failed.1 When a child has been brought up in sin and his religious education neglected, when evil ways and evil habits have been formed in him, then is conversion a necessary process, but not in the case of those who have been trained in Christian principles and who have enjoyed the blessings of a Christian example from their earliest years.2

It is one thing for a parent to live among his children,

1"When the Gospel comes to a people that have long sitten in darkness, there may be numerous converts of all ages; but when the Gospel has long been preached in plenty and purity, and ordinances regularly administered, few but those who are called in early life are called at all." "My experience furnishes me with no example of one brought up in ignorance and security, after a long course of profaneness, turning at the close of life to the service of the living God."-(Dr. WITHERSPOON.) “A very judicious and pious writer, Richard Baxter, is of opinion that, in a regular state of the Church, and a tolerable measure of faithfulness and purity in its officers, family instruction and government are the usual means of conversion, public ordinances of edification."-(Ditto.) "It is extraordinary when an evil child becomes a sober, modest youth, or a dissolute youth becomes a religious man. The characters that are cut in the bark, when the tree grows, deeply and visibly remain."-(Dr. Wм. BATES: Christian Perfection.)

2 "To represent conversion as universally necessary to all Christians because it was universally necessary to all men before they became Christians, or because it is necessary to all who, whether through unbelief or impiety, have become apostates, as it were, from the religion which they professed, is a distinguished and fundamental error in the Methodistical creed. Every unbeliever and every sinner, although made by baptism a member of Christ and a child of God, must be, in a certain sense, converted, if he would ultimately succeed to his inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven. But to fancy that every Christian whatever must experience a conversion in order to be in a state of salvation; to assert that 'he who knows no time when he had need of such a vast and mighty change as a change from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, from death unto life, may by this also know, if he gives himself leave to think, that he is not born of the Spirit, that he has never yet known God, but has mistaken the voice of nature for the voice of God' (WESLEY); that in order to a state of salvation, a change of mind, of views, and dispositions must be effected in every person, wherever born, however educated, or of whatever external conduct' (WHITFIELD); this is a conceit which Revelation warrants not, and which reason and experience disclaim." -(Bishop MANT.) "That among men baptised as Christians, taught from their infancy to believe the doctrines and practise the duties of Christianity, a special conversion also, at some period of their life, is necessary to stamp them true Christians, is an unheard of thing in the Gospel, and is plainly a novel innovation of man."-(Bishop RANDOLPH.) "It has been usual to divide all mankind into two classes, the converted and the unconverted; and, by so dividing them, to infer the necessity of conversion to every person whatever. In proposing the subject under this form, we state a distinction, in my opinion, too absolutely; and draw from it a conclusion too universal: because there is a class and description of Christians, who having been piously educated, and having persevered in those pious

believing that they will grow up into righteousness and holiness through the proper use of means; and another and quite a different thing to look upon them as by nature sinners, enemies of God, and servants of Satan.1 If true to his principles, the parent in the latter case cannot feel satisfied with such a state of things; and in consequence sternness, harshness, and gloom too often take the place of love, kindness, and condescension. Instead of cherishing and fostering the budding powers and faculties of the child, a system of repressing and uprooting is not unfrequently practised, which cannot fail to be productive of disastrous results.2 We would have the Christian parent, on the contrary, to believe that in consequence of his union with Christ the seeds of grace are implanted in his children from their courses into which they were first brought, are not conscious to themselves of ever having lost sight of its sanctions; of ever having renounced them; of ever in the general course of their conduct having gone against them. These cannot be properly reckoned either converted or unconverted. They are not converted, for they are not sensible of any such religious alteration having taken place with them at any particular time as can properly be called a conversion. They are not unconverted, because that implies a state of reprobation, and because, if we call upon them to be converted (which, if they be unconverted, we ought to do), they will not well understand what it is we mean them to do, and instead of being edified, they may be both much and unnecessarily disturbed by being so called upon."-(Dr. PALEY: Sermons.)

1"It is one thing to live for a family of children as if they were going possibly to be converted, and a very different to live for them as church members, training them into their holy profession; one thing to have them about as strangers to the covenant of promise, and another to have them about as heirs of the same promise, growing up into it to fulfil the seal of faith already upon them." (Dr. BUSHNELL.) A critic, speaking of Rousseau's "Emilius," says, He may have thought the child too much of an angel; but this was better than the old theory of treating the child as a diabolic imp, that came cursed and blackened from the hand of nature, and required to be beaten or scourged into virtuous whiteness."

