gratification, and which steadily pursues the highest and most remote welfare of its object, with the determination at once of an animal instinct, and of a wellconsidered, rational purpose. There is a species of love not liable to be worn by time, or slackened, as, from year to year, children become less and less dependent upon parental care:—it is a feeling which possesses the energy of the most vehement passions, along with the calmness and appliancy of the gentlest affections; a feeling purged, as completely as any human sentiment can be, of the grossness of earth; and which seems to have been conferred upon human nature as a sample of emotions proper to a higher sphere." The moral and religious training of children would be greatly advanced, if our clergy would frequently address parents from the pulpit, on the best methods of conducting home education; and also if the teacher, along with the clergyman, would frequently visit the parents of his pupils, with the view of showing them how to proceed with the training of their children at home. I. All moral training should be based upon religion. Avaunt that heartless secular system of training, which would inculcate moral precepts apart from the sublime and soul-inspiring doctrines of revelation! Begone, with your tape-lines and scissors, we do not want morality doled out to us by the measure! Begone, thou sneering spirit of scepticism, with all your fine-spun moral theories of expediency, brought forward to supplant the sublime doctrine of salvation by faith; you cannot disguise your cloven foot! Begone, from the land of honest old England-Christian England; destroy not the quiet happiness which reigns in her hearths and homes! Back to sceptical France, if you please; if not there, then back to your native hell, and leave God-fearing teachers to do God's work! Away with those false metaphysics, which would persuade us that the idea of God is too subtle for the mind of a child. Its heartless propounders, no doubt, gauge the capabilities of the virgin soul of the child by their own narrow, sin-scorched natures. A more expansive and practical philosophy tells us that there is no conception which more easily assimilates itself to the infant soul, than the idea of the Creator. The idea of God is directly manifested to us through His Spirit. The Spirit of God, where is it? where is it not? It pervades all matter and all space; but it specially manifests itself in the sanctified human soul, in the form of the third person of the glorious Trinity; and we are told. by Christ, that the kingdom of heaven will be especially composed of little children. II. The teacher should, above all things, cultivate the sentiments of veneration and faith. Children instinctively venerate what is great and holy; and that teacher is guilty of the grossest impiety, who does not foster and develope, on all fitting occasions, the devotional affections of his pupils. There is scarcely any subject of instruction without having its religious bearing. Besides the direct and positive religious instruction, usually given in our schools, the good teacher will avail himself of every incidental opportunity for inculcating moral and religious duties. The wisdom and goodness of God, as manifested in the works of His hands, afford one of the best means for cultivating the devotional sentiments of children;—the adaptation of the structure of animals to their instinct, and to their habits of life, — the relations of the great physical laws to each other, and to the essential purposes of vegetable`and animal life,— the intimate connection between the laws of the physical and moral world,—all these, and many other evidences of divine wisdom and goodness, are highly calculated to foster and develope the devotional sentiments of children. The love and fear of God should be made the mainspring of all their actions. Children should be taught to do good, because it pleases their Father which is in heaven, and to avoid what is evil, because it offends Him. There is no sure anchor for the human soul but that infantine faith in the love and goodness of God, which exhibits itself in the following forms: faith in God's providence ;—faith in His promises, as revealed in His holy word ;—faith in His Son Jesus Christ for salvation;— faith in the moral government of God, and that, under this government, society is advancing towards the millennium period, when humanity will have achieved for itself that intellectual and moral emancipation from the thraldom of ignorance, and from the slavery of sin, which prophets have foretold, and of which inspired poets have sung. Teachers! instruct your children how to pray. Wonderful arrangement of divine mercy! the tones of that feeble child's voice ascend from earth to heaven, and, rising far beyond the visible universe, they reverberate through the mansions of the blessed and reach the ear of Divinity; and God, well pleased with that little child, deigns to answer the prayer! that prayer descends to the lowest depths of hell, and makes the damned to gnash their teeth. Teachers! a poor, guilty child of earth, tells you to teach your children to pray; but the admonition should not come with less force on account of the unworthiness of the being that gives it; inasmuch as you may regard it, should you think proper, as the tribute which an unauthorised layman pays to religion. III. Teachers should constantly cultivate the benevolent affections of children. The exercise of the benevolent affections affords us one of the purest and highest sources of pleasure. Children should be shown that it is their interest as well as their duty to love one another, -to be kind, forbearing, and forgiving in their tempers, and to be ever seeking to promote the comfort and happiness of their companions in preference to their own gratification. Tell them, that when we pray to God (in our Lord's prayer) to forgive us our trespasses, that same prayer bases the petition on the assumed fact that we forgive them that trespass against us. But goodness of heart should not only proceed from virtuous impulse, it should also be sanctified by proper motives: children should be taught to love one another, because love is the fulfilling of the law,— because God is love-because He has manifested His love in their creation, in their preservation, and in their redemption. The schoolroom should be a happy place. That school is little better than a pandemonium, where the boys are allowed to quarrel and fight with one another. Malice, cruelty, and all vindictiveness of character, are a perpetual source of misery to their possessor, as well as to all with whom he comes in contact: on the contrary, gentleness, forbearance, and mercy, diffuse joy and gladness throughout the whole school. "The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven It is an attribute to God Himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God's, |