sun, the storm of winter, and the opening flowers of spring; these naturally strike the imagination, and please the taste of youth, and in the moments when these first grand or delightful impressions are made on the senses and the fancy, a judicious parent may lead the young spectator from observation to reflection, and may impress upon the mind reverence of the great cause of all the effects that he admires. Good descriptions may afterwards be used to strengthen the effect of great realities. When a child, who has observed any of the beauties of nature, begins to read, he will be pleased with descriptions, that give him back the image of his mind. To form an early devotional taste, no book for young children can be better adapted than Mrs. Barbauld's Hymns, from the simplicity, the sublime simplicity of description, and the captivating charm of melodious language. With children, who have an ear for music, advantage should be taken of this species of sensibility. They should hear good church music. The eye and ear should early receive sublime impressions, associated with religious ideas. The pupil should not be accustomed to approve of the wretched psalmody of a country church. Whenever it is practicable, he should be taken to hear good music in cathedrals,

"Where through the long drawn aisle and fretted vault,
"The pealing anthem swells the note of praise."

It is one of the peculiar advantages of private and domestic education, that the parent or preceptor, continually intent upon the pupil, can take advantage of circumstances as they arise, to make any impression that he desires. He can confirm or correct lessons taught by observation, by comparing them

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with those which are to be found in books, and he can make reading more interesting by conversation; not only by conversation addressed to the children themselves, but by that which they hear. Before children can reason on the value of different characters, or compare the advantages of different professions; they may be prepossessed in favour of that for which they are destined, by the respect which they see shown for it, and for all who belong to it, by the persons for whom they feel most deference and affection. The early reverence for religion, and for the clerical character, which parents desire to impress, cannot be increased more effectually than by their own unaffected and uniform respect for religion and its ministers. Even by early childhood, inconsistencies between conduct and precept, if any such exist, are quickly detected; and it will be in vain to give lessons of any sort to our pupils, unless they are supported by our own practice.

Some pious preceptors and parents are injudicious in attempts to give young people ideas of the nature and attributes of God. They use terms, level, as they think, to the comprehension of childhood, borrowed from common objects and trivial analogies; these debase instead of exalting the mind, and give inadequate and puerile notions of the Supreme Being. The motives, which sometimes are held out to the little pupils for thinking or rather for talking on religious subjects, are as unsuitable as the questions proposed. In these cases the sense of the child sometimes appears far superior to that of the instructor: "Tell me where God is, and I will give you "this orange?" said a bishop to a child of six years old.

"Tell me where he is not," replied the child," and I will give 66 you two."

What a question, and what a reward! If we remember rightly, this was nearly the question proposed in ancient times to Simonides, which he required three days to consider of before he could give an answer, and when three days were past he desired three more, and so on continually.

On certain subjects it is better not to particularize, or to attempt to illustrate, by comparisons with external objects, or appeals to common sensations. All the attempts we usually hear to describe and explain the joys of Paradise to children are mean and insufficient. Is it not useless and arrogant, to endeavour to surpass or depart from the sublimity of Scripture language, which tells us, that the joys of Paradise are such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive?

It would be an error of far more dangerous consequence, to fill the imagination of innocent and timid children with terrors of conscience, and the dread of God's judgments, and of

We have tried the same question upon children of eight and twelve years old. The replies were, from one, "I do not know;"-and from the other, "He is in that orange." Children, who are properly trained, employ their thoughts upon serious subjects without being urged to it. We heard a boy of ten years old compare the soul departing from the body, and ascending to Heaven, "to the inflamed gas of a balloon, at the moment when the covering has "been just consumed." The unsubstantial form, and fiery vigour, still remain. "Igneus est ollis vigor, et celestis origo."

to say,

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everlasting torments. Even to induce habits of obedience or truth, or any of the moral virtues, it is injudicious and hazardous to begin by employing threats of a religious kind; for instance "God will punish you, my dear, if you do not obey "me," or, "God hates liars, and, if you tell a lie, he will punish you eternally in another world." The name of the Supreme Being should not thus be used on every trivial occasion; nor should the Deity be thus represented as a God of vengeance. This is not the method to educate children to be pious; it is the way to render weak minds superstitious, and strong minds incredulous. If a child commits a fault in secret, and be not detected, he must either live in dread of the threatened judgment, or else the experience of impunity will make him disbelieve all that is asserted on religious subjects. Putting the threats of immediate judgments out of the question, threats which we hope few parents are now so injudicious as to employ, or to suffer servants, who have the superintendence of young children, to use, there are many, who think it right to control the passions of children by the ideas of rewards and punishments in another world: but the imagination of childhood cannot extend to a future, that is, beyond the distance. of a few weeks, months, or years, and the thought of future pain or pleasure even in trifles does not influence their conduct, till reiterated experience has given them the habit of believing that what was future has become present. After this habit has been acquired, they must farther learn, by repeated efforts and numerous experiments, the wisdom of preferring the greater and more permanent future pleasure, to the less and more transient present gratification. This should be taught on a small scale, and on all the little hourly occasions, that occur in

a child's life; but we should speak only of the pains and pleasures, which are suited to their feelings, and of which they have had experience. By prematurely employing the idea of rewards and punishments in another world, preceptors would run the hazard of giving their pupils the habit of secretly disregarding, or of acting in total contradiction to this motive. To inculcate early lessons of morality, and to form moral habits, we should employ less motives, and should leave the larger to act on great occasions, when the passions of youth require a force of control, that cannot be necessary for the humours of children, and when the idea of a distant future is capable of influencing the conduct. As education advances, and as reason and resolution strengthen by experience, we may substitute for puerile rewards, and for the love of praise, of affec‐ tion, of success, of immediate personal gratification and utility, the more exalted motives of charity, benevolence, and the sense of piety and religious duty. To this conversion of the baser into the purer virtues, time is necessary, but the process may be much accelerated by skill and judgment. In private education the preceptor can watch the progress of reason, and the increasing strength of resolution, and he can lead on from one step and one trial to another, graduating his pupil in virtue as well as in knowledge.

For example: We have agreed, that economy is one of the most necessary virtues for a clergyman in the beginning of his worldly career; and that charity, in the most enlarged sense of the word, is an essential virtue to him in every stage, and every situation of his life. One of these virtues may be grafted on the other. They may be first raised and sustained