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2"One great reason why the children of Christian parents turn out so badly is that they are taken to be of the world, and the manner and spirit of the house are brought down to be of the world too, and partly for their sake." (Dr. BUSHNELL.) "Mr. Woodward has pointed out in one of his essays, how large a proportion of the children of religious parents of the Evangelical (Calvinistic) party turn out ill. The causes may be different in different cases; in some over-strictness may have led to a rebellious reaction; in others over-negligence, leaving all to be done by Divine grace while neglecting means." (Archbishop WHATELY.) "Much of what is called Christian nurture only serves to make the subject of religion odious, and that, as nearly as we can discover, in exact proportion to the amount of religious teaching received."-(Dr. BUSHNELL.)

earliest years, and are to be brought to maturity and perfected by careful training and instruction. Thus, in place of waiting for an uncertain future event which may never, as in the case of multitudes it does never, happen,2 he would set himself earnestly and cheerfully to work, looking confidently for God's blessing upon his endeavours.3

They have a very false notion of religion who view it as something outside of reason and beyond experience, or who see in it anything to supersede human exertion.1 On the

1 A Christain education " is built upon the supposition that the child to be educated has been adopted into the family of God, and made an heir to an eternal inheritance in the kingdom of his heavenly Father."(Mrs. TRIMMER.) "Is there such a connection between the faith and piety of the parent and the faith and piety of the child that when the former are exercised so that their just influence shall be felt, we may calculate upon the latter following by the operation of a Divine law ?. . . . We must conclude that when nothing interferes with its action it must operate so as to make a difference to the constitution of the child in respect to its moral tendencies, whether he be the offspring of depraved or saintly parents."-(Rev. D. THOMAS.) "I believe it is in the power of father and mother to rear the child so that from the earliest period it shall be drawn by the spirit of God."-(H. W. BEECHER.) "If man be born not bad but good, under no curse, but rather the bestower and receiver of many blessings, then the entire atmosphere of young life, in spite of the toil and the peril, is made cheerful with the sunshine and warmth of the great folded possibilities of excellence, happiness, and well doing."—(Prof. MORLEY: Rousseau.) "Richter maintains that we are nearest to God in our infancy, and that hence a child can never be regarded as too young or too innocent. The inner man,' he says, 'is like the Negro, born white, and only coloured black by life.""-(LEVANA.)

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The falsity of this conceit is evident from this, that whereas it makes the great business of eternity to lie in an instantaneous act, the transaction, perhaps, of a day, or an hour, or a sermon, the Holy Scripture quite contrariwise represents it as the business of a man's whole life, and requires that men not only set out well, but that they make a daily and gradual progression towards heaven." (Introduction to a Holy Life.)

866 There may be instances in which Christian parents may seem to have laboured in the work of education in vain, and to have spent their strength for naught. The children for whom they have wept, and prayed, and laboured may have turned a deaf ear to their instructions, and poured contempt upon their admonitions. But how rare are such instances! The want of success is more frequently attributable to the dereliction of duty on the part of the parent than to an incorrigible obstinacy on the part of the child."-(JOSEPH BENSON.)

4" Some profess to be deterred from a religious course by the apprehension that it is not in their power; it is . . . a work which must be wrought in them by a supernatural energy; they must wait till their time has come. But every apology for irreligion founded on reasons like this, is evidently deceptive. It proceeds upon wrong notions respecting the Divine aid imparted to man. That this aid is needed, and is given in the Christian life, is a true and comforting doctrine. But that it is to

contrary, all its benefits are promised to the right and proper use of means.1 So long as religion is looked upon as something out of and beyond ourselves, something over which we have no power or control, and not to be wooed or won by any effort of ours,2 so long will education not occupy its proper place, and not be employed at its proper work. On the contrary, if education is viewed as it ought to beas a divinely instituted means put into our hands for the improvement and regeneration of the race, then will we feel that in making use of it we are using God's instrument and doing God's work.3 If Christians would see it their duty to exert themselves more in the cause of education, and not seek to screen themselves from exertion with ideas of

supersede human exertion, that it is a reason for indolence and religious neglect, is a false and pernicious notion." "We reject the idea that man has nothing to do with his own conversion. Scripture everywhere exhorts us to work out our own salvation, and every principle of reason teaches us that the man who is diligently striving to live a good life is more in the way of duty, and is more likely to receive a blessing, than one who is living listless and careless, even if not openly profane."—(H. WARE: Christian Character.) "Believers are uniformly addressed as if the work of Christian progress were to be done by themselves alone; and in no case is it intimated that they are under no obligation to advance in holiness unless assisted by some higher influence."—(Dr. H. DARLING.)

