to his mother's words, distilling like the dew, or heard his father debate with her, or some casual and friendly visitor; he can recal, in imagination, the eager attention they received from him, now and then perhaps allowed to interpose a remark. And he remembers some of the feelings of interest, surprise and delight, which glowed in his bosom, and the powerful impressions made by some of the sentiments then advanced. He remembers too, with a distinctness, which many subsequent scenes have lost, the very appearance of the interesting group,-where each sat, in what tones he spoke, the gestures he used, and the expression marked in his countenance. The visible forms of that hour or two, and the ideas he then received, are indelibly fixed on his memory, and revive at intervals with a freshness, as delightful as the renewal of the year, when spring is smiling.

Some of these scenes, so pleasant in review, doubtless produced no other effect than furnishing the mind with a pretty picture, which memory might take out from her many stores, and be amused with; but there are others, which from the knowledge communicated, the sentiments imparted, or even merely from the feelings excited, must have had considerable influence on the character. Then, many of the little seeds must have been dropped, which have since sprung up in strange profusion, whose plants are now unfolding their varied forms and colours to the sun and winds of life.

Every individual, even of those whose minds are least susceptible of vivid impressions, can remember the strong hold which certain conversations have had upon his thoughts, and the marked direction they gave to his reflections, for some succeeding days. With men of ardent and social spirits, this is frequently the case, even in later years, when powerful impressions are transient and soon lost in the operations of other causes; like little streams that push out into the lake, and for a few paces, seem to preserve a distinct current; but which soon mingle with the mass of waters. But in youth, these streams to which an accidental course has been given, have more comparative magnitude, and their proportion to the shallow waters already collected, gives them great force. They are mountain cataracts, formed by sudden showers, that rush down with impetuosity on the rivulet below, and carry it away into some new channel.

Now if such occurrences are frequent, and such they must be in the intercourse of an intelligent and social circle, it is obvious how considerable is the amount of influence, which will arise, on the character and spirit of a youth, and how important their bearing on the days that shall find him removed from the scenes of his boyhood, plying the oar of exertion alone, and shaping his own course on the ocean of life. It is true, that there are a few who seem to be born wanderers, to come into the world with wings and wildness, and soon prove that they are birds of passage; and we no more venture to hazard a conjecture on their destiny, than to predict which way the hurricane will rush, or where the lightning will strike. With these singular exceptions, however, some general resemblance at least is to be traced between early education and subsequent character. The outlines were then sketched which afterwards become more prominent and visible, and the discriminating eye will discover that many of the finer strokes and more delicate tints were then thrown upon the canvas. All power to benefit youth depends upon attraction, or the interest you can excite. A young and ardent mind is almost always in a state to be roused. The world abounds with excitements, and if a young person does not find them at home, he will elsewhere. With the propensities of a depraved heart, he will find and fall in with objects that excite evil, even if they are not forced in his way; and if there are not others

in the family circle to counteract these, they will have unlimited sway. Now that conversation operates as a very principal excitement is easily seen from fact. Excepting some few that mark out their own course, we shall find the private employments of young persons from ten to sixteen or seventeen years of age, in a great measure modelled by the conversation of their father's table and fire-side evenings. If the parents, or elder inmates of the family, talk only of the common concerns of life, or on subjects of a very elevated order, either those in which he can feel no interest or those which he cannot reach, we shall assuredly find him with the common crowd of boys, where he is excited, inventing plays, projecting enterprizes, or doing mischief. But, if the conversation be literary, and he be not more than usually stupid, he will have books, and read. You will find him in his room, making notes, and attempting to write essays. He may not be very regular or persevering, but it will be sufficiently the case to give a character to his mind. If remark turn much on the arts and sciences, he will catch at some, perhaps all of them in turn, and never perhaps know much of either of them; but he will be gaining knowledge. He will at least have a consciousness, that such employments are superior to the vacant indolence of mind that marks most lads, and most probably gain a preference for them. And, what is of infinitely more importance, if conversation be directed to religious subjects, with mingled seriousness and sweetness, a youth, especially if he be much at home, will hardly pass his days without reading the scriptures. Conscience will not suffer him to live without prayer. He will form resolutions.

