precludes them from the necessity of toil, and, not unfrequently, luxury and idle pastimes unfit them for study. They have attendants to dress and undress them, to prepare their food, collect their rents, spend their money-in a word, to think for them and act for them in almost everything. It is the servant, the labourer, the operative, that wants so much learning. He needs an acquaintance with all the elements of bodies, and should understand all the mechanical powers. These, in some form or other, are the tools or materials with which he is always at work. The wife or the servant-maid also has often more need of this knowledge than the other sex. She has, perhaps, to nurse the young scion of nobility, to ventilate his room, wash his body and his clothes, cook his food, and teach his infant mind to think. In the capacity of the president of the poor man's family, the recipient of his wages, the guide of his children, and the solace of his toil, what a large fund of knowledge is needed by the peasant's daughter before she can serve her "generation according to the will of God?" Why should the horse have a scientific groom, and the child be turned over to the pupilage of an ignorant domestic? Why should everything be trained well but man, and especially the working man, on whose labour, intelligence, and morality the whole prosperity of the world rests?

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Besides, are the wonders of nature and providence revealed for the edification of the rich only? Is the Father of Mercies careless about the education of his poorer sons and daughters? Are his attachments guided solely by mammon? Has he doomed any to ignorance or crime because they are poor? We know he has not. The heavens display their glory, and the earth its beauty, as much for the instruction of the peasant as the prince. One of the parting commands of the Saviour, before he went to heaven, "Make disciples of all nations." We must have the people instructed, not only in the arts and sciences, but in the great principles of civil and political economy. Many stand aghast at the idea of teaching the people politics; but the matter is no longer optional. If they are not taught in the right way, there are thousands who will lead them wrong. The press is free, and it would be madness to fetter it. Errors are not destroyed by being repressed. Let them be uttered, and then they can be confuted, and consigned to infamy and reprobation. Almost every newspaper has its political creed, and nearly every agitator his nostrum. Shall we imprison the demagogue, or send a body of policemen to stop the journal? This display of physical power would in an equal degree demonstrate our moral weakness. Surely there are first principles of equity in civil and political science, as in all other questions of right and wrong: let the

people be educated in these and sedition will labour in vain. Already much has been effected in this way. Perhaps there is not a nation on earth more disposed to complain of her wrongs than the British; and yet we are the most peaceable of all citizens. If half the suspicions of the French, Prussians, and Russians are well founded, there are disaffected things published every week in our newspapers quite sufficient to overturn all those thrones together; and yet, notwithstanding all, the British empire is the most compact and secure of all the kingdoms of Christendom. The fact that the people can tell their grievances and, if well authenticated, can by patience and perseverance have them redressed, inspires that hope which is unfavourable to violence; and the faith which the Government has in the equitable principles of the most influential portion of the nation, enables it to remain undisturbed amidst the publication of sentiments which would convulse France and Germany to the centre. Why should not all the people be well versed in their civil and political rights and duties, and the laws by which, according to the constitution, they ought to be governed? Were this done, what is wrong would be reformed, and what is right would be protected, not by the swords, for they would not be needed, but by loyal affections of all classes of the community. Hence, in politics as in religion, "wisdom and knowledge are the stability of the times."

Lastly, education must comprehend religion, or it will be but of little value. No nation can be great without being moral; and no nation can be truly moral without being religious. The Greeks and Romans had among them the reading and writing qualification, but numbers of those who possessed it were among the most abandoned of mankind. In many parts of Europe there is a large store of learning, although but little morality or pure religion. Some of the monarchs of Christendom are both mentally and morally in a most degraded condition. Any man with but a very small portion of humanity about him would, were there no other alternative, ten thousand times rather be a slave himself, than be the king or emperor of slaves. Yet there are some myriads whose highest ambition would be gratified were they only permitted to reign over a mass of servile, obsequious sycophants. And most of these persons are individuals who can read and write, and are well versed in politeness and the fine arts. We have abundance of evidence that every crime of savage life and barbarous times can be committed under the softened name of civilization and Christianity. Europe is as much plundered now as when overrun by the Goths; and there is probably as much Sabbath-breaking, sensuality, irreligion, and idolatry now as then. Only all is done now under the sanc

