their influence. The natural objects of The soul, then, is a thinking, paintsense, the very food that is eaten, the rai-ing, imaging principle; it will, in spite ment worn, the newspapers, the novels, and indeed all the books read, impart ideas to the mind, and from these ideas the principles are generated. the affections and passions quickened, the actions dictated, and the whole character formed. How dependent, then, is man upon his thoughts and sentiments, and consequently, upon education. What a difference there is between the vine in its wild and in its cultivated state; yet the nature of both is originally the same. Experience has taught us that we cannot have grapes in perfection unless we employ the vinedresser to train and prune this luxuriant plant; and the same experience ought by this time to have convinced us that, before we can have the fruits of intelligence and morality, we must employ the intellectual and Scriptural husbandman. 4. We have seen that man depends upon his ideas and notions for the formation of his character, and that every human being is continually imbibing some kind of sentiments; and hence, if the mind is not imbued with truth, it will be debased by ignorance. It should also be remembered that ignorance is not a mere negation. Knowledge means the correct ideas that we have of truth, or what really exists. It differs from science in nothing but that the latter includes a a deeper and more profound scrutiny into things. Now ignorance does not so much imply a destitution of ideas, as the absence of correct ideas. In algebra, a negative quantity does not mean no quantity at all, but a quantity the very reverse of the positive to which it is opposed. If plus A means ten pounds of property, then minus A means ten pounds of debt; but the minus quantity is as really a calculable sum as the plus. In this case negation does not imply nonentity, but opposition. So the word ignorance is not always used to express negativeness, but "not-knowledge." It is perfectly correct to say that persons are brought up in ignorance, not meaning by that expression that they have no ideas, but that they have few correct ones; and, unfortunately, their false opinions and sentiments may be just as vivid and as operative as correct information would be. The person who imagines that the sun runs round the earth, or that our globe is a plain surface, has just as clear an idea of what he believes as the philosopher who knows that the earth runs round the sun, and is a spherical body. Most of the worshippers of idols have as distinct ideas of the attributes of their false gods as the Christian has of the character of Jesus Christ. There is no such thing as the transmigration of souls, and yet the Hindoo has very powerful impressions respecting the probability of his becoming after death a serpent, an insect, or an elephant. of all we can do, proceed with its vocation of forming ideas, and if we will not give it the real universe to expatiate in, it will create a universe of its own. If it cannot have reality, it will have fiction; if excluded from truth, it will revel in error, and false ideas may be as numerous, as impressive, as influential, as those which are correct. The mind, destitute of knowledge, is not a blank, it may perhaps be crowded far beyond that of the scientific observer of facts. False notions also very frequently produce the deepest impressions. Ideal horror may be quite as terrific and excite as great an alarm as the real presence of what is dreaded; and we know that false opinions in religion are, in numerous instances, more influential than real Scriptural knowledge. Pagans have been far more liberal in the sacrifices they have offered to their imagined divinities, than Christians are to the living God. Now God, our Creator, is the God of truth, he "hates every false way," and therefore we may be sure that it was not his intention that the human soul should be the temple of error, or the devotee of falsehood. It is his wish that the mind should be "guided into all truth," and he has delegated to those who are in possession of real knowledge, the solemn duty of banishing ignorance from the world. We have seen that erroneous opinions are opinions, notwithstanding their falsehood, and that all character is formed out of the thoughts of the heart, whether those thoughts are right or wrong, and consequently, a most imperative obligation devolves upon all, to labour hard to store their own minds with truth, and to become the harbingers of truth to others. Until this is the case, we ourselves shall be guided by false principles, and others will be in the same condition. Lord Bacon speaks of four idol," which were misleading mankind, and which ought to be banished from the human soul. By the word "idola" he does not mean false gods, but those false images or ideas which it is the province of truth to obliterate and destroy. It 5. God has furnished us with all the means necessary to educate the young aright. What is nature but one exhaustless storehouse of knowledge? We cannot view it, even in a cursory manner, without perceiving that it was intended to instruct us. is a book of hieroglyphics, many of them easy to be deciphered and understood by a child. Stones, vegetables, flowers, trees, animals, stars, and planets, are all full of charms to the young. Truth means reality, and in these works of our Creator the most beautiful fucts are set before