ence and growth, to the ignorance, superstition, and wickedness of the professed followers of Jesus Christ. To believe that God sent his Son from heaven to institute such mockeries of everthing "holy, just, and good," would require more miracles than have ever yet been wrought. A correct and faithful history of the superstitions which exist at this day in the various countries of Christendom would leave us but little room to deride the religious vagaries of the heathen. of absurd means, can produce perverted minds, much more easily can believers, by Scriptural training, elicit enlightened and rational consciences. This subject is one of the greatest importance, because it shows us that men may be conscientious in error, unbelief, and even crime. The human being, who is taught that Christianity is the great delusion; that the Bible is a book that sanctions all kinds of tyranny, oppression, cruelty, and blood; that the whole is the crafty invention of a designing priesthood, intended to pervert men's minds and enslave the world, has, we have no doubt, a very conscientious objection to the Scriptures, and indeed ought to oppose them as long as such is his creed. The Apostle Paul was a most conscientious persecutor of the saints. "I verily thought with myself," says he, "that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, which thing I also did." It was a perverted conscience that constrained him "to breathe out threatening and slaughter against all who called on the name of the Lord Jesus." In all his "havoc of the church" he thought he was "doing God service." And he tells us that he did all "in ignorance," and consequently in "unbelief." The history of Saul of Tarsus is a fine commentary on the vicious education of conscience, and the mode of curing it. For the miraculous part of his conversion did not supersede the necessity of tuition. Indeed, every word uttered by the Saviour, or Ananias. and all the knowledge he obtained in Arabia, or by revelation, was education. Shutting men up in dungeons is neither the way to correct perverted consciences, nor to call forth rational ones; the only remedy is conviction, and the only means of producing conviction is by the impartation of Scriptural knowledge. If man can be misled, he can also be guided aright. All the weak, polluted consciences which are in the world have been produced by education, and therefore in the scrupulous exactness of the superstitious we have a striking example of what a conscientious being man may become under proper tuition. But to accomplish this, every mind must be trained in the right way, and God's law of love must be the guide of every conscience. We have seen that the conscience must have some rule to go by; and what rule can equal the mild and benevolent principles of the Gospel? But then these will never be written on the heart, unless human means are adopted to accomplish this truly great and glorious object. We have been at immense pains to awaken every kind of conscience but the right one. We have produced consciences the most opposite to each other. We have baptist and pædobaptist consciences; Calvinistic and Arminian consciences; episcopalian and dissenting consciences; trinitarian and unitarian consciences; antinomian and superstitious consciences; credulous and sceptical consciences; Christian and infidel consciences. And if we turn to other countries we see a still greater variety of the most opposite consciences, all of them proving that man has a conscience; that he may be made a strictly conscientious being; We do not argue for the innocence of but that the direction which his conscience error, nor plead that a perverted conscience may take depends, in a very great degree, is guiltless because it is conscientious. upon education. There was this contra- little consideration would show that the reriety of conscience in the days of the Apos- verse is the fact. If the majority of mankind tle. "One man esteemed one day above do not form their creeds, yet they are active another; another esteemed every day alike." in adopting them, and have, in many cases, "One believed that he might eat all things; opportunities for examining their claims. another, who was weak, ate nothing but The worshippers of idols, who have not the herbs." Robert Owen once boasted at a light of revelation, might, if they would empublic meeting that he could produce every ploy their minds, "discover" the invisible description of conscience. That by confin- things of God, which may be clearly seen ing the pupil, man, to Mohammedan doctrine from the creation of the world, and underalone, and excluding all other, he would call stood from the things that are made-even forth a Mohammedan conscience; and that, his eternal power and Godhead-so that under equally appropriate means, he could, they are without excuse. Mind is mind, to use his own words, "manufacture" Hin- and has all the essential attributes of mind doo, Catholic, Protestant, or Socialist con- even in a heathenish state. The Apostle Paul sciences. The boast was doubtless rather does not plead for the innocency of his perbold, but was more so in sound than in any-secutions because he was ignorant and conthing else, and certainly ought not to have created any alarm in the breasts of Christians; because if Mr. Owen, by the adoption A scientious. He