timonious garbs of legislation and religion. Satan is transformed into "an angel of light." All this is the result of a spurious education and spurious religion. God's people are still but "a little flock;" and many of these are not as faithful to their principles, nor as zealous in promulgating them, as they ought to be. The leaven of the Gospel should be deposited in every heart, and especially in the hearts of the young. Hence our schools must become schools of religion, and Christianity must be taught in the day-school as well as on the Sabbath. Religion must be made an every-day business; it must enter into everything, and must sanctify every pursuit. This would be no obstruction to secular learning, because every branch of the latter has some bearing on the moral and religious character of man. Indeed, the Bible has consecrated nearly every art and science, by borrowing from them so many illustrations of her truths,or employing them so largely in her service. The mere student of revelation finds himself prompted to study almost every other subject, that he may more fully comprehend the Word of God. In fact, without a large degree of secular learning, he finds himself like a man endeavouring to get at a rich mine, but destitute of any other tools than his fingers. We must, then, unite the secular and the religious, the religious and the secular; for until this is done we cannot have a religious world.

The Christianity taught should be that of the Bible. We must go back to first principles; and there are none like those which came from heaven, and are written by the finger of God in the Sacred Volume. There is a spurious Christianity spread over a great part of Christendom, which differs little from Paganism except in name. Discerning men cannot see in what it surpasses heathenism, except that it employs schools, priests, and legislators, instead of swords and staves, to plunder and enslave the people. Papists get their indulgence from the Pope; but there are modern Protestants who go a great deal further. In the sacred name of the Eternal Himself they license men to be wicked, and confirm them in their immorality, for the indulgence is granted for life. It has been thought by many reflecting minds, that the Protestanism of Germany is, taken as a whole, far more immoral and irreligious than Popery; and we need not say what a mockery of common sense it is, to call many of the most flaming Protestants of England Christian, or even moral men. The very name of religion is become offensive to thousands; and infidels borrow the most cogent arguments for their scepticism from the lives of irreligious Protestants. Some think it is time the name Protestant was abandoned, and that, should Puseyites consign it to oblivion they will do a good work.

The world stands in need of neither Popery nor Protestantism, but it wants the pure religion of the Scriptures; it asks for evangelical piety, for unadulterated Christianity. Give it "the sincere milk of the Word, and it will grow thereby." Nourished on this spiritual food, the soul arrives at maturity. He who follows the Bible must be great and Godlike, because every doctrine, every fact, every precept, every prediction, every promise, and every threatening of his religion is Divine. The character of God, as given in the Scriptures, is perfect, and exactly accords with what nature and providence would suggest. When we see a finished painting, or statue, or a magnificent mansion, we form some idea of the illustrious artists from whom they spring. We read the mental and moral attributes of Shakspeare and Milton in their immortal verse so God is seen in His works and in His Word. He is great and good in creation; the same perfections appear resplendent in providence, but most glorious of all in redemption. This great character is especially exhibited to us in Jesus Christ. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," said the Son of God. This character is now fully unfolded to us in the Sacred Volume. We always learn more of a great personage from his biography than from seeing and conversing with him. The New Testament contains the biography of Him "who is the brightness of His Father's glory, and express image of His person." It is so written that a child may understand it. And this adorable being is the Creator of all, the Preserver of all, the Redeemer of all, and the Judge of all. He died in our stead; "He rose again for our justification," or, to make us righteous, in every sense of the word; He is our Mediator at the right hand of God; and He must be our example, or we cannot be saved. In the Scriptural character of God, then, we have truths which, when received into the human mind, and reduced to practice, must purify the heart and elevate the character. These are the sentiments that must be taught to the young; we must bring them pure from the Sacred Volume, and implant them in the infant mind, and then, in the noblest sense of the word, we shall educate the people. Teach them to be the followers and imitators of Jesus Christ, and they must arrive at perfection. Nor is the effect of such tuition doubtful, because we have the promise of the Holy Spirit, to render our instructions effectual to salvation. In other religions, whether ancient or modern, there was no great and holy God as the object of worship. Their divinities are mean and worthless characters. If the people imitated their gods, they became base, sensual, and malignant. The Greek and Roman of ancient days, and the Chinese,

