THE SCHOOL, AND THE CHURCH; OR THE PRESBYTERIAN EDUCATION REPOSITORY. EDITED BY C. VAN RENSSELAER, CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION. VOL. II. PHILADELPHIA : 265 CHESTNUT STREET. PRINTED BY C. SHERMAN. NOTICES. 1. This Magazine may now be considered as established; i. e., Providence permitting, it will be issued from year to year, or at such intervals as may hereafter be considered best. "HOME, THE SCHOOL, AND THE CHURCH," or "The Presbyterian Education Repository," will endeavour to promote faithfully the interests of the cause to which it is devoted; and, until otherwise ordered, will be published annually. 2. The present volume, the second in the series, bears the date of 1852. Although the first bears the date of 1850, there has been only a year's interval between the two. The work is issued so near the end of the year, that we conform to the usual practice among publishers, in dating the present volume in 1852. 3. On account of many pressing engagements, the Editor has not been able to do all he wished in this number. The plans of school-houses, etc., have also been unavoidably omitted, but will be resumed hereafter. 4. Thanks are due to our brethren who have prepared original articles. Article I., by the Rev. JOHN P. CARTER; IX., by the Rev. JAMES W. ALEXANDER, D.D.; XI., by the Rev. JOHN H. BоCOCK; and XII., by the Rev. ARCHIBALD ALEXANder, D.D., lately gone to his rest, are among the most valuable contributions in the volume. The article by Mr. Bocock was demanded for publication by the West Hanover Presbytery, and at our request was permitted to be printed in this Magazine. 5. We trust that our brethren will find the discussions in this volume of such a character, as to commend the work of education in all its departments to their sympathies, prayers, and active co-operation. The Board of Education, among other instrumentalities, has an important part to perform, under God, in strengthening and enlarging the Church; and it is hoped that every congregation within our bounds will aid in promoting its efficiency. 6. Particular attention is invited to the recommendation of the General Assembly, for the observance, in all our churches, of the last Thursday of February next, as a day of special prayer for the blessing of God upon our youth, and upon the institutions of education. Philadelphia, December, 1851. C. V. R. THE PRESBYTERIAN EDUCATION REPOSITORY. 1852. ARTICLE I. RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AT HOME. BY THE REV. JOHN P. CARTER, MARYLAND. IF the importance of a Christian duty is to be estimated by the emphasis with which it is enjoined in the word of God, then the religious instruction of the young demands a degree of attention which, we fear, it does not ordinarily receive. No sooner had the Lord instituted his covenant with Abraham, by the rite of circumcision (Gen. xviii. 9-14), "to be a God unto him. and to his seed after him," than that father of the faithful, "took Ishmael, his son, and every male of his household, in the self-same day, as God had said unto him," and administered unto them the token of the Lord's covenant. And in the following chapter is recorded the testimony of God to parental faithfulness: "I know Abraham, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." (Gen. xviii. 19.) At the institution of the Passover, commemorating the redemption of God's people from the servitude of Egypt, and in immediate connexion with the ceremonial observances to be attended to in that impressive ordinance, the parent is commanded: "Thou shalt show thy son in that day, saying, This is done because of that which the Lord did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt." "And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt from the house of bondage." (Ex. xiii. 8, 14.) And when Moses would impress the people with a deep sense of their exalted privileges, as a nation, in having "Jehovah their God so nigh unto them in all things that they called upon him for ;" and having statutes, and judgments so righteous as all that law which he |