The necessity of divine influence to change the heart is of course admitted to its utmost extent, and the total insufficiency of all secondary means to impart spiritual benefit to the mind without it. But these efforts show the operation of feelings invaluable in their character. By a reaction, they deepen those feelings, and tend to form them into habit. Every christian who has been favoured with early religious education, while acknowledging all he now enjoys to be the result of divine influence, attributes very important effects to such feelings and such efforts in early life. It is neither in his province nor his power to determine the precise nature of their connexion with the influences of the Holy Spirit; but he will admit the fact. If there be not this connexion, why do we convey instruction at all? Now my design is to show, that general and passing conversation operates as instruction or as injury, to a much greater extent than is usually conceded. The influence of the most valuable and well-timed instructions will be negatived, if conversation, frequently heard, be of an opposite tendency. Instruction is generally received in the form of a task, and comes to most youths in the shape of imposition; and, therefore, though attention is compelled, the powers and preference of the soul are not summoned to employ. But converse will always awaken a young mind, and especially an active and watchful one. The very interchange of the living voice, and varied tones and gestures will fix a young eye; and when remarks are made within the span of his comprehension, a lad listens to them without dreaming of an intellectual exertion, and for that very reason will receive strong impressions from what is said, because the miud is excited, and yet at ease. Even children, though they misinterpret expressions, and put strange constructions on some passing hints, yet generally catch the leading features of a conversation with much more ease and accuracy than is often believed. To one then advanced beyond this period, with a mind beginning to aspire and discern, it will be of little avail to enforce the value of a good spirit, of kindness and affection, if querulous and fretful language be heard through the day. Some parents whose prayers ascend to the God of all grace, on behalf of their sons and daughters, may do well to remember, that if divine truth VIII.

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occupies but a small share of their conversation; if the great themes of the gospel, and their loveliness and influence be not often dwelt on with pious delight and interest; the young, that surround their table, will hardly believe that religion is loved, however it may be extolled. Instead of considering it as a subject which gives happiness to their parents' hours, and delight to all their days, they will look on it as an unwelcome intruder, with a scowling visage, for whom other things must be laid aside for a time, and during whose stay, a sort of settled gloom and embarrassment will prevail. They will feel that like winter, it never comes without cold and clouds.

We have already adverted to the influence of conversation in a religious family, the interesting associations connected with it in our individual history, and to its share in the formation of character. These may suggest a reference to a few of the causes which have rendered it, in some circles, an evil. It is worthy of examination, what may poison these waters at the fountain-head, or what infusion of bitterness may spread disease in these streams, so well suited by nature to refresh and cheer. Why should the surrounding lands, which ought to be clothed with verdure, seem like the barren and frowning desert. It will be readily admitted, that whatever furnishes for man, pleasures in connexion with his depravities, must result in evil. Whatever is a bait to his wrong propensities, and tempts him to overstep the line of moral excellence, and then hide it under the specious name of amusement, or makes him feel it to be so, when he dares not call it such, must be productive of unhappiness. Such is the encouragement conversation is often made to afford to evil dispositions, sanctioned by the self-gratulation it inspires, and forgotten as a crime in continued repetitions.

Of all kinds of conversation, there is none so despicable, none that works with so much of the secret activity of a poison, as that which dwells on the faults of others. It flatters and feeds our basest passions. It nurses a spirit of petty malignity. It is the stirring of a reservoir of polluted waters, which agitate the soul with every base passion. But such evils, it is said, are seldom to be met with, except in the pages of the essayist, and the severe declaimer against vice. It is not often you could overhear conversation like this, if you were moveable and invisible as the renowned Arabian ring could render you. Perhaps not among the class of which we write. There are not many, it is to be hoped, who will indulge in deliberate scandal. But what is too much like it, is by no means uncommon, a fluency in satire, a habit of dealing in ridicule and petty sarcasm. Many who would be ashamed to ruin a reputation, enjoy fine sport in laughing over petty detractions. It is strange to mark, how grave parents, and the clever sons, and the amiable daughters, who were sunk into quiet for want of a theme, one and all kindle into vivacity when a certain name passes in review, and how abundant the supply proves of little faults and improprieties, and ill manners, and family secrets, interspersed with witticisms, and suspicions, and shrewd hints, and merriment. Oh, then it is, that the old folks shake their heads, and look profound; and the young ones theirs, and seem clever and droli.

Now, what is to be expected from such habits, but the formation of a character, conceited, contemptuous, and most thoroughly contemptible. This is not, we may fear, a portrait so rare as some amiable persons believe. There are families where the sons forget all the propriety of youth, and daughters the loveliness of the female, in a habit of ridiculing their acquaintance, worthy, but not, perhaps, highly gifted individuals; or of indulging in invidious remarks upon ministers, or other objects of public attention. But, wherever this is the case to a considerable extent, parents have been guilty of the folly of listening to such conversations,

and giving a tacit consent, or more generally, perhaps of setting the baneful example. Some have been known to plead, that this is mere playfulness, and neither intended nor supposed to do harm. But who can deny that its tendency is to produce a captious unlovely spirit? And who will disbelieve, that has occasionally been compelled to visit such families, for it may be presumed, that no man will associate with them, unless compelled, that it is generally the accompaniment of a bad temper? Then, if such are the effects of these amusements, who would not shun them? A man who should throw fire-brands about him in sport, needs scarcely wonder, if he meet with some severe retaliation. Nor let such families be surprised to find, that while their tongue is against every man, every man's tongue is against them.

