made to taste the fruits of bitterness which these principles produce, they will so far be disposed to hate the causes of their own discomfort, and rally in affection to that which they have been taught to consider as diametrically opposed to them.

ESSAY XIII.

SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

ANOTHER disadvantage in the case we are now considering, is, that children accustomed to religion, without embracing it (and of such alone I speak), lose thereby much of the salutary influence of fear, without receiving in its place the higher principle of love. In many worldly families, religion is treated with a formal and respectful distance. It is excluded from all familiar access; it is spoken of as suitable only to sacred times and places; and if it is banished wholly from free and cheerful conversation, this exclusion is defended on the principle that religion is too high and holy a thing to be profaned by such associations. The lessons of the children are precisely of a piece with the habits of the family. They are taught to view religion from an awful distance. Into its meaning or its nature it is not for them to inquire. If a clergyman visits at the house, they are to look on him as an example of religion, because he is a clergyman. If they are taken to church, they are forbidden to make

remarks on the sermon, because all sermons are equally good. If their parents absent themselves from the sacrament, the children learn that it is for fear too frequent a repetition might diminish its awful impressions on the mind. In such a system, however low, lessons may be learned which are convertible to future good. A principle (not the highest, but still a principle) is engrafted. Something is genuinely felt: and even this fear may be the beginning of wisdom.

But the child of religious parents, who does not yield his own heart to God, and heal, as the medical phrase is, at the first intention, is, in these respects, unhappily circumstanced. Lower impressions cannot reach his mind, and higher ones he has not. Religion is to him neither a stranger nor a friend. The parent, even if so inclined, cannot hold religion at a distance from his child: nor can the latter feel that vague and superstitious awe of things which are continually before him, and domesticated with him. In the society where his lot is cast, he hears the characters of clergymen, though charitably, yet freely discussed. He hears the comparative merits of sermons canvassed with equal liberty. He hears that no means of grace, not even sacraments themselves, possess any magic charm; and that they have no intrinsic value but what they derive

from that God who is about his path and about his bed, and in whom he lives, and moves, and has his being. The effect of all this must be to disrobe religion of that solemn mystery, in which it arrays itself to the eyes of distant gazers. It is too near to be indistinct, and too familiar to be viewed with fear. If, then, it be not affectionately embraced, the danger is that familiarity will breed, if not contempt, at least, indifference. Mr. Cecil, in his "Remains," wisely observes that

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erroneous opinions may less predispose the mind against the truth of God in its lively power on the soul, than true notions, destitute of all life and influence, may do." There must be a suitableness of the subject to the religion taught, or, however high the principle, it will fail of its effect: and, therefore, the child who does not love religion, is out of his element where religion is loved. The system in which he necessarily lives is too refined to act upon his feelings; and thus he is in danger of growing up without any sensibility towards religion at all. The light in which he is placed excludes those low impressions, which, though false and servile, are better than none; and thus that which should have been for his good, becomes an occasion of his falling into a state of cold and lifeless apathy.

I have ventured on these observations, my

conscience bears me witness, not as a curious speculation, but as a painful duty. It may be, as I before suggested, some comfort to parents who have been disappointed in their children, to see that the real difficulties of the case were, of necessity, greater than they were before aware of; that their children, if they have failed to meet their wishes, have not the guilt at least of sinning against more unmixed advantages than they actually possessed; and that they themselves are not chargeable, under this heavy affliction, with more abuse of peculiar mercies, than a fair review of all circumstances can warrant. No. Let such parents rather apply to their own case the exhortation of St. Peter: "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you." Let them remember also the assurance of St. Paul: "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man." above remarks may, moreover, meet the eye of pious parents who fall into an error, which I have sometimes witnessed myself with much concern, namely, that of setting out in married life with too confident an expectation that, however others may have found it, to them the task of religious training will be easy and successful. Such parents resolve all failures in this respect into

The