rather calls himself "the chief of sinners" for what he did. He had from the time he first heard of Christ all the means of investigation at his disposal, and could have examined his claims to the Messiahship; and in neglecting to do so, had, by his own act and deed, shut himself up in ignorance. The remarks that infidels make about Christianity not unfrequently show that they are as ignorant of the genius of the Gospel as Hottentots; but then they are wilfully ignorant, for they have at command all necessary information, and therefore their unbelief, however conscientious, is culpable. It is a remarkable fact, that none of the opponents of the Gospel of Jesus Christ have ever understood what Christianity really is. This speaks volumes in favour of our religion. It intimates that a correct understanding of its truths is inseparable from conversion. "Father, forgive them," said the Saviour, "they know not what they do." If they had not been guilty, why pray, Father, forgive them." They were ignorant, and yet guilty. The crucifixion and its attendant barbarities were the results of ignorance-wilful ignorance in many cases, but still it was ignorance. Had they "known him, they would not have crucified the Lord of life and glory." Knowledge and salvation are intimately connected together. "This is life eternal, to know the thee only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." But if persons of a weak, misguided, or seared conscience are not guiltless, the church is not innocent in allowing such a perversion and corruption of one of the noblest faculties of the soul to be fostered, or to remain without correction. In the Scriptures and the promised influence of the Holy Spirit, we have all the resources necessary to banish unbelief, irreligion, and superstition from the whole world. The Gospel is adapted to enlighten and direct every conscience. The Scriptures point out all the relations we sustain to God, to ourselves, and the whole human family; they also distinctly exhibit our powers and capacities for doing good or evil; they give us the most minute direction concerning right and wrong; they illustrate these truths in the fullest, most simple, and interesting manner; they promise us all the assistance we need, and hold out the most inviting rewards. "What could Jehovah have done more" for the education of conscience than he has done? The conscience under the influence of Scriptural tuition is tremblingly alive to all the relations, capabilities, and obligations of the soul. Its sense of duty is enlightened, pure, disinterested, and benevolent; and therefore perfect. The highest aim of education should be to make mankind—all mankind, of every age, rank, sex, and country-" perfect as to the conscience :" this accomplished, we have the millennium. We have not done this as yet, and have hardly tried to do it. Many of the means adopted have intimated that we have not understood our work. What effectual me thods have yet been used to give a tender conscience to the base characters that infest the streets of our large towns and cities, and crowd our alehouses and country gaols? All these degenerate individuals were born with consciences as capable of being directed aright as the conscience of the holiest man of God that ever lived, and their present defiled and seared state is the consequence of neglect. Examine them, and there are few of them who truly understand what real Christianity is, and those who have received some imperfect knowledge of the Gospel have been exposed to the vicious influence and example of the ungodly; and the motives held out by sin have been stronger that those afforded by the church. Christianity is to become an object of attraction to the whole family of mankind. Every household is to be "blessed in Abraham's seed." In nature we cannot tell what gravitation is, we see the effect, but not the cause; but in attracting souls to the Cross the agency is evident; the power to be employed is knowledge, and the medium of this influence, the people of God. Until believers shall exert themselves to extend the knowledge of the Gospel, "the minds and consciences" of the children of men must be "defiled." And as every infant is born with a conscience, and that conscience an observant, sensitive, docile, imitative thing, Scriptural instruction should commence at the cradle. "Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," is one of the most humane and philosophical educational precepts that was ever delivered. We have in the word of God "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there is any virtue or any praise in them ;" and the mind early taught "to think on these things," is nursed "in the wisdom which is from above, and is pure, peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy." CHAPTER III. Man was made to be educated : shown, 1. From the powers of the mind. 2. The teachableness of the mind. 3 Our dependence upon knowledge. 4. Character formed by our opinions. 5. Our Creator has furnished us with all the means of gaining correct opinions. 6. God has commanded that the people should be educated. 7. He has granted his blessing to the labours of those who have educated the young aright. 8 It is the will of God that the whole human family should be thoroughly educated. 9. The education of woman demands more attention than has generally been supposed. 