the Bible, the plain grammatical sense of the Scriptures, respecting God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, man, sin, salvation, morality, and eternity, and then our children will be imbued with an orthodoxy from which no believer can dissent; and our instruction will do more than has ever yet been done, to bring about the reign of universal love. The Tract Society, by adopting no creed but the Scriptures, has done wonders. It has exhibited the rare sight of orthodoxy and charity hand in hand. The British School Society has laboured in the same course. It recognises no creed, no catechism, but that which came down from heaven, and therefore is worthy of the support of every genuine Christian, and is doing much to destroy sectarianism, and hasten the dominion of pure, unadulterated, unfeigned benevolence.

"Love," says the Apostle, "is the bond of perfectness;" its sacred obligations, or bonds, would restrain from every injury and constrain us to everything virtuous and benevolent, and thus would perfectly blend all nations into one philanthropic family. Our Lord intimates, that obedience to this His new command will afford the world the most influential demonstration it has ever yet had of the Divinity of His mission, and of our relation to Him as our Teacher. "Hereby shall all men know that ye are my scholars, if ye have love one to another." Miracles were local and limited; prophecy, as a proof of inspiration, is not understood by all; but he who imitates the love of the Son of God affords an evidence of the Divinity of his religion which "all men" can understand and no one controvert. At all our diversified creeds and orthodoxy, infidels laugh, and Jews blaspheme, but the boldest unbeliever dares not doubt the perfection of love. This "Tλnpwμa, fulness or perfection of law, is to be the Tλnpwua, fulness or perfection of the Gentiles," which, when it "is come," shall be too powerful for the "blindness of Israel," and the Jew, the Turk, and the infidel shall submit to the cross, vanquished by love. The Saviour's parting command, "Make disciples of all nations," is only another word for "Make all the human family love one another;" for He tells us they are all to be known

as

"His scholars" by this characteristic. France and Prussia have not as yet admitted this Divine science and discipline into their schools; and they exhibit the sad spectacle of literature and philosophy separated from morality and religion; and their people, never taught to love one another, must be watched by policemen; and they know so little of that "charity which thinketh no evil," that they suspect every one, and have converted themselves into nations of soldiers, and have actually gone back to the barbarism of which Thucydides speaks, when he tells us that every Greek, for fear of being robbed

or massacred, was compelled to carry arms. Such is the effect of education without practical Christianity. On the other hand, we find that Wesley and others could actually civilize and moralize the people even without the aid of day-schools or letters. The Cornish miner is taught to love God and his neighbour, and having learnt that lesson, the office of policeman and constable becomes a sinecure. Men educated in love do not want weapons of defence. Arm the nations with love, and they will need no other arms; but will instantly "beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war any more." Let us then unite letters, science, and love together in our systems of education, and our schools will then be perfect, and will, as a consequence, perfect the human family.

11. We must have teachers. And it is evident, from what has just been said, that if the tuition, to be perfect, must be literary, scientific, and religious, then all these qualifications should be possessed by the teachers. We have had enough of unlettered, unscientific, and irreligious instructors of the young. Many have had learning without religion, and many have had religion without learning; but the combination and practical application of the two have not been common. Many good people have thought it unnecessary to associate Christian instruction with the routine of daily tuition, and the Lord Jesus, the great teacher of all, has been excluded from their schools; on the other hand, many have imagined that if they taught their own peculiar form of religion they have taught enough, and have cared little for letters; forgetting that the purest religion is neither literature nor science, and that a man may know right from wrong, and yet be a clown. We all admit that morality is better than letters; but then there is no reason why the religious man should be unlettered. The more learning and science he has, the better will he understand his creed, the more comprehensive will be his faith, the more polished will be his manners, and the more qualified will he be to defend and promulgate his sentiments.

For the ministry of the word three qualifications are absolutely necessary, and these are piety, talent, and learning; and the very same excellencies and gifts are just as requisite for the instructors of the young; nor without them is it possible to educate the people.

1. The teacher of youth should not only be pious, but eminently pious. He should be a bright example of that benevolence which he has to teach. He ought to know what repentance, faith, and love are, from actual experience; and his life ought to command the respect of all the children