us. Everything is made interesting and impressive, and not only, generally speaking, is the truth on the surface, but the more we search, the more Revelation still more fully unfolds his character and his will. It will soon be seen that the mind cannot be educated without books. God saw this from the beginning, and probably his own volume is the oldest in the world. How large it was at first we cannot tell, but there is little doubt that, at the beginning, it contained the germ of all religious truth. Man needs a register of his thoughts, else he will forget a great many, and not unfrequently the most important. The memory is not perfect. Pillars, monuments, records, and books, are needed to perpetuate the events of Providence, and the deeds of mind. Thousands of heart-stirring incidents and of the most brilliant thoughts have perished for want of an historian. "Oh that my words were now written!" said the patriarch, "Oh that they were printed in a book! that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in a rock for ever!" What Job sighed for, God, our father, has given us; and in the volume of inspiration we have a register of the most remarkable events that ever occurred. There is nothing so intellectual as books. Letters and words cannot give us even the pictures of things, but the mind has power to give form and life and expression to these dead symbols. To read with the spirit and the understanding is one of the most de we scrutinize, the wiser we become. Fact | his sons and daughters that they may read after fact is discovered, and every one strik- his love. ingly illustrating the wisdom, the power, and the goodness of the Creator. And if some of them appear different from what they are, yet even this circumstance seems intended to lead us to a more close examination, and thus to sharpen our minds by inquiry, and entice us into more extensive fields of observation. The capacity of the soul to correct the wrong impressions of the senses is not only a delightful fact in itself, but is doubtless designed to remind us that we have an immense apparatus of mental power to aid us in the search after truth. There is hardly a thing which God has made, from the minutest pebble to the great globe itself, whose existence and history would not afford multitudes of the most interesting | facts. And there is not a shell, a flower, or animal, from an insect to a whale, whose formation, structure, and preservation would not yield matter sufficient to fill volumes. We have, indeed, "Tongues in trees, sermons in stones, and books in running brooks, and good in everything." Were all to be written that might be written concerning God's works, the world could not contain the books that would be produced. Nature is an infinite encyclopædia, which we can never hope to read through. Its volumes are found everywhere and its language is universal. And why all this profusion of knowledge, but to store the minds of mor-lightful and marvellous operations of the tals with the most pleasing, refined, and profitable ideas? We just now said, that the soul of man is the offspring of the Deity, sent to earth to be educated and trained for glory, and the "Father of Spirits," who has implanted within us an insatiable appetite for knowledge, has made the earth, the sea, and the heavens one immense library of truth for the tuition of his children. Providence is not less instructive than nature. In the decay and reproduction of plants and animals, we seem to have the miracle of the creation repeated, and if possible surpassed. How many of every kind of creature were at first produced, we cannot tell. There was only one man and one woman, and perhaps other beings were very limited in number, but now we have everything multiplying and increasing by myriads, and all this immense family sustained by the same paternal care that called it into being. What pen could undertake to write the wonders of Providence? Here all, like the great Creator himself, is boundless. "The half can never be told;" even eternity will not afford space to narrate the whole. Still, a great deal may be known, and the mind may feast itself from day to day with the most pleasing and heart-stirring knowledge. Not only Creation, but Providence also is God's book, placed open before the eyes of intellect. One often stands astounded at the world of thought that may be condensed into a monosyllable. Philosophers tell us that, could we command sufficient force, the solid globe might be so compressed as to be packed in a nutshell; but this marvel is surpassed by language and by books; for here, we not unfrequently include the universe in a word, and the Deity in a thought. Through this medium the finite seems to grasp the infinite, and He, whom "Heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain," is apprehended by the heart of a peasant, and dwells there as in a temple. What a boon to man is language, and what a treasure is the Bible! Many other books are more valuable than gold, but the Scriptures are too precious to be appraised or estimated. The Bible is "The Book," the book of books, surpassing all other books, and the parent of myriads upon myriads of volumes. It is not so much a record of words as of thoughts. Here we have nature, and providence and redemption, beautifully blended. We have matter and mind, men, and angels, seraphs, and the Deity, brought before us in their various relations and characters. We have