10. The influence of speech an additional proof that the mind should be properly trained. 11. Man is intended to be a reader, or his education could not be matured. 12. Man is to live for ever, and his condition is dependent on his education in this world. In the last chapter we gave some account of the essential powers of the human mind, with the design of showing that these have not as yet been generally understood nor duly trained. It is the object of the argu. ments which are to be advanced in this section of the essay, to prove that our Creator intended that the human soul should be educated; and therefore, that in neglecting this important work, we are omitting a most imperative duty which we owe both to God and man. 1. The character of the powers of the human mind show us that they were intended to be instructed and called forth by proper discipline. We have seen that all human beings have a craving for knowledge, that the mind is beautifully formed for the reception and retention of ideas, that the soul makes various uses of its thoughts, and indeed, that every contrivance, every affection, and every action may be traced to this source. In fact, we have in the properties and powers of the mind a most extensive apparatus for knowing, feeling, and acting. Why have we such a natural thirst for knowledge, but that we should obtain general information? And why have we the organs of sense, but as so many material instruments through which the mind may survey the external world, and may store itself with ideas? We very readily conclude that the appetite for food, and the organs for receiving and digesting it, are intimations that God intended that we should eat and drink, and "grow thereby." What if any one told us that the desire of food ought never to be heeded, that the teeth were not made for mastication, nor the stomach and duodenum for the assimilation of what we eat,—we should deem such an individual too blind to perceive the evident designs of Providence in the structures of our frames, and so cruel as to wish us to be tantalized with hunger, and starved to death. But there is not more evidence that the bodily functions alluded to were given us for the sustaining of life, than that the desire of the soul after knowledge, and its capacity for obtaining it and using it, were intended by the Creator to be gratified; and therefore to neglect to supply the mind of every human being with all useful information, is to disregard one of the most evident intimations of the divine will. We have seen also that mankind cannot live in this world without gaining ideas. Unless we can stop up all the senses, the soul will obtain some kind of knowledge through them. If it cannot have what is correct, it will lay hold of what is incorrect; if it cannot procure food, it will feast upon poison. We must therefore have a well educated or an ill-educated people. We have likewise shown that the mind not only receives ideas, but uses them. We cannot prevent persons from thinking. Every individual thinks, and this thinking is selfeducation. How often we perceive that children, to obtain some gratification, have been most actively employing their reasoning and imaginative powers. Sometimes the plot has been very deep laid, and we have been astounded at their ingenuity and invention. Now all this was mind; the working of a mighty principle, inviting us to train it aright, and assuring us that unless we do so it will go wrong. All wickedness proceeds from mind; crimes are the inventions of the soul. Cain had murdered his brother in thought long before his hand was lifted against him, the deed was only a development of the thought or the plan. The hatred, the envy, the passion that inflamed him and prompted him to take away life, were all the result of his own cogitation. The same may be said of the deeds of mankind generally. Every human being employs his mind in imagining, in reasoning, in inventing, in forming his passions and affections, and in guiding his actions. Thought, once called into being, must be active and think for ever. It is said that matter, when it has received an impetus, can never stop unless it is stopped. The heavenly bodies are in this condition. The planets and comets cannot alter their course or their velocity, and would produce strange havoc in the universe, were it not that by means of centripetal and centrifugal forces they are restrained within their orbits. The soul of man, as a thinking principle, is set in motion; its momentum is incalculable, it must think and act for ever; left to itself, it can become most awfully precipitate and reckless, and therefore is made to be disciplined by wisdom. 