it would seem, to be allowed to pass without something in the way of antidote, and hence the frequent direct teaching, and constant assumption, that virtue does generally meet its reward in worldly honors and power.

It is doubtless rather a disheartening doctrine, that we must sacrifice this life to obtain a reward in another, but the poison in the antidote employed is worse than any which may lurk in the doctrine itself. Both, indeed, have the same fundamental taint, — the supposition that virtue is a sacrifice which requires a reward out of itself. The one doctrine places the reward in another world, it being considered unattainable here, and perseverance in suffering is enjoined in order not to forfeit it. The other boldly maintains that the reward can be secured on the spot; but it holds up a false and low one, which is not within the control of virtue, and is destructive of virtue if once adopted and looked to as an end. There could be but little difficulty, if reduced to that necessity, in choosing between these two doctrines; for although the one which places the whole reward of virtue in another world may be disheartening, it at least has the merit of fixing the minds of its followers upon a true, inward virtue, as the one which can alone secure the heavenly reward. It does not, like the theory which holds up sensual and temporal gratifications as the reward of growth in spiritual and eternal qualities, tend practically to degrade the view taken of those qualities, and thus to introduce mere appearances in the place of realities. In this tendency lies the difficulty which we wish to expose, which is, that, when we teach the young that by sowing a spiritual seed they can reap a temporal reward, we are in danger of producing the same result as if we should teach them that by sowing a temporal seed they can secure a spiritual return. In each case they would be taught that they can reap where they have not sown, which is false in principle; and in each case the selfish excitements proposed to them, either as an end or as a means, must tend to fill the mind, when once introduced as a proper object of effort. The only practical difference then left would be, that, in the one case, the proposed means (an elevated virtue) not being found to secure the proposed end (wealth and power), would be gradually modified with a view to its assumed end; while in the

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other case, the means proposed, of activity and energy in worldly matters, would be steadily pursued, and be found out, only too late, to be unable to secure the spiritual end.

Let us elucidate our meaning by an example. A child when quite young is capable already of two kinds of excitement and pleasure, those of the body, and those of the affections. When the parent wishes to reward it for being good, he can do so either by giving it a sugar-plum, and thus gratifying its appetite, or by giving it marks, which it well understands, of love and approbation; and as one or the other of these courses is adopted, an early habit is formed of looking for the right or the wrong kind of reward. As the child grows older, the sugar is offered in a greater variety of forms, but still as a reward for the exercise of qualities which have no natural relation to it. The means of gratifying the senses, or the frivolous passions, are constantly proposed by the most conscientious parents, as a reward for growth in charity, honesty, love, and other virtues, which deserve and reap a better one; and thus the early habit of looking for a result which does not naturally flow from these virtues is confirmed, and a sure disappointment and sore trial prepared for the child in after life; and, what is worse, the moral sense is thus deadened, instead of being quickened, from the very cradle upwards.

Perhaps the most objectionable form in which this practice appears is in giving money to children for doing what common good feeling or a sense of duty should prompt them to do; and yet it is by no means. unusual among us for parents to use this kind of bribery with their children, without being aware of its evil tendency. It may be a very good thing to allow young chil dren to earn money, now and then, by exercising those faculties and virtues which tend naturally to secure it, such as industry, perseverance, ingenuity, and the like. Let a boy work and be paid for it; but let the work be such as he is not already bound to perform by a higher motive than the one you offer him. Let him learn be

times the difficulty of getting money by honest labor, whether of the head or the hands, and the consequent importance of economizing it; but let us be careful not to mislead him into the notion that virtue can be bought

and paid for, and that kindness, truth, and obedience attract silver, somewhat as the magnet does iron. This, however, is the necessary tendency of the practice we refer to. When a child is paid money by its parent for doing any common act of duty, the two false and injurious impressions before noticed are made upon its mind; first, that it is the rule of the world that those who do their duty shall be thus rewarded; and secondly, that such is the natural and just reward for doing one's duty. This idea once fixed, it follows, that those who do not receive money or its equivalent for doing right are debarred from their just dues; and from this again consequences the most fatal to all morality are soon drawn, Thus, practically, as well as theoretically, the child is taught to expect and seek for what he cannot find, and to overlook and disregard the inestimable treasures which lie along his path.