But to return to the influence it has upon young persons. If they frequently hear such remarks, and are encouraged to join in them, dispositions must be cherished, and a frame of mind generated, which places the individual at an awful distance from the spirit of the gospel; and steels him against its humbling and subduing influence, which is to bring him a sinner to the cross of Christ. These additions of evil may be made as imperceptibly and gradually, as the drops which for a moment tremble on the icicle, and are then congealed into its substance. They will fasten as it were to the mind, held there by a family influence that keeps them firm, till they are not to be dislodged: as the water that settles on the icy rock of the north would roll down its sides and be lost, if the air around it were soft; but it is bleak and binding, and the blasts of winter are ever playing upon it, till the growing mass outbraves a summer's sun, and stands through the revolution of years, in frightful barrenness. While the hopes of the christian parent must depend for the renewal of the heart of his child, on the influences of the Holy Spirit, yet is he not involved in undoubted guilt if he foster natural depravity, and by example and encouragement render its sportings an amusement, rather than check it by parental influence?

And may not this suggest one reason, why, on the removal of youths so educated from the paternal roof, or the circles of early years, they depart to mingle with the gay and worldly, where not even a seeming mixture of religion will disturb their thoughts. Here, as if in a world of another order, they are found to shun the class from which they have been accustomed to select such numerous instances of weakness. Not possessors of the religion of the heart, they have satirized the pious, till they have ceased to esteem; they have ridiculed, till they no longer respect. They have found in little things so much food for carping and criticism that now they discover, in the abiding piety, the holy dispositions, the fervent and useful devotedness of these excellent of the earth, nothing to admire, nothing to provoke their imitation, nothing to fix their regards. Somewhat allied to the preceding, in its effects upon the descendants of a pious family, is the undue application of taste to matters of religion. The endless varieties of literary excellence, classic elegance, philosophical accuracy of composition, the enkindling and persuasive powers of oratory, and the laws of criticism by which all these are tried, must of course, in well-educated circles, occupy a great share of the domestic conversation; and they ought to do so. There is no Vandalism in religion. Knowledge is spreading in the earth, that it may become the pioneer of the gospel and if, as it has been long since admitted, "knowledge is power," then let that power be summoned to assist in urging on the cha riot wheels of Him, who is to ride prosperously and reign gloriously. But how far we are to try the exhibition of the gospel by that refinement of human knowledge and feelings, called taste, should be at least seriously pondered. The public addresses of the christian ministry, and the style

of christian writers, must, of necessity, vary to a certain extent with the habits of the day. That these will change, and that the gospel is to be preached to man under all their modifications, it is in vain to deny. The Bible itself is an assemblage of productions, each having a character suited to the age of its first promulgation, each bearing the magnificent stamp of inspiration. But there is, with all this, an evident superiority to every thing like literary effort. When any one of the sacred writers, Paul for instance, by his chasteness or sublimity of diction, seems as if he were walking in such a path, it is evident that he has stepped into it, merely because he chose to go by that way towards his great object; and he leaves it immediately when he pleases, and as unceremoniously as the strength and suddenness of any great thought, sweeping across his mighty soul from the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, may require. This cannot be disputed of the sacred volume, and it ought never to be forgotten in its applications to ourselves. It tends to keep up the front rank eminence of truth. It makes every thing bow to its cause, summoning human opinions and habits, and all the little appendages of human acquirement in its train, and to its assistance; never suffering an impediment, nor allowing an interference.

If this sentiment be important, it is then of great moment that the heads of religious families, when conversing on books, or on sermons, which must now have so great an influence on the young, should not cherish a petty and fastidious spirit, which is as unmanly as it is unchristian. Continually subjecting the displays of God's truth to the tests of literature, which the sacred volume, the standard of that truth, does not authorize, will assuredly be to the injury of vital religion. It will always be welcome to the unsanctified heart, and will nurse it in the habit of drawing amusement from the gospel, rather than press on it the application of its solemn truths. You cannot deck the arrow with velvet and ribbons, but you endanger its speed and its sharpness in the hearts of the king's enemies,

Whatever of the various combinations of talent associate themselves in the mind of a preacher or writer, let them be used. God has so ordained it, and it is then impossible that it should be otherwise. But if young and intelligent individuals are taught to make these the great objects of attention, truth will be forgotten; the risings of concern, and those gentle stirrings of emotion, which are known to almost every youthful listener to the sounds of mercy, are in danger of being hushed, and exchanged for the slumbering, self-approving complacency of one who hears only to admire or condemn the man. There are many, alas, living, nurtured in the sanctuary, who have thus risen into life, skilled in theological distinctions, keen to discern faults, difficult to please: retaining an external profession of religion, but unrenewed, and almost unimpressible, they seem moving on with an ease, which nothing can disturb, to the chambers of darkness and death.

To the man whose heart is powerfully alive to the eternal interests of his fellow-creatures, and who, therefore, watches with anxious eagerness the spirit that pervades society: this subject will derive an additional importance from the consideration, that our parlours are the nurseries of the public spirit of the next generation. The impressions made then will be read in indelible characters by the men of another age. It is from the impulses of conversation, that men often write, or from the hope of being read and then talked about. The conversation of an age will go far to form its writers. Its writers will do much in giving a character to its conversation. When the members of the Spectator were first brought up with the repast of the day, they gave a tone to the converse of the social part of the nation; and then the senate and the bar, the pulpit and