lects and limbs, they are only like so many great children moving about in a gocart, under the superintendance of state nurse-maids. The myriads of government functionaries that swarm in most of the continental states, and seem to abound most where there are the most schools, are the best evidences we can have of the inefficiency of the national training of those countries. Sheep, horses, and bullocks must be restrained from trespass by hedges and walls; tamed lions must have keepers and iron cells; and where is the difference between these domestic animals, or domiciled wild beasts, and the socialist whose morality must be protected by the stone wall of his community, and the enslaved citizen, whose every step must be superintended by an inspector of police. Children unable to move about without leading strings can hardly be said to walk. The young lady who cannot be trusted without her governess, and the youth who must not be allowed to go from home without the presence of a tutor, are, after all, little better than animals in a menagerie; very harmless, provided they have their chains and their keepers. These remarks almost amount to a digression, but still they bear most emphatically on the subject in hand. It is to be feared that education, as yet, is but very imperfectly understood. Reading and writing, arithmetic, singing, grammar, and geography may all be taught, and yet the mind remain in the worst state of intellectual thraldom. Until an individual can think and act for himself, he is uneducated. It may be said, that in every condition man must be subjected to law and government. We grant that there is a wide difference between liberty and licentiousness: but then there is also an obvious distinction between the obedience which is enforced by the presence of a policeman, and that which proceeds from the cheerful impulses of a well-regulated mind. The submission of a slave extorted by a whip, is not more dissimilar to that of a seraph, than is the mere military subjection of continental states inferior to that of an enlightened and voluntary citizen. The mind of man was made to be free. There is an inherent activity about it which must not be crushed. It would not be less foolish and unjust to doom men to labour with one eye bound up with a bandage, or one arm suspended in a sling, than it is to limit the investigations of thought or fetter the freedom of the intellect. The design of education is to lead out and direct, in a word, to train the soul "in the way it should go." In the free exercise of the mind there are two especial operations: the one is analysis, or investigation; the other is synthesis, or combination. 1. The mind has a natural propensity to inquire into the nature, origin, and character of things. By means of sensation, perception, and memory, it can collect ideas; but were it endowed with no power of analysis and classification, its resources would be rather a burden than a blessing. We hear of the tradesman being absent at the mart, and soon after he returns we see the large bales of goods lying at his door. Here, perhaps, there is an assemblage of articles of almost every description, packed together without the least order or arrangement; and were they to remain in this state his warehouse would be a chaos. It would be difficult for him to supply his customers, or even to tell the extent of his own stock. To avoid this confusion he unpacks these bales, assorts his goods, and gives to each article a name, a place, and a price. In this illustration we have an example of a well-regulated mind. It employs itself in gaining mental wealth, and then it investigates the nature, character, and value of its acquisitions, and reduces its knowledge to order. Were the mind not endowed with this philosophic or inquisitive spirit, it would not arrive at the knowledge of the truth. In several instances, our senses deceive us, and many things appear just the reverse of what they are. "Judge not according to the outward appearance," is the dictate of divine philosophy. The sun is said to go round the earth, Jupiter and the other planets seem to have a retrograde motion, the dew is thought to fall from heaven, and various other phenomena would lead us astray if we had no higher faculty than that of mere sensation. But God is the God of truth, and he wishes his children to be educated in the truth; and therefore he has endowed us with the powers of investigation, that we may inquire into all things. Respecting his own word, he has given the command, "Search the Scriptures;" and concerning creation and providence, he has said, "Consider the wondrous works of God." has given us three books for our instruction, and he wishes us to inspect them with the most careful attention. Creation is his first revelation, providence is a perpetual manifestation of his care, and the Bible is a written transcript of his mind; and he is anxious that each may be most freely and fully scrutinized. The more we know of his works and word, the more we know of him; and the more he is known the more clearly will his "invisible power and Godhead" be manifest. He gave these books for the use of all his children, and he has endowed every rational being with a disposition and capacity to inquire after the truth. When, therefore, we neglect to train the young to search into nature, providence, and revelation, and deny them an education which would qualify them for such studies, we withhold from them their natural inherit He perly trained and duly occupied, how many servants trouble themselves most