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sary to take into view the bodily and mental constitution of the child. But every one must see that long before the time of systematic education commonly begins, numerous impressions, especially of a moral kind, have already been made; and these, whether favourable or unfavourable, are likely to prove deep, if not indelible. If we are asked, then, to fix the time for entering on the culture of the child's spiritual nature, we answer, Begin as soon as he is capable of receiving spiritual impressions. When am I to teach my child to love truth, and to abhor a lie? Just as soon as he is capable of perceiving the distinction between right and wrong. When am I to convey to his mind the doctrine of a supreme Divinity-the almighty Framer -the benignant Preserver-the Father of all? Whenever the sublime sentiment can even be faintly apprehended by him. And so with the great vital principles of that wondrous restorative economy which it is the design of the Scriptures to reveal-with the history, and character, and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. These must be conveyed to his mind just as soon as he is able to bear it. There is no limit fixing the period of commencing this department of instruction, but the child's own capacity. Now is the seed-time of his immortal existence, which, when once let pass, can never return.

The truth is, impressions of some kind will be made upon the youthful heart, so that the real practical question is, not whether the child shall receive moral impressions or not, but whether the impressions made on it shall be of the right sort or the wrong. There is no period of life in which the imagination is so lively, or the curiosity so excited, or the conscience so awake, or the heart so tender, and, therefore, in which the facilities for occupying and informing with truth are so great. But let the opportunity be let slip, and the seeds of divine truth remain unsown, and the bosom will not continue a blank; but a sad harvest will, in all likelihood, hereafter be gathered of poison and death. The heart will not remain untenanted and uncontrolled; for if the truth do not occupy and govern it, the devil will.

I am afraid that the doctrine of human depravity has sometimes been sadly abused in its bearings on this subject; and men have perversely drawn an excuse for the delay of moral instruction, from the very circumstance that should have quickened them to early and vigorous effort. They have tried to persuade themselves that the work of moral training will be not more difficult ten years hence than it is now, while they will then have the advantage of a more matured and vigorous intellect. Never was there a greater, and seldom has there been a more fatal mistake. We admit the doctrine of natural depravity to its full extent; but then, is there no difference between that tendency to evil with which we are born, when viewed in its native virulence, and when enlarged by years of unchecked indulgence and strengthened by habit? Whether is it easier to pluck up the sapling or the tree? Whether are you more likely to succeed in diverting the current of the rill or of the river? A neglected

child is like so much soil handed over to Satan to cultivate. Oh, yes! if we would see our children, in the days of manhood, walking in the paths of wisdom and holiness-if we would meet them in a future world with congratulations and joy-we must teach them to "Remember now their Creator in the days of their youth."

It is possible, however, to have some vague impression of parental responsibility, and cordially to accede to the opinion that mental and moral discipline, to be effectual, must be early, while the mode and character of our instruction may be grossly defective or injurious. But the text not only suggests the law on this subject, but points to the lesson-book. This will come under our notice by considering,

III. THE MATTER OF TIMOTHY'S INSTRUCTION.-It was divine truth: "From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures." His education was conducted on truly sound and liberal principles; for his parents contemplated him, above all, in his relations as moral and immortal, and trained him, not for the hour, or even for time merely, but for eternity. The only part of the Scriptures at that time in existence was the Old Testament; and I can easily imagine how the interesting child would listen for hours to the words of the affectionate Eunice or the venerable Lois, as they depicted before him the lives of the patriarchs; or pursued with him the history of Moses, their great lawgiver, from his cradle on the Nile to the triumphant departure of Israel from Egypt; or followed the Israelites in their forty years' wanderings in the wilderness, under the friendly guidance of the mystic pillar of cloud and fire; or traced their further history in the Promised Land, through centuries of miracle and mercy, returned so oft with rebellion and defection; mingling with all those moral and spiritual lessons which they so naturally and richly suggest, and pointing his thoughts, above all, to the manner in which both history, and type, and prediction, prepared the way and adumbrated the glory of the Christ that was to come. With what glistening eye would the young disciple hear the sacred story! How many and how strange would be the questions he would ask!-questions never addressed to a pious parent's ear in vain. Oh! then it was at a parent's knee that those seeds were sown which afterwards grew up unto eternal life.

What then, it may perhaps be asked-do we propose that education should be exclusively confined to religion? We propose nothing so very unreasonable and preposterous. We know that man is des tined, for a season, to be an inhabitant of this world; and we would have him, in all respects, qualified for his sphere. What we condemn is, seeking to have our children all accomplished merely for the present life. What we condemn is, allowing the classic to supersede the catechism, and science to eclipse Scripture. What we condemn, and what, when discovered in the families of professing Christians, has excited in us feelings akin to horror, is the fact that, when passing from childhood into youth, they should sometimes be more fami

liar with the wanderings of Eneas, and with the battles of Hector and Achilles, than with the ministry, and sufferings, and death of the Son of God and Saviour of the world. We do not quarrel with you for making your child wise in reference to this world; but we do blame you for overlooking the far more important work of making him wise unto salvation. These things ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone. Exclude religion from the matter of your instruction, and you are, in all likelihood, preparing your child to become at some future day a more splendid ruin! That, and that alone, is an education worthy of the name, which places the child's immortal interests first, and in the whole scheme of its arrangements "seeks for him first the kingdom of God and his righteousness."

