with such strict observances. But how is a religious parent to avoid what virtually amounts to this, if his children are yet uninfluenced and unimpressed? Can he sanction their absence from family devotions, to the injury of servants and of younger children? Can he be silent about religion before his friends, or can he silence them, because his children happen to be present? Or can he adopt, for their sakes, compliances with worldly habits, which the Scriptures and his own conscience condemn? No! Yet, doubtless, to the young person who has not made religion his own choice, these necessary strictnesses of a parent's house are badly calculated to win him over. Were he transplanted to another scene; had he the opportunity of hearing occasionally the conversation of some pious acquaintance; and had he the liberty of receiving or rejecting his counsels, just in proportion as they were acceptable or not, without being pressed into the service of religion, before his own inclinations led him, he would be far better situated, as it respects his religious prospects. Here, then, is an instance, in which the children of worldly parents may have an advantage over the children of religious

ones.

The next particular which I shall notice is this. In the education of children, much must

be carried on by religious and irreligious parents, which is common to the plans of both. Many restraints are to be imposed; manners are to be formed; a thousand interferences are necessary, to correct the strange and awkward habits into which children would, without such constant vigilance, be sure to fall. In working this detail, there must be a frequent recurrence to some principles, which may animate the child, and supply him with motives to self-improvement. With these the worldly parent is readily supplied. The desire of excelling others, anxiety about appearance, the thirst for admiration, and, above all, the important moment when those of the higher classes are to be brought out, for the first time, into the world: these are constantly appealed to. And often is this done with a harshness and ceaseless repetition, not a little calculated to disgust the youthful mind with things so imperious in their demands, and which require such constant sacrifices of present ease and comfort. But the religious parent cannot apply these stimulants. She (for to the mother chiefly this lesser discipline belongs) cannot treat as allimportant to her child, what she herself esteems as worse than valueless. Her conviction, doubtless, is, that religion should extend itself to every thing; and that no trifling action can want a

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motive which it does not supply. Religion, then, whether expressed or implied, must be the instrument by which she works. If, indeed, her child be early inclined to piety, all will be well. But, if not, every aversion to restraint will be visited on the principle that imposes it. A prudent mother, to avoid such consequences, may make but few direct appeals to this all-regulating motive. But what can she substitute? It must be mere authority. And this will scarcely mend the matter for it will only turn the aversion from religion itself, to her who is the providential channel of its conveyance to the child.

It is, moreover, to be lamented, that the faults and infirmities of religious parents, act with peculiar disadvantage upon the minds of children. I speak of such defects as by no means invalidate their claims to that character, but which are, more or less, inseparable from human nature. It would, indeed, be a contradiction in terms to suppose religious parents to sin with a high hand, like those who know not God. But the truth is, that their spots and blemishes, when contrasted with the high standard of their principles, will be magnified by the light in which they are seen : while the sins of those whose chief condemnation it is to exclude the light, will often escape observation, in the darkness that surrounds them.

However this may be, the children of both the religious and irreligious will see defects in their parents, and sometimes feel those defects as trying and irritating to themselves. But the misfortune is, that the children of the former may be tempted to impute the faults of their parents to the score of their religion; than which nothing can be more likely to foster unfavourable prejudices in the mind. Nor will such an imputation be always groundless. Those who are truly sincere, but not highly advanced in religion, are subject to trials peculiar to themselves. In such persons there is, not unfrequently, a morbid scrupulousness of conscience, an inward conflict of opposing principles, and a keen sensibility to the faults of others, particularly of those for whom they are chiefly interested, which produce irritability, dejection, and discomfort. That these defects may remain long after the mind has been substantially changed, is my firm belief. They are like bodily distempers which affect no vital organ, and which a sound constitution throws out upon the surface. Nevertheless, spots and blemishes they are; and from the very circumstance of their being upon the surface, they often more immediately affect the comfort of others, than do those sins which lie deep and are concealed. It

is true, that, if rightly understood, these imperfections would be traced, not to religion, but to the want of its higher influences. But children cannot make these nice distinctions; nor is an irritated mind disposed to make them; nor, indeed, would it perhaps be well for children thus to sit in judgment on their parents. No. The fact is, that if religion be the ruling principle of the parent's life and actions, the child I will know and feel it. He will identify the parent with religion; and whatever appears unamiable and unconciliating in the one, will tend to render the other less valued and less loved.

On the other hand, those faults and sins of irreligious parents, which try the tempers, and disturb the comfort of their children, have rather the opposite tendency of rendering impiety odious, and religion amiable. No young persons, however unhappily circumstanced, can be wholly ignorant that there is such a thing as religion. If, indeed, they had no other means of knowing, the reproaches of those who hate it would inform them of its existence. It is, then, but human nature, that, if such children know, and are frequently reminded, that their parents' principles are at variance with religion, and if they are