you aim than to break the chains of low and grovelling appetite and passion, and to advance in purity and virtue until you attain the image of your Father in heaven?

When I look around on this assembly, my heart within me is agitated with hopes and fears difficult to be expressed. I think how many affectionate parents are directing their anxious thoughts to this place, and some of them by day and by night lifting up their hearts in prayer to God in behalf of their absent sons, beseeching him to deliver them from the dangers to which they are exposed. If these prayers should be heard and answered, and the beloved boy should return home at the close of his College course, pure in his morals, industrious in his habits, and improved in useful and ornamental knowledge, what delight would brighten a father's eye, what joy would swell a mother's bosom! On the other hand, should hist parents meet him at the homestead-threshhold, bloated with intemperance, decrepit with the effects of licentiousness, as ignorant as when he left home, and unfit for any useful and honourable employment, who can imagine the disappointment, the anguish! The father silent with grief-the mother bathed in tears. Oh! that none of you may ever witness such a scene!

Some of you have no father or mother living to care for you, to warn you of danger, to pray for you. Destitute of the best earthly advisers, you are left during the most perilous period of life solely to your own guidance. The responsibility of choosing your course and of forming your character is left chiefly to yourselves. How great your responsibility, and how vigilant and how careful should you be to avoid the dangers that surround your path!

I look forward; and I see you in a short time all scattered to the east and to the west, to the north and to the south, each bearing with him the character and the habits which he has formed here, and exerting an influence for weal or woe on those around him. Hundreds may hereafter revere and bless your name and memory, or hundreds may curse the day on which they came within the sphere of your influence. It is not too much to hope that some of you shall hereafter hold high and responsible stations in public life. How important that you should now lay a firm and sure foundation on which to build your future eminence! Our country at this time spreads before you a wide and extensive field, demanding the labours of her most gifted and virtuous sons, to cultivate and to gather in the rich harvest.

In conclusion, let me again remind each of you of your personal responsibility, not only to your parents, and friends, and country, but especially to God. He requires and expects that you will improve the opportunities which you have of cultivating both your intellectual and moral powers, and that you will consecrate all your attainments to his glory. And if these opportunities be neglected, or these attainments be perverted, such is the wise and righteous

order of the divine government, that "whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap."-" He that soweth the wind, shall reap the whirlwind." Finally, remember that no talent or acquirement, however great, can receive the divine approbation, unless it be sanctified and consecrated to the glory of God and the good of mankind.

ARTICLE VIII.

ON CERTAIN ERRORS OF PIOUS STUDENTS IN OUR COLLEGES.

BY THE REV. JAMES W. ALEXANDER, D. d.

Ir is pleasing to observe that, in our Church, almost all disputes with regard to the importance of an educated ministry have died away. Great as is the demand for labourers in the Lord's vineyard, it appears to be acknowledged that ample literary and scientific discipline is equally demanded. Hence the eyes of Christians are turned with peculiar interest towards the hundreds of young men, who are at this time engaged in preparatory studies, with a view to the sacred office. Of these, a large number are to be found within the walls of our colleges, engaged in that part of their preliminary discipline, which, when we look to its bearings on future usefulness, must be seen to yield to no other in momentous importance. It may be assumed, as a maxim universally conceded, that the first steps in all mental and moral training are most carefully to be directed and watched, as giving character to all that follow. Yet next in the order of importance to the earliest lines of intellectual discipline, we are constrained to place that part of education which is effected at college. It is here that the boy, just rising to adolescence, and escaping from the more arbitrary rules of the ordinary school, begins to contribute towards the formation of his own character, undertakes to judge for himself, and marks out his future path, with some degree of boldness and independence. It is here that the nobler foundations of the structure are to be laid, in the acquisition of languages, sciences, literature, history, and the principles of taste, philosophy, and morals. And from the critical period of human life in which these acquisitions are made, the tone of future character is usually taken, and that for life, during the academical course.

If this statement, even in general, or to any considerable extent, is just, it needs scarcely to be added that no caution can be superfluous, no solicitude unwise, which is directed towards the regulation of minds, subject to concurrent influences so varied, perilous, and operative, at this turning point of life. Much of the hope of the Church is staked upon the faithfulness, diligence, and discretion of the beloved youth who are placed in these circumstances, and it

cannot be inappropriate to present some hints and cautions, with special reference to their necessities and danger.

There is a measure of humble docility, which is absolutely requisite in every one who sustains the character of a learner. This is due, under all circumstances, from youth to age, from the incipient scholar to the learned guardian and mature instructor; but more especially under circumstances like these, where the voluntary pupil submits himself to the guidance of experienced wisdom, and in order to usefulness in the Church, enters that path which the Church has marked out. The Christian student is bound, for a season, to suspend his private judgment, as to particular branches of study, in filial reliance upon the prudence of those whose superior opportunities and experience enable them to make a wise decision. It is worthy of consideration by our youthful candidates, that the course of study in all our colleges is substantially the same; and that, as it now exists in most of them, it has been framed with reference to the Church, and in a great number of instances by those who have been taking counsel for the education of ministers. Hence every scholar might be justified in the presumption, that it is the course most approved by the unanimous wisdom of discreet and pious men, and therefore worthy of a fair trial.

We regard this docile temper, and modest subjection of mind, in the young, as no small part of that moral discipline which collegiate education promotes, and which is necessary for future advancement. Youth is proverbially impatient, and fond of seeking compendious methods, royal roads to science and active usefulness. Those who are tempted to such irregularities, should be reminded, that it is just here they should apply the curb to their restive propensities, and check the inordinate desire of freedom; that their situation, time of life, and inexperience, unfit them for judging aright with respect to the path in which they ought to walk; and that the most honourable, the safest, and the most Christian course, is to consign themselves, with undeviating regularity, to the guidance of those under whose care they are providentially placed.