And here I would take occasion to remark on a very injurious mistake that, I fear, prevails to some extent on the subject of education-I refer to the opinion, that education solely consists in the direct and formal communication of knowledge. This is much too narrow a view of the matter. It would be far more correct to say, that all that the child sees and hears in the household is his education; at least, this is strictly true to the extent of his moral training. The direct lesson may be the text, but the parents' conduct is the proof and the commentary. We have no hope of an education in which the two are at variance; we have all hope in one in which they agree. To illustrate this, let us consider,

IV. THE TENDENCY AND RESULT OF TIMOTHY'S INSTRUCTIONS.They were able to make him "wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." The language of Paul here is remarkable, and must not be passed over without a momentary notice. It evidently teaches that Christ is the great theme of the Old Testament as well as of the New, and that it is in the way of knowing and believing in him as the divinely qualified and divinely appointed Messiah and Saviour that we are made wise unto salvation. Such had been the experience of Timothy. Through the instruction of his parents, while he was yet a child, he had become intimately acquainted with the Old Testament Scriptures; the consequence of which was, that when Paul came to Lystra, in his missionary travels, and proclaimed Jesus as the Christ, his familiarity with ancient type and prediction enabled him at once to see and to appreciate the apostle's argument; and he showed that he had believed Moses by believing Christ. Through the many labours and prayers of his parents, followed by the ministry of Paul, he was now animated by the same unfeigned faith as before had dwelt in his grandmother Lois and in his mother Eunice.

And, in general, it may be affirmed, that where there is similar parental fidelity and prayer, there will, sooner or later, be similar success. Parents often give way to despondency in the matter of their children's education too soon. They expect immediate fruit;

and because this is not always, or even commonly, vouchsafed, they forthwith begin to slacken their efforts. But surely there is enough, both in Scripture and experience, to quicken us on to cheerful and unfaltering effort. First, let us realize the solemn fact of our children's immortal existence-let us remember that when yonder sun shall have become dim with age, and this earth shall have perished in its sheet of fire, they shall still be conscious-living-active; and that it will greatly depend on our exertions whether their immortality shall prove to them the greatest blessing or the heaviest woe. Next, let us bear in mind that the Gospel is the only remedy for the moral and spiritual evils under which our nature groans. It alone is able to make wise unto salvation. We may, indeed, present the Gospel, and it shall be refused; but if we withhold it, the universe contains no other remedy. Moreover, is it not true, that in the great majority of instances where the saving truth is instilled by the parent into the tender minds of his children, confirmed by example, and sanctified by prayer, it is, sooner or later, followed and rewarded by the best results? There may occasionally be strange and mysterious exceptions, just as, in the best cultivated orchard, you will sometimes meet with a barren tree, but the exceptions are rare; and then, when we look beyond the enclosure to the uncultivated wilds, all is barrenness together. We repeat it, we have great confidence in the potency of an early Christian education-a confidence based at once on our knowledge of the divine adaptation of the Gospel to the desired end, on observation, and on the express statement of the Word of God. And so it is that even where we have seen the child of godly parents going astray, we have trembled, indeed; but we have trembled less for him than for others whose early days had been spent in scenes of ungodliness. We knew that there were instructions in his mind which he could not forget-which would not forget for him-that a mother's voice would be heard, in its tender whispers, louder than the raging voice of passion-that there were divine seeds in that heart, dormant still, but that must yet spring to life; and that, sooner or later, the cry would be heard from those lips: "My Father, my Father, be thou the guide of my youth."

We have sometimes thought that in the formation of the coral islands in the Southern Seas, we discovered a fit illustration of the history of our Christian tuition of the young. You know that the soil of those islands, after they emerge above the deep, is formed very gradually. Every rising tide leaves its scanty deposit of mud and wreck. There is long barrenness in the slowly accumulating soil, until there is seen gathering over its surface a verdant vegetation, and even lovely flowers spring up from hidden seeds that had been dropped perchance by some passing sea-fowl or bird of prey. Now, you have something of this gradual preparation, followed at length by sudden verdure, in the hearts of children. Every lesson you impart is just the deposit of so much soil. There may be long

and wearisome barrenness, but the propitious moment at length arrives when the labours and prayers of years are graciously rewarded; for the Spirit has given efficacy to the long-slumbering truth, and the life of faith and holiness is begun. He who "from a child had known the Holy Scriptures," is made "wise unto salvation."

Hitherto we have spoken exclusively of the efforts of parents themselves in the training of their children; and we wish it to be understood most distinctly and unequivocally that, as regards the first few years of the child's existence, we place their efforts above those of every other being in the world.

At the same time, we should not be stating the whole truth on this subject, did we not add that, in addition to the parents' instructions, and as powerfully subsidiary to them, the children should very early come under the care of the Church, and pass into the congregational Sabbath school. A congregation without a Sabbath school is not complete in its spiritual machinery. And I scarcely know anything better adapted to second the instructions of the fireside, than a wellorganized and efficiently conducted system of juvenile instruction here. A well-appointed band of Sabbath school teachers forms the right arm of a Christian minister. A well-attended, well-conducted Sabbath school is a sure token of present, and one of the surest pledges of future, congregational prosperity.

How bright a day of promise would that be for the Church in this land, when every parent and every pastor solemnly resolved, in reference to the children of his charge, that from a child they should know the Holy Scriptures! Scotland, we believe, would not be an age older, until it was blessed with a universal Pentecost!

ARTICLE IV.

HOME, THE SCHOOL, AND THE CHURCH.*

BY THE CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF THE BOARD.

THREE agencies are chiefly instrumental in preparing the human soul for the duties of this life and of the life to come. The agency of HOME is, by God's appointment, peculiarly great in its forming power. It is to parental training, to a father's counsels, or a mother's instructions, that the most of men are indebted in Providence for the character they possess, and for the hope that enters within the vail. By the familiar fireside, beneath the welcome shelter of the paternal roof, in the midst of the kindly and endearing influences of the homes of childhood, an early impress and direction were given to future destiny.

* Part of the Annual Report of the Board of Education of the Presbyterian Church, for 1851.

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