inconveniently about the concerns of their masters and neighbours! The vice of "busybodies" is nothing more than the abuse of this philosophic propensity of mankind. The mind must be inquisitive, God intended it to be so; and if we will not allow it to exercise this talent about what is legitimate, then it will employ it about what is vicious. The fact is, we cannot quench the natural energies of the soul; the most we can do is to guide their operations; and as sure as we exclude them from what is right, they will occupy themselves about what is wrong. ance. It is not because they are peasants, | investigations. For the want of being proor mechanics, that this tuition is to be limited. The mind must have right or wrong conceptions of the works of God. It is easier to teach truth than falsehood. It requires no more words to state that "the earth runs round the sun," than that "the sun runs round the earth," a reversion of the sentence is all that is necessary. In all instances, truth is the reverse of error; right is the reverse of wrong, and to teach the one is as easy as to teach the other; or, if there is any difference, the advantage is all on the side of truth and righteousness. And the peasant or operative who is instructed in truth has just as many motives to labour for an honest living, to obey good laws, as he who is educated in falsehood. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that he has ten thousand more inducements, and therefore we are guilty of a most super-structors. We shall presently give some acfluous crime, when, even for sordid reasons, we neglect to cultivate the minds of the great body of the people. The planters of Jamaica were so deeply convinced of the value of intelligence and morality in a negro, that they used to make these qualities marketable commodities. At the very time that some of them were persecuting the missionaries, they made merchandise of the invaluable education which these holy men had given to their slaves: and thus, by a new species of simony, made "a gain of godliness," and sold the virtues of a Christian for dollars. Talk of deteriorating a human being, a labourer, or a mechanic, by teaching him to think, or by encouraging him to investigate the works or the word of God! Far from this, every addition to his intelligence is an immense increase to his sterling value. And not only should the mind be early encouraged to investigate the works and word of God for the purpose of becoming familiar with the divine character, but for other reasons general inquiry should be promoted. The qualities, compositions, and uses of material objects, the structure and growth of vegetables, the organization and habits of animals, the motions of the heavenly bodies, the physiology of the human frame, the properties and powers of the immortal mind, the origin and composition of language, the science of human history and social economy, the influence of good and bad laws, should all be proposed as worthy of deep consideration, and as intimately connected with the improvement of mankind. We know that the mention of so large a course of study may be objected to on account of time. But those who entertain this alarm forget that their servants and labourers are inquisitive by nature, and if we neglect to give a right and profitable direction to their researches, they will employ their minds in useless or injurious We have stated before, that every child is born with a philosophic spirit, and therefore ought to have none but philosophical in count of the intellectual characters of many of the present tutors of the young; and we fear that it will be painfully manifest that numbers are very far from being mentally prepared for their high vocation. By such teachers children are not trained to inquire into truth, nor in any way qualified for this important exercise, and therefore come away from school altogether unprepared to detect the fallacies by which they will be assailed, or to resist the wickedness which will, almost at every step, beset their path. 2. The mind is not only pre-eminently qualified to inquire into phenomena of every kind, and consequently to examine and analyse its own ideas; but it is naturally disposed to make a practical use of its knowledge. There is probably not a single person upon earth but is constantly, during his wakeful hours, turning his mental stores to some account, and employing his thoughts for good or for evil. The drunkard, the glutton, the unchaste, the sceptic, are all concentrating their powers on their favourite pursuits; and they rarely attend on these studies with a divided or distracted mind. Often their abstraction from every thing but the one beloved and idolized object, is perfect. Not unfrequently they exercise all their powers of invention, employ the closest reasoning, and indulge the most vivid imaginations. In a word, their whole soul is devoted to their iniquities. The word sin means an error, a mistake, or a mistaken use of the powers with which our Creator has endowed us. "God made mankind upright, but they have sought out many inventions." "The imagination of the thoughts of men's hearts" before the flood, are said "to have been evil every day." In these texts sin is represented as an invention and imagination. The word rendered "imagination," is from the same root as the Hebrew term for a potter. Now the potter, in all ages, has been looked upon as a skilful artificer. Our pot teries at the present day are among the most interesting schools of art. The mind, in Scripture, is compared to a