morality and divinity, time and eternity, exhibited to us by a few strokes of the pen. The sacred volume is an encyclopædia of thought, exhaustless and sublime as Jehovah himself, and yet uttered with such sim plicity that the infant peasant can apprehend its truths. "I thank thee, O Father," said the Redeemer, "Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." Jesus Christ is our brother, the brother of every poor child in the world; his heart yearned over the ignorance in which millions were perishing, and the fact that the Gospel was adapted to enlighten every mind, and capable of being understood by every intellect, filled his soul with the devoutest gratitude. Had "these things" been revealed to the wise and prudent, some might have concluded that profound intellects would be required to fathom the depths of divine truth. But the fact that the fishermen of Galilee were made its recipients, and were employed by the Eternal to propound his will to man, gives us the assurance that the path to life is so plain, that "the wayfaring man, though a fool, cannot err therein." We have in God's works and word, volumes of truth with which to enlighten and direct the thoughts of mankind. We are not then in want of books, we have an abundance, all written "with the finger of Jehovah," and we are allowed to copy and to print without any restriction. We therefore should labour to make, not merely the letter-press, but the human soul, the facsimile of divine thought; then we shall have an educated people, and shall accomplish what our Creator intended. He made the immortal soul to be the temple of truth. He has given to the meanest mind an almost infinite capacity; he endowed the heart with sensibility, that it might be "the fleshly table" on which should be written the revelations of his love. It is not more evident that the eye was made for vision, than that the soul was created for knowledge; and He who has furnished such abundant provision for the gratification of our senses, has been still more bountiful in the means he has supplied for the cultivation of our minds. By the medium of his works and his word he has introduced himself to us as our tutor, that our terrestrial converse with him may fit us for everlasting intercourse and intimacy. 6. God, in his holy word, has commanded that mankind should be educated. His injunction to Israel was, "And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes; and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house and on thy gates." Here is education, constant education, and education carried on by every one and every thing. It was to be morning, noon, and night. It was not merely to be the work of the priest and the prophet, but of every individual Israelite. both male and female. And everything was to contribute to it; for God's word was to be seen on the hand and the forehead, on the door-posts and the gates. It may be said that this was purely religious education, and therefore contains in it no command respecting secular learning. It is unfortunate for those who adduce this objection, that the Scriptures have in them such a large portion of secular or worldly knowledge. The Old Testament contained the divisions of the land of Pales. tine, the political, the agricultural, commercial, and military history of the Jews; and often enters very minutely into domestic life and individual biography. In fact, these things are so blended, that a Jew could not obtain sacred learning without having along with it a large portion of secular information; and could not go to the law for any worldly knowledge respecting his inheritance, or the deeds of his ancestors, without gaining a considerable degree of religious learning. Besides, the metaphors employed, and the language used to embody divine truth, were all borrowed from this world. Almost every divine attribute was represented by some mundane object, and the pupil had to understand and study rocks, animals, plants, and human customs, before he could attach any ideas to such expressions as God is a rock," a "shield," a "sun," a "father," or a "man of war," &c. The language employed, also, was secular, and until that language was understood, God's meaning could not be apprehended; but to teach language is to give secular learning. Eternity and immensity have relations to quantity and numbers, and, consequently, to arithmetic and mathematics, but these studies are secular. We fear that those who so often talk of separating secular and religious tuition have very imperfect ideas respecting education and the soul of man, or the design of religion. We are inhabitants of a material world, the organs through which the soul gains its knowledge are corporal, and even divine and spiritual things must be clothed in a mundane garb before they can be apprehended by the mind. Besides, religion is intended to sanctify and consecrate all worldly pursuits. Indeed, vice and virtue, in a great measure, consist of the morality or immorality of worldly actions. then "put asunder those things which God has joined together?" The world affords metaphors and language through which religion can render herself intelligible to us; and religion gives precepts and promises to enable us to consecrate all worldly or secular pursuits to the Cross. Take away every Why thing secular, and you remove from us the power of being religious, for you rob us of the means of understanding God's will, and of doing