2. The docility of the mind proves that God intended it to be educated. It is not very uncommon to hear persons speak of the intractableness of the human soul; but it should be remembered, that this unruliness is not natural, but acquired. It is rather a habit than an original disposition. For ex ample, a child left to himself, acquires the habit of following his own inclinations and of never being subject to any one. As he gets older, this feeling increases, it grows every day, and at length becomes so strong as to be ungovernable. Such an individual is headstrong, is stiff-necked, and hardhearted; but then it would be little short of blasphemy to charge God or nature with his untractableness. He is unwilling to be governed because he has never been subjected to discipline. It is said that use is second nature; but some mistake habits acquired by use for nature itself, and thus attempt to throw the guilt of their actions on some original defect in their constitution. Sin, as mentioned before, is an effect, and not a natural defect, and man himself is the agent who produces it. Persons habituate themselves to indolence, to indulge evil passions, to gratify their appetites, to covet every thing, perhaps, that is vile, and then it becomes difficult to give up these practices, and yield to wholesome discipline. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil." Here there is great emphasis laid upon custom, or habit, as presenting the greatest obstacle in the way of all improvement. But even this opposition to one kind of tuition or guidance, not unfrequently arises from the fact that the soul is entirely led and subjugated by an opposite influence; and therefore its untractableness to the one shows its devotedness to the other, and consequently proves its natural docility. We do not expect bodies to move when acted upon by contrary and opposing forces, especially when equal but this does not prove that matter is incapable of motion. It would be vain for us to attempt to change the course or alter the velocity of the planets, but our inability to influence or to move them does not prove them incapable of motion; rather, the exact regularity of their movements is one of the most striking evidences of their entire subjection to the will of God. So there may be minds which it would be difficult to train or persuade, but this does not arise from any natural unfitness for discipline; it only proves that they are already under the influence of thoughts more operative than any that we can suggest. They receive an impetus from within, appetite and passion tyrannize over them, and are precipitating them to perdition. Still their obseqiousness to vice shows that they were capable of tuition. Every mind is naturally tractable. The soul is the most plastic thing in the world. The children of savages are savage, of barbarians are barbarian, of Mohammedans are Mohammedans, of pagans are pagans, of Jews are Jews, and of Christians are, for the most part, Christians in creed and name, and would be so in reality if as much care and as appropriate means were employed to make them the sincere followers of Jesus Christ as the Mohammedan takes to render his offspring the disciples of the false prophet. Conversion from one creed to another is an additional proof of the docility of the mind, because this change, to be sincere, must be effected by knowledge alone. But if the soul were altogether intractable, you could never overcome its political or religious prejudices or convictions. We also see in all the trades, arts, and professions which are learnt, the docility of the mind. To excel in many of them requires the closest attention and even years of practice; and yet there is nothing difficult which can be learnt, but we find many persons who devote all their powers to its acquisition. What examples of the teachableness of man we have in the almost perfect evolutions and marches of the soldiers of all ages and countries. The fixed stereotype character of the Chinese is another proof of the same capacity. And what is thus true of the Chinese on a large scale, is almost equally evident in every small family. Parents either give an impress to their children themselves, or allow others to do so, and their offspring often become, mentally and morally, the counterparts of themselves. is to this docility that nations owe those features which constitute what is called national character. With all these facts before us, we have the most satisfactory evidence of the tractableness of the mind, and that God intended it to be educated. lt There seems also to be hardly any limit to this capacity. Some of the animals have considerable powers of imitation, and are capable of being disciplined to a small extent; still their susceptibility of tuition is very restricted; but man seems to be a kind of Proteus, and able to assume almost any intellectual form. His mind already has been cast into so many myriads of moulds, that it would be a difficult task to calculate the varieties of character that he has exhibited, and what he may yet become we cannot tell. The apostle John had his eye on this mental plasticity when he said, "It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." It required no common degree of faith in the docility of mind to be able to indulge such an anticipation as this. tles seem to have had great faith in this teachableness of the soul. Hence, Peter exhorts us to be "holy as God is holy." James commands us to be perfect and entire ;" and Paul proposes to "present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." In allusion to this same capacity, the Saviour has said, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." And he had his thoughts fixed on this apti All the apos tude of human nature, when he gave the | nomy; of vice and virtue; and all, to a great commission, "Go ye, therefore, and make disciples, or scholars, of all nations." It is of the utmost importance that we