potter; its power to contrive, invent, and fashion, are incalculable. But then it must be remembered, that in these mental operations it employs its knowledge. Thoughts or ideas are the materials out of which it forms all its conceptions. The potter does not make the clay, he only fashions it: so the soul does not create its ideas; it only combines or gives them a new form. Eve did not call into existence the tree of knowledge; she only employed her imagination about it, and deluded herself at the suggestion of the serpent, with a deceptive fiction. James tells us that desire, or "lust, conceives sin." There is not a sin upon earth but is the conception or fiction of the soul. Properly speaking, sin cannot be born in the soul, because all sin is an action and invention of the mind; it is an error, an 66 apagτnua," a wandering from the mark; but it is as absurd to talk of the soul's going astray before it is capable of thinking and acting, as to suppose that the body can walk before it has the power of using its muscles. In the sinner, then, we see powers desecrated, knowledge misused, and, as a consequence, the character de based. But the mind, to be capable of evil, must also be able, under proper direction and influence, to employ its powers aright. Without choice there can be no virtue; and there can be no choice where there is no freedom. A being incapable of doing what is right is unable to do what is wrong. We never talk of the immoralities of animals, because they are guided by instinct, and not by reason and choice. The poison of the serpent is not a crime; but the venom of a human heart is a human invention, and is therefore a vice. The rage of the lion is not immoral; but the fury of man is a sin, because he can help it. His bad temper, or his revenge, is his own work; the same powers that he employs in malignity, he might exercise philanthropically and benevolently. He is wicked from choice, and therefore is wicked; for without choice he could not be wicked at all. This power to be great and good, as well as to be depraved, is a sentiment that ought to be engraved on every mind from infancy. Many fear that such a mode of tuition would make people proud; but the very reverse of this would be the effect. You cannot convince any individual that he is morally deteriorated until you have proved that he is mentally great. It is not the sense of the want of power, but the consciousness of the abuse of power, that produces real humility. To call mankind very depraved, and then tell them they cannot help it, is both bad philosophy and bad divinity. Human depravity arises from the depravation of the human soul; it is therefore a result of which we ourselves are the guilty authors. It has, we fear, been too common to represent sin as a natural defect, rather than as a moral effect, of which we ourselves are the causes. Not a few who labour, as they say, to humble poor human nature, are guilty tacitly, if not verbally, of making God the author of sin. In fact, to hear some men teach and preach, you would suppose that, after all, mankind are the most passive, innocent creatures in the universe; and that all the evil in the world must be traced to the will of God and the agency of Satan; under such doctrine people become anything but humble or contrite. It would be as rational and scriptural to endeavour to lead a man to repent of being born blind, as to hope to produce penitence by telling persons they are very wicked and cannot help it. The text which asserts that "we are by nature the children of wrath, even as others," merely declares that physically, or animally, we act so as to incur God's indignation. Quis, in that passage, refers to man in a state of nature, left to himself, and without any one to guide him, or any rule to direct him,—or, if he has the advantages of moral training, yet acting as if he had not, and, by "fulfilling the desires of his flesh and his mind," living like an animal, and therefore becoming an object of divine displeasure. The Psalmist says, "Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." He does not say, "Behold I was born a sinner," because a sinner means a sinning being; and as there can be no sinning or erring without going wrong, and as all going wrong supposes action, the soul must act before it can sin. It is one thing to be born in sin, or with an erring nature, and another thing to be born a sinner; the former is the condition of all mankind since the fall, but the latter, in the very nature of things, is impossible. The text might be read, "Behold, I have been polluted with iniquity, and in error' did my mother cherish me." It is strange that any one should be found bold enough to assert that God is the author of sin. As far as the agency in sinning is concerned, no one can be the author of another's crime. One person may invent a sin, and thus be its author; and he may persuade others to reduce his wicked inventions to practice, and thus may instigate his neighbour to sin but the act of sinning which constitutes us sinners must be our own. God neither invented sin nor instigated our first parents or any of their offspring to disobedience, and therefore he is not the author of the fall, nor of any of its subsequent effects. Satan suggested the first sin, but the suggestion was not the agency that plucked the forbidden fruit. It was the woman that sinned. She entertained the suggestion of the father of lies; she mentally expatiated on the foul thought which he communicated to her; she caused her imagination to luxuriate in the