1"The Holy Scripture always represents to us the way of God's working good in our souls to be by exciting our spirits, by assisting and strengthening our faculties, and by co-operating with us, not by overbearing our capacity, and doing all for us without us."—(Holy Living.) "We are fellow workers with God in the work of our salvation; He gives the substance, we the labour; or rather it is He who gives all, without exception; but He executes his purposes at once by Himself and by us. -(VINET.)

2" We have no right to depend on a supernatural interposition to help us out of difficulties into which we have been thrown by our misconduct, or under distresses into which we have been plunged by our errors." (HANNAH MORE.) "Religion is thus a kind of transcendental matter, which belongs to the outside of life, and has no part in the laws by which life is organized—a miraculous epidemic, a fire-ball shot from the moon, something holy, because it is from God, but so extraordinary, so out of place, that it cannot suffer any vital connection with the ties, and causes, and forms, and habits which constitute the frame of our history."-(Dr. BUSHNELL.)

8" Education-the education of immortal human spirits-is with Him the great work of the great universe; for He who made the worlds and who sustains the worlds gave them that He might accomplish it. And this is the work which He asks you human parents to share with Him, and to make your great aim and object within the little world where you play the God, your home."-(Rev. J. BALDWIN BROWN.) "A rightly directed system of education is a moral power in the universe, second

man's helplessness or the depravity of human nature, the world would soon be better.1

While education is thus a necessary part of religion, religion is not the less a necessary part of education. Man is a religious as well as a thinking and acting being, and this side of his nature requires to be educated as well as any other. Even in his lowest, most ignorant, and blinded condition, we find that man has some object or objects to

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only to that creative energy that formed and sustains in existence its material framework. It is, indeed, a co-operating with the same Divine influence; it is carrying into effect the very laws which the Creator has established for the moral renovation and perfection of the species."(CRAIG: Philosophy of Training.)

1"It is the constitution of nature that such qualities as exalt and dignify human nature are to be acquired by proper exertions. . . By the proper exercise of this gift of God, human nature in individuals and in societies may be exalted to a high degree of dignity and felicity, and the earth become a paradise."-(Dr. THOMAS REID: Active Powers.)

2"To cultivate the religious faculty is a necessary part of a complete education."-(J. A. LANGFORD.) "Like every other power in man, it is capable of growth and cultivation. We can, if we choose, starve and kill it, or we can, by submitting it to its proper discipline, and bringing it into contact with its proper objects, deepen and expand it."--(Prof. SHAIRP: Religion and Culture.)

"Man is a religious animal, if I may use such an expression. He has in him a faculty which no other creature in this world of ours has. He can grasp the idea of God, can entertain the notion of duty, of moral obligation, external or supreme law. He can trust, and hope, and worship, realise the Invisible and address the Unseen; he can stand up and say, 'I believe;' he can kneel down and say, 'Our Father.""-(Rev. T. BINNEY.) "Man is a religious being, not simply because he can indulge religious feelings, but because these feelings form by far the highest and most characteristic parts of his nature, and because, consequently, all his other powers and propensities are modified by these."-(Manual of Conduct.) "The province of education being the cultivation of all our faculties, and the religious sentiment being one of those faculties, it follows that that is not a complete education which neglects this faculty."-(J. A. LANGFORD.) "The full and complete education—that is, the perfect development of the whole nature of a being possessed of this capacity for religion, of course must include the drawing forth and the direction of that capacity. It would be a strange thing to suppose that human education could be complete, however largely every other power and faculty were developed, if that which is supreme and regal-the queen and mistress above all others -were to be left folded up, without any attempt to open and direct it by the sun-light of the truth for which it was made."-(Rev. T. BINNEY.) "I can see a great use and value in the physical sciences to enable a man to maintain himself with less brutal labour, to the end he may have more leisure upon his hands for higher and nobler occupations, and in this respect I greatly admire them as having bowed the stubborn neck of the elements to the spirit of man, and restored him that power over creation with which he was endowed at first. But if he is to be taught