Although few can rise to manhood, under such treatment, without having their moral standard lowered, let us, for the sake of illustration, suppose the case of a young man, in whom the moral sense has been planted so deep, by the hand of his Maker, that it has not been materially affected by the false teachings to which he has been subjected. Let us suppose him poor, perhaps with dependent relatives, and launched into the world to make his way as a merchant, a lawyer, or a physician, in competition with a crowd of keen, unscrupulous, and successful men, successful in the way in which he has been taught that he must succeed, and can succeed, by the practice of virtue. He naturally supposes all his prosperous competitors are influenced by the same feelings as himself, and is surprised to find that scrupulous honesty, benevolence, and delicacy of feeling, combined with industry and economy, are not paid high in his case as in theirs. After serving a longer or shorter apprenticeship to Mammon, in this bewildered state, he discovers the real terms of the indenture, and then comes a trial for which he should have had every preparation that education could have given him, but for which he actually has none. He has got to take to pieces and reconstruct his whole system of morals, as regards the questions at issue, and to do it under the greatest press of temptation to be unfaithful to his higher nature. If,

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under these circumstances, he should prove unfaithful, and determine to adopt the means which he finds most sure to attain the end which has been held up to him as the true one, would not the fault be, in great measure, in his education? Had he been told fairly at the outset, that the exercise of the economical virtues would secure him an honest livelihood, but could not be counted on for any thing more; that the world generally pays highest those who sacrifice the most at her shrine; that true success does not consist in making the greatest possible show, either of words or deeds, in the eyes of our fellowmen, but in unfolding as rapidly and perfectly as possible the seeds of those qualities in our nature which we know to be fitted for a higher life; that, as these qualities are developed, they furnish constantly their own reward, and one which has no common measure with the prizes of the world; and finally, that these two kinds of success cannot be commanded by the same means, and are ever incompatible with each other if pursued as ends;we say if all this had been clearly placed before him when young, he might at least have been spared the mockery of expecting results from the exercise of his higher nature which are the legitimate results of activity in his lower nature, and perhaps from the fatal error of erecting the lower into a temporary supremacy over the higher. Nothing, however, of all this was taught him by precept or example, but the reverse of it, and how could he escape, therefore, being either a timeserver, or a disappointed man? Here was his choice, and if he chose the former, surely those who placed him, unnecessarily, in this perilous situation are not without blame.

The case we have supposed is not an uncommon one among us, and the result is evidently produced by the fault in education of which we have been speaking. The youth who is in the habit of looking for an outward reward for obeying his conscience, and fostering his good impulses, will gradually cease to consult the inward monitor as the expected reward fails, which it surely must do as he enters into the business of life.

S. H. P.

ART. III. REFORMS AND REFORMERS.*

WE happened once to hear a discourse addressed to a liberal congregation, on the evils of excessive religious zeal, and, more especially, the mischief of too frequent meetings. The satisfaction which it gave us was very great, until this thought occurred to us:- Is this particular congregation in special danger of falling into these errors? We came to the conclusion, that their erroneous tendencies were in an entirely opposite direction. We have listened to or read with somewhat the same feelings, discourses faithful as they were in their treatment of that branch of their subject-upon the faults, the extravagances, the bad spirit of reformers. We will not positively deny that a shade of similar sentiment has biased us in our treatment of the subject upon which we propose to speak. We shall not, of course, venture even a shade of apology for all that passes under the name of reform in these days. We have quite as great a horror of some of the schemes of self-styled reformers, and of the men themselves, as any of our readers can cherish. Still, in reading or otherwise tracing the history and progress of reforms and reformers,- (we wish we were not obliged to use these particular words, so fraught are they to the minds of reasonable men with unpleasant associations,)-it has seemed to us that, to all having a legitimate claim to the title, a few general principles are applicable. In the endeavour to point these out, we shall speak oftener of the recent past than of the actual present, rather of reformers off the stage than of those now upon it, of what has happened at some short distance from us, than of what has occurred or is occur ing in our immediate vicinity. We choose this method because we think our conclusions will be unaffected by the fact; and because, also, we wish, not only to avoid all remarks of a personal nature, but to base our argument on facts and estimates of character about which there is little diversity of opinion, in a word, upon premises

* 1. Christian Reformer. (Periodical.) CHARLES STEARNS, Editor. Boston B. Marsh. 1850.

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2. Sketches of Reforms and Reformers of Great Britain. By H. B. STANNew York. 1849. 12mo.

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