all things for his glory. When, therefore, God commands that the young should have a religious education, the injunction involves in it a secular education at the same time. How many parents there are who cannot give their children Scriptural tuition, because of their own want of secular learning. They have neither words nor any other symbols through which to communicate spiritual knowledge, and, as a consequence, their offspring grow up in ignorance. I know numbers of good, pious people, whose hearts are evidently right with God, and whose bowels yearn over the souls of their children, and yet, for the want of more secular learning, cannot expound the sacred volume in their families. The learning at most of our colleges is to a great extent secular; and yet the more the mind is imbued with this, the better is the student prepared to dig deeply into the treasures of divine truth. To enumerate all the commands which are given in the Scriptures, either directly or indirectly, respecting the education of mankind, would require more space than can now be allotted to this part of the subject. But such a recapitulation is not necessary. The existence of the Bible as the schoolbook of the world; the facts it has recorded or revealed; the types and symbols it has used; and the illustrations it has borrowed from almost everything in nature or history, are demonstrations that God intended that the human soul should have an extensive education. When we call the Scriptures a school-book, we wish the phrase to mean something more than a mere reading-book. Nothing can be worse than to make the sacred volume a species of primer, in which children are to learn to put letters and syllables together; but nothing can be more captivating or valuable to the infant mind than to make the Bible a school-book, or a book from which the intellect shall early imbibe correct views of God and religion. The child that thus knows the Scriptures betimes is, like the infant Timothy, schooled for both worlds. The Saviour had his eye on universal education when he gave the commission to "preach the Gospel to every creature," and commanded his apostles to "make disciples of all nations." Every one knows that to make disciples means to teach, or to communicate ideas. "To preach the Gospel to every creature" is an injunction to evangelize every single individual, and to evangelize is to write the Gospel on the heart of every person, or to cast the thoughts and feelings of the people into the mould of divine truth. Preaching includes teaching. The apostle says, "Whom we preach, warning or admonishing every man, and teaching every man." The words imply that the preaching was carried on by "admonishing and teaching." "Admonishing every man and teaching every man," is a divine glossary on the word "preach," intended to show us the apostolic "modus operandi" in evangelization. Our Lord himself went about "teaching and preaching in all the towns and villages." When he promised the Spirit, it was that he should be our Paraclete, or monitor, by leading us "into all truth." Souls All these passages refer to tuition. are to be educated or led out into the pastures of divine truth. Ministers and teachers are called pastors, because they are to feed the minds of the people with knowledge. It is to be feared that hitherto we have injudiciously separated preaching from teaching, as if the one belonged only to the proclamation of the Gospel, and the other to the secular tuition of the people. It is not every teacher that is qualified to be a preacher; but still every preacher ought to be a teacher, and indeed such a one "labours in vain and spends his strength for nought if his discourses fail to give knowledge to his hearers. Jesus Christ, after having elicited from Peter the emphatic words, "Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee," replied with the important command, "Feed my lambs." It is as though the Saviour had said, "Peter, you have made this open profession of attachment to me, and you therefore are ready to show your regard by doing anything that I may require. I know that what will please me most will be most delightful to you to perform. There is one thing above all others on which my heart is set. I especially desire that the young may be early instructed in my word, and to your attention I commend them. My most anxious request to you is, Feed my lambs." This precious part of the evangelical history beautifully exhibits to us the regard which the Son of God bears to the young; and not only shows us that the ministers of the Gospel should be "teachers of babes," but that due care should be taken that all the public instructors of the young should be qualified to train them for Christ, by making all secular learning subservient to their spiritual education. 