should encourage enlarged views of the talents and susceptibilities of the spirit of man; because, until we do this we shall not be qualified to undertake his tuition; for, on the one hand, we shall entertain disparaging thoughts of the minds we propose to educate, and, on the other, we shall not employ adequate means to accomplish our task, and shall be very likely to sit down in despair. extent, the result of education. For, as hinted above, the soul comes into this world without any predilection for savage or civilized customs, and therefore, if brought up in gluttony, filth, rudeness, and vice, it will be an apt pupil, and conform itself to its lot. On the other hand, we have the highest authority in the universe for asserting that the child, if "trained in the way it should go, will not depart from it." To show us what human beings may be made, we have the ignorant woman in the coal-pit and the refined lady in the palace. Neither of these is in a natural state, but each character is an effect, and an effect of education. The women that build the Indian wigwams are architects, as well as the scientific projectors of our most elegant and commodious mansions; and had their circumstances been changed, Sir Christopher Wren might have been a constructor of mud huts, and the barbarian the builder of St. Paul's. Those who talk of mankind in a natural state, seem to forget that it is the nature of the mind to be plastic, and that children cannot be associated with parents and others without sympathy, and imbibing a large portion of their principles. How a human being would act, if allowed to grow up in a perfectly isolated state, we cannot tell, nor is it worth while to speculate; because few, if any, will be left in such a condition. We have to do with man in his associated ca 3. Man is altogether dependent upon knowledge and tuition. The instincts of animals are perfect; they do without observation and without instruction what the human soul could not accomplish without a very long course of theoretic and practical discipline. What skill is displayed in the construction of the nests of birds, and the various examples we have of insect architecture! It would require more mathematical knowledge than most youths at sixteen possess, to conceive the cell of the honey-bee; and then, when the theory was understood, it would demand a long period to arrive at the practice. In fact, the chemistry, the mathematics, and the architecture of these industrious insects are beyond our reach; and yet the infant bee, as soon as it can fly abroad. is able to accomplish the whole affair as well as any old veteran in the hive. Myriads of specimens of the in-pacity, and in that state we know that his stinctive skill of animals might be adduced. character will, to a great degree, correspond Their cleanliness also, their care of their to his training. health, their industry, their economy, and affection for their offspring, might all be brought forward to show that they are born perfect. Not so man; he is, at his birth, the most helpless being in the world. What constant attention is necessary to keep his body in a decent and healthy condition! What a wasteful being he will become if left to himself! Nearly all the savages are extravagant; they gorge themselves almost to suffocation, and then have to starve for days together. The American Indians knew little of the fertility of their soil, or the valuable productions of their country, until Europeans came among them. Their huts were of the rudest structure, destitute of a window or a chimney. But we need not go out of England for examples of the want of cleanliness, of economy, of attention to health, or mental improvement. In this scientific and religious country, the ignorance of a large mass of the people is truly appalling. Not that the men or women want minds or capacities, but because they stand in need of instruction and direction. We have among us the extremes of poverty and wealth; of ignorance and knowledge; of barbarity and benevolence; of rudeness and refinement; of extravagance and eco It may be objected, that many pious and intelligent parents have children the reverse of themselves, both in intellect and morality, and that therefore, in the remarks above, we are attributing too much to educational influence. But it seems to be forgotten that in these exceptions the parents have failed to make their offspring the counterparts of themselves, not from any natural inaptitude in their children, but from the inadequacy of the means they have adopted, and the contrary influences which have been allowed to bear upon the minds of their sons and their daughters. The nurse-maids, the companions, the books, and all the other associations have been at work in forming the characters of these young people; and, probably, were we duly to investigate all the circumstances of the case, we should find that nothing has been brought to bear with so little practical effect on their hearts as the intelligence of their fathers and mothers. Education has been delegated to others, and, though failing to produce the result desired, has exactly accomplished what might have been rationally expected. The fact is, the turnip and the harvest field, the factory, the street, the domestic hearth, are all schools for the minds of those who are exposed to |