A little observation upon this subject, under circumstances not unfavorable for a correct estimate, has led us to believe that the error to which we have alluded is common in all our institutions; and, unfortunately, oftener observed in candidates for the ministry than in others. For this there is an obvious reason. Young men of zeal and piety long to be actively employed in the Lord's vineyard, and view everything as an unwelcome hindrance, which does not appear to them to have a direct and immediate bearing upon their great work. They judge thus of many subjects, indeed, which are of the greatest moment, and sometimes neglect the very discipline which their minds most need. There are some, for instance, who, from sloth or impatience, become disgusted with the study of the languages. They are unable to perceive what connection there is between classic poesy or heathen fables, and the preaching of the

Gospel. Forgetting how much of a faithful minister's life should be spent in examining the original Scriptures, and how much the knowledge of one language contributes to the acquisition of all others, they suffer the only period of life in which they have all the necessary facilities for this attainment, to pass by unimproved.

A more frequent occurrence is a similar judgment with regard to mathematical science. Ignorant persons can scarcely ever be made to understand how abstract reasoning about number and quantity, ratio and equality, can be of any use: and ignorant students are often found to cast aside (as far as they can) the pursuit of these studies, with the pitiful sophism, that they never expect to be surveyors, almanac-makers, or navigators. It is only necessary here to allude to the truth, that it is the intellectual habits formed by these studies which give them value in a collegiate course. Tradition attributes to Dr. Witherspoon the adage that Euclid is the best teacher of logic; and in this pithy saying the whole argument lies in a nutshell. When we have heard a young man decrying the study of mathematics, we have generally found that it was precisely the kind of culture which he needed to systematize his vagrant thoughts, discipline his feeble reason, and give some stability to his vacillating judgment. No man ever undervalued the science who knew anything about it. And since the ministry of the Gospel demands minds trained to habits of close and rigid investigation, there is no part of our academical education which should be more sedulously cultivated. The idle and imbecile should not be encouraged in their discontents by youth who are preparing for usefulness in the cause of the Redeemer. Let the latter take counsel of learned friends, and they will soon be convinced, that deserters alone speak evil of this cause.

Similar observations might be made respecting almost every item on the catalogue of studies. To every objection, there is one answer, which we desire to be pondered by pious students. No young man, at the commencement of his course, is qualified to pass judgment upon any part of it. It is absurd to pronounce upon a way before one has travelled it; or, standing at the entrance, to receive the testimony of the feeble or fearful renegades who rush backwards with precipitation, taking offence, peradventure, at the impracticable pons asinorum, and, like a certain fabled fox, desiring to inveigle others into the same fellowship of ignorance. Let those be consulted who have mastered the difficulties of the journey, and, with one voice, they will exhort to the undertaking.

It is one of the signal advantages of a public education, that it trims down the arrogance of youth with regard to the studies which they shall pursue. The private scholar is governed by his likes and dislikes, his caprices and disgusts; and as it is usual to hate an enemy whom we cannot conquer, it is common to hear every science in its turn maligned by those who have left it unmastered. In a well regulated college, there is a force put upon these petulant

whims, and the pupil is constrained to go so far in each walk of varied knowledge, as to bring his powers to the test. The false independence of the home-bred and conceited youth is visibly reduced by the wisdom of established plans, and the competition of rival minds. Now the Christian student ought to be free from many of these influences. From conscience, from experience, he ought to distrust his own judgment. As the servant of the Church, charged with this particular duty, and laid under an obligation to acquire certain mental furniture, he ought as scrupulously to comply with every requisition, as if it were the great business of his life-which, indeed, for the time being, it is.

The secret cause of this indisposition to certain parts of academical labour, is too often simple sloth. This it is the undoubted duty of the pious student to mortify. He should learn "to endure hardness" in mental, as well as bodily toils. "I find nothing," said David Brainerd, "more conducive to a life of Christianity, than a diligent, industrious, and faithful improvement of precious time. Let us then faithfully perform that business which is allotted to us by Divine Providence, to the utmost of our bodily strength, and bodily vigour." And it was remarked by Buchanan, in a letter to the venerable Newton, that although the mathematical studies of the university were little to his taste, and scarcely connected, by any link which he could perceive, with his future labours, yet he diligently pursued them, put a constraint on his natural predilections, and yielded himself to their absorbing abstractions as a part of his Christian self-denial. This is an example worthy of every Christian student. The "greatly beloved" Martyn was influenced by the same motives in those toils which caused him to be designated, while of Cambridge, as "the man who never lost an hour. It is with pleasure that we hold up the last mentioned servant of Christ, for the imitation of Christian students. To our surprise, we find him treated by some American writers as a man of eminent piety and indefatigable diligence, but as being by no means distinguished for natural endowments and extraordinary genius. Here we must again dissent. It was something more than plodding assiduity which placed him at the head of hundreds in the university, both as a classic and a mathematician. This was no ordinary competition, and with no ordinary men. In all his subsequent labours, compositions, and controversies, we discern the evidences of genius, rare and eminent. We especially deprecate this derogation from his native talents, because it countenances the cant of idlers in our public institutions, who are disposed to attribute all laborious study to the dull and toiling drudge, and to make diligence incompatible with genius.*

How different is the judgment of one who knew him well-the Rev. C. J. Hoare. "Mr. Martyn," says he, "combined in himself certain valuable, but distinct qualities, seldom found together in the same individual. The easy triumphs of a rapid genius over first difficulties never left him satisfied with past attainments. His mind, which naturally ranged over a wide field of human knowledge, lost nothing of depth in its expansiveness. He was one of those few persons, whose reasoning faculty does not suffer from their ima