prospective advantages of disobedience to God; and "she put forth her hand, and took of the tree, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat." Satan was a sinner for inventing the sin; but the sin of Satan is not the sin of Adam and Eve. The act which constituted them sinners was their own active voluntary agency. The serpent might have preached rebellion until doomsday to the trees or animals of paradise, and would have laboured in vain; because nothing but an immortal mind can invent, or entertain, or practise sin. All iniquity, therefore, is a personal affair, and consists in the soul's misusing or abusing its powers, by wandering from what is right and equitable. Until we have made the people, and especially the young, well acquainted with this power to do good or to do evil, we cannot be said to have educated them. We must show them also that all this is effected by a mental process; that the mind is the agent we employ both in vice and in virtue; and that it must, from its native activity and freedom, exert itself either in accordance with the will of God or the will of Satan. Hitherto much has been said and done to depreciate the powers of the human soul, especially those of the operative and peasant; and this has been done in opposition to the most evident facts. We have perceived in the vices of the ignorant, examples of profound thought, invention, and cunning. We have seen every department of art, science, and learning most honourably filled by persons who have risen, by their own industry, from the ranks of the working classes. We have beheld individuals born in humble life occupying the most important stations in church and state, and gracing these offices by their intelligence and integrity. Even the despised and neglected mind of woman has effected wonders both in the intellectual and moral world; and therefore we have not the least reason for concluding, that naturally there is any mental deficiency about any of the human race. Travellers by their discoveries, and missionaries by the success of their labours, have proved that the negro, the American Indian, and the New Hollander, have minds similar to our own, possessed of the same natural powers, and capable of as much refinement. All we have, therefore, now to do, is properly to employ these facts. We must impress every human mind with the sense of its own dignity, capabilities of good or evil, and consequent responsibility. If we would humble man we must teach him that he is originally great, and prompt him to labour to be as great morally as he is intellectually. By so doing we shall show him his need of God's word and spirit, and, indeed, of all the resources of the Gospel. It is the genius that emulates a Michael Angelo, or a Milton, that becomes conscious of its deficiencies. Meaner spirits never attempt anything great, and therefore never discover how far they fall short of perfection. So in religion, until Christ is made our guide and example, until we try to imitate him, we remain ignorant of our imperfections; and consequently, that which leads to the highest excellence, produces the deepest humility. The daily effort to be like the Redeemer changes us into his "image from glory to glory," while the defects of our obedience | lay us low at the foot of his cross. In these remarks I have confined myself chiefly to the activity of the mind in devising and practising what is evil or what is good, and have shown that every sinful action must originate in sinful thoughts, as every godly action must be the result of pious thoughts. But the mind is not always occupied about what strictly comes under the denomination of religion or irreligion. We use in various other ways our reason, imagination, and invention, and in each of these exercises, and others that might be named, we have examples of the activity of our intellectual nature in using and turning to account its mental resources. Without ideas there could be no imagination, reasoning, or invention; but wherever there is knowledge, there we have ground to believe that these operations are going on, and that they are by no means confined to the sage, the philosopher, or the hoary head. The child and the savage imagine, reason, and invent. It is as natural for the soul to exercise these powers as it is for the pulse to beat or the blood to flow; and the only difference between the barbarian and the man of science, the infant and the hoary head, is that the former have very little correct data with which to work, while the latter have, or, at any rate, ought to have, their minds thoroughly stored with the various resources of truth and experience. But whatever may be the character of his mental wealth, every individual will employ it in some way or other. The savage and the child invent, image, and reason, but then they do so as infants and barbarians. Here then we have a large field for the public teacher to cultivate. To guide the imagination and give it a pure and chaste direction; to conduct the reason of the pupil into the paths of truth, and to call forth his invention, and teach him how to use it for his own good and the benefit of others, is the noblest of all employments. But how little has this been done, and hence how few there are who reason correctly, whose imagination is refined, or who ever properly employ their powers of invention! In most cases the instructors have never had their own minds duly cultivated, and therefore have been altogether incapable of instructing others. And have we as yet made any adequate | profound intellectual