7. God has already granted his blessing to the labours of those who have duly trained the young, and he has promised his presence and the influence of his Spirit to encourage us for the future. It may perhaps be said without much fear of contradiction, that few who have undertaken the education of youth and duly executed their task "have laboured in vain." We have seen that Mohammedans, Pagans, and Jews do not "spend their strength for nought;" and the profane and the ungodly generally succeed to an awful power are full of hope; while the abettors of ignorance are sinking into despair and dying out of the way. In these cheering events we have proof upon proof that God intended that the mind should be educated in truth. If we see the same plant in two different places, if in the one it is sickly, shrivelled, and unsightly, but in the other it is vigorous, beautiful, and evidently matured, or maturing, we naturally conclude that the latter is in its proper position, and that the former is in an uncongenial soil or climate. We have seen man under all aspects, and can now positively assert, without fear of contradiction, that it is only by means of due intellectual and moral culture that his powers can arrive at maturity, and hence we justly conclude that he was created to be educated. We have not only past success to cheer us, but God's promise for the future. When the Saviour gave the command, to "make disciples of all nations," he added for the encouragement of his servants, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." The Greek reads, "Behold, I am with you all days, even until the completion of the ages.' Every day until the great work of illuminating the whole human family is accomplished, the Saviour has promised to be with his labourers. Other promises might be quoted in abundance, but this one includes all. If the Son of God, the great teacher, whom Jehovah has annointed to the prophetic office, and constituted superintendant of education for the whole world, be with us, we have every divine blessing that heart can wish. And the fact that God has made such provision for the tuition of mankind, and appointed the Redeemer, "the minister of instruction," to direct and bless our efforts, should prompt us to exert ourselves to the utmost in forwarding a work which is so evidently accordant with the will of Jehovah. extent. But it is thought by many that Christians never can hope to be equally successful. This opinion, we believe, is not well founded, for there are stronger reasons why the believer in Christ should anticipate that his principles shall prevail, than can possibly be advanced in favour of any rival system of tuition. For, in the first place, he has truth on his side; and, secondly, he has the promise of God's blessing. All who teach anything contrary to Christianity teach error, and while truth is consistent, immutable, and omnipotent, error is contradictory, changeable, fickle, and comparatively impotent. Error when it stands alone, uncontradicted and unopposed, may be strong and influential, just as the coward may boast great things when no enemy is at hand; but falsehood of every kind, when fairly matched with truth, is weakness itself. It is to this fact that the friends of real education owe much of their success. Considering the imperfect means that have been adopted, and the hosts of opponents and influences that have been at work in a contrary direction, real education has advanced beyond what might have been anticipated. The success of pious and intelligent parents, Sundayschool teachers, ministers, and missionaries has been wonderful. Mind has been called out into the regions of truth and religion, and Christianity has obtained a vantage ground in our day beyond anything that has been her lot in any former period of her history. She has now a far greater visible prospect of universal conquest than in any past period. Her prophets always foretold her eventual triumphs, and her believing followers rested on the "sure word of prophecy," and "waited for the kingdom of God." "Here was the patience and faith of the saints." But we have more than prophecy now; we have history narrating the fulfilment of ancient predictions. Amidst all the chaos of opinion and of passion, we see a presiding spirit brooding over the troubled scene, and reducing all to order. Mind is taking a right direction. Knowledge, We have seen that he has given the same civilization, and pure religion are advancing. essential powers to every mind. Some may Christianity is in the ascendant, and other have more genius, more natural strength of religions on the wane, We have now hosts intellect, or more susceptibility than others; of readers, and books, and inquirers after but still every individual of our race is postruth, and from what has been done we learn sessed of a soul capable, unless injured by what can be effected. Man does nothing disease, of a very high degree of cultivation. perfectly at first. The incipient efforts of And further, we all know that human chaarchitecture or machinery are rude, but then racter and happiness are entirely dependent he who invents can improve, and defects in on education. What a difference there is mechanism not unfrequently suggest their between an enlightened and an ignorant remedy. It is a great thing to make a be- mind; between a trifling and a judicious ginning; mind is naturally progressive, and, mind; an impure and a sanctified mind; a unlike matter, gathers strength from opposi-profane and a devout mind; a vulgar and tion, especially when encouraged with a little success. Now education at present is in this very condition. It has been tried, and when properly tried, has answered well, and the projectors of intellectual and moral 8. It may be proper in this place to observe, that God intended that every human being should be thoroughly educated. a polished mind: a rude and a philosophic mind; a savage and a Christian mind; yet all these phases of the same immortal spirit have been produced by education. Conversion is no exception to this rule, because |