genius would differ attempt to call forth and direct these mighty little from a mere statue. Indeed, we deem powers of mind? Do the instructors of it so essential to mind to be sympathetic, youth generally understand the properties that it is difficult for us to conceive of a or the dignity of that immortal being they thinking being incapable of feeling. On undertake to educate? Have statesmen or this point we need not speculate, for we can princes duly estimated the character of that hardly open our eyes or ears without having principle which they propose to govern or abundant examples of almost every kind of enslave? Yea, has the church to this day emotion. At present, however, we are not fully considered the faculties and natural about to enlarge on the various affections operations of that erring spirit which she is which agitate the breasts of mankind, but to called upon to guide into the way of truth? offer a few remarks on their connection with We fear that man is as yet but imperfectly thought, and consequently with education. studied, and therefore, in many instances, It is not unusual to hear persons speak of the attempt to train him has been such a affection and passion as if they were altofailure, that the enemies of knowledge have gether unconnected with thought, and engreatly exulted. Had we proposed to train tirely beyond our control. To ascertain the animals, instead of minds, and after much correctness or incorrectness of this opinion, effort, much expense, and much boasting it is only necessary to examine the emotions had produced, say, a nondescript with a of our own hearts; we thence may learn limb paralysed, an ear stopped, an eye closed, that it is impossible to love or hate, to feel almost every joint distorted, and the whole joy or grief, to be angry, or pleased, without body a mere crawling skeleton, we should thinking. Indeed these affections are nojustly deserve to be held up to derision. thing more than vivid, energetic, or thrilling But such a miserable spectacle would be a thoughts. Take all thought away, and model of perfection compared with the mere every emotion expires. We cannot love caricatures of humanity which have been without having some object to love, nor can protruded upon the world as specimens of we hate unless there is something supposed education; and we cannot hope for a change to be hateful. Our grief consists of grievous for the better, until the human soul shall be thoughts, and our joys of joyful thoughts. more fully understood, and more rational | Our anger, also, is made up entirely of angry means are adopted to call forth and direct thoughts, and our pleasure of pleasurable aright its seraphic powers. If we want to thoughts. Thinking is not the same as know how intellectual, useful, and pious affection, but still there could be no affecevery individual may be, we have only to tion or passion without thinking, or without consult the page of history. We are lite- ideas. How often, also, do we think ourrally surrounded with a "cloud of wit- selves into anger, into pity, into aversion, nesses," all attesting that man is capable of into grief, or into love? Our sympathies and being made morally great: and what these antipathies are the offspring of our own worthies have been, all may be. One ex- minds; and we have reason to believe, that, periment, when crowned with success, in- in these respects, all minds move alike. spires the philosopher with hope; and the The souls of children and of savages are illumination and sanctification of one soul subject to the same laws as our own. The is a full demonstration that others also may affection of parents, and the fury of barbabe enlightened and saved. All the distin- rians, are as much the result of thought as guished spirits that have blessed the world the emotions of a Christian. Probably, were naturally the counterparts of the men bodily constitution may greatly influence and women of the present generation. Even these feelings. One may be highly mercuthe great "Elias was a man subject to like rial, and another naturally phlegmatic, and passions as we are." Prophecy, with the therefore the former will be very excitable, Gospel in its hand, lights up the future his- while the latter will be more difficult to tory of our world with hope; "all things move; but then this corporeal idiosyncrasy shall be created new," and this renovation does not produce our various tempers and is to be the result of making "disciples or emotions, it only modifies their development. scholars of all nations." You cannot make quicksilver angry, nor inspire a post with love or hatred. These passions cannot exist apart from thought. We have reason to believe, also, that there are few thoughts but are associated with some degree of emotion. In fact it is difficult for us to reflect on any subject without having some feeling of like or dislike, of approbation or disapproval. The thermometer at the freezing-point is sixty-six degrees below blood-heat, but it is at the same time thirty-two degrees above zero. Perfect apathy VII. The mind is susceptible of the deepest emotions, yet all these are the results of thought. It would be superfluous to adduce proofs of the sensitiveness of the human mind, or of the affections and passions to which it gives rise. Most of the bright and dark phases of history borrow their complexion from this source, and all that is charming or repulsive in national character, domestic life, or individual conduct, may be traced to this susceptibility. Without this quality, the most |