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do to weaken the dominion of Satan and plant the standard of holiness in the earth, he had done. From the time he had entered the holy warfare, not an hour had been lost, nor its labors misapplied. Instant in season, and out of season-in all the social circles where he moved in the synagogues, and schools-before philosophers, and kings, and courts-in prisons, palaces, and ships-on continents, and islands-in the classic groves where Socrates and Plato had philosophized, and where inspired bards had sung-under all circumstances of adversity and prosperity-of want and plentyhe had ever stood forward in bold defence of the everlasting Gospel. All his powers and all his skill were brought to centre upon this single point, until, by a kind of habitual impulse, they never varied from their wonted action. Under the influence of his resistless appeals, the sophistry of the schools and the sanctity of the oracles lost their power-kings and governors trembled-priests and altars long consecrated to the service of idols were stripped of their bewitching enchantments, and multitudes were brought, clothed in their right minds, to worship at the foot of the cross. In looking down through the vista of the past, he saw the way that had been cleared before him. In the lively images of gone-by scenes, idols bowed down in confusion, licentiousness and revelry withered and disappeared, profaneness was struck dumb, bigotry raged in chains and lost its power to harm, and things lovely and of good report were strewed in all the consecrated path. What holy ardor animated his soul while with the honesty of a martyr he contemplated the past, and aspired to penetrate the future! His cup was now full. No worldly thought, or care, or fear, obtruded to distract his meditations. Wealth and worldly honors were alike nought to him. Thrones and diadems, such as tyrants struggle for, had no charms to divert the eye of his faith from its fixed gaze on everduring ones in heaven. All his thoughts and feelings were absorbed in a holy breathing after God and glory, and lost at once to the desires of the world, and the fear of death. In the vision of his ecstasy he exclaimed, 'I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day.' Never till now did he deem it fixedly sure. The faith of assurance that he was a child of God he certainly had long before; but not that his final triumphs were unconditionally certain. By the defection of others, his soul had been pained and admonished. Demas had forsaken him, allured by the love of this present world. He had witnessed, and faithfully recorded, the admonitory truth, that the love of money is the root of all evil, which, while some coveted after, they had erred from the faith that they, even believers, who would be rich, had fallen into temptation, and a snare, and many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. In the day of his warfare, with such examples and admonitions before him, he had learned to bring his body under and keep it in subjection, lest after he had preached to others he himself should become a castaway. But there is a point, even in this life, beyond which apostasy is no more to be feared. That point the triumphant apostle had attained. To the consolations of the internal witness that he was in favor with VOL. VII.-April, 1836. 23

God, was now added the new and transporting assurance that his warfare was ended. Temptation had lost its power, and the world had no charms to beguile. The spirit soared upward; nor was there any tendency in its nature to retard its flight. There is divinity as well as poetry in the sweet verse we sing

'Could we but climb where Moses stood,

And view the landscape o'er,

Not Jordan's streams nor death's cold flood
Should fright us from the shore.'

To

From the elevation whence our Divine Lord intends to take his saints directly home, he will never allow them to be removed. This is true of ordinary believers, who to that very hour have much of the unfaithfulness and frailties of their lives to deplore. Here on the confines of the better world he meets them to arm their spirits against the terrors of death. There is a holy hour of triumph to the devout Christian, though his faith have been comparatively feeble, and his hopes faltering; and that is his last hour on the shores of time. Upon this narrow shore, however he may tremble to approach it, he shall find that his feet stand strong. If this be true of ordinary believers, how mighty in this high tower was the holy apostle, who was the chief of all the apostles, in labors, in sacrifices, and in success? The terrors of a martyr's death were before him. Scourges, and scoffing, and tortures the most appalling to human weakness, were open to his view. honor God and commend his cause in passing through the scenes which awaited him, the special energies of grace were needed; and for this they were imparted. His noble spirit towered above the low menacings of a guilty, degraded multitude, who waited to glut their vengeful souls with his innocent blood. With the rage and howlings of demons they rush into his prison, but he seems not to know it; they drag him forth, but he heeds it not. Like his Master, he is led as a lamb to the slaughter, but opens not his mouth. While all is noise and confusion around him, his own soul is calm as the sunshine of Eden. To scoffing and infidel spectators the scene is delusive; he seems a prisoner, but he is a victor. The reality of the issue is hidden in his own bosom, and the contemplation of it inspires his soul with holy triumph. Cæsar returned from his Gallic wars, and entered Rome as a conqueror. Paul leaves the imperial city, and is treated as a criminal. The acclamations with which Cæsar was hailed by his subjects were short, and he died a slave to ambition and folly. Thousands of holy beings wait around to proclaim the triumphs of the Christian soldier, and escort him to the paradise of God. In his nearer approach to the fatal hour, he feels the inspiration of Heaven moving upon his soul in all its glowing energies. Once he saw the glory of the Divine Redeemer shining above the brightness of the sun at mid-day, but the glory disappeared, and he was left to baffle with the storms of life. Once, too, he was admitted to the third heaven, but remanded again to earth. With the remembrance of those anticipations of the excellent glory, and an assurance that soon he should inherit it to be separated from it no more, with an alacrity which astonished his enemies, he hastens to the scene

of blood, and bows his neck to the fatal block. No chains nor cords are necessary to secure him. The final blow is struck, and amid the shouts of infuriated foes, his senses close to terrestrial objects, and his soul soars to the world of bliss. Thus to die is gain, though it cost a world of suffering, sacrifice, and toil.

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MORAL EDUCATION.

From Essays on the Principles of Morality.

BY JONATHAN DYMOND.

To a good moral education, two things are necessary: That the young should receive information respecting what is right and what is wrong; and that they should be furnished with motives to adhere to what is right. We should communicate moral knowledge and moral dispositions.

I. In the endeavor to attain these ends, there is one great pervading difficulty, consisting in the imperfection and impurity of the actual moral condition of mankind. Without referring at present to that moral guidance with which all men, however.circumstanced, are furnished, it is evident that much of the practical moral education which an individual receives is acquired by habit, and from the actions, opinions, and general example of those around him. It is thus that, to a great extent, he acquires his moral education. He adopts the notions of others, acquires insensibly a similar set of principles, and forms to himself a similar scale of right and wrong. It is manifest that the learner in such a school will often be taught amiss. Yet how can we prevent him from being so taught? or what system of moral education is likely to avail in opposition to the contagion of example and the influence of notions insensibly, yet constantly, instilled? It is to little purpose to take a boy every morning into a closet, and there teach him moral and religious truths for an hour, if, so soon as the hour is expired, he is left for the remainder of the day in circumstances in which these truths are not recommended by any living examples.

One of the first and greatest requisites therefore in moral education, is a situation in which the knowledge and the practice of morality is inculcated by the habitually virtuous conduct of others. The boy who is placed in such a situation is in an efficient moral school, though he may never hear delivered formal rules of conduct: so that if parents should ask how they may best give their child a moral education, I answer, Be virtuous yourselves.

The young, however, are unavoidably subjected to bad example as to good: many who may see consistent practical lessons of virtue in their parents' parlors, must see much that is contrary elsewhere; and we must, if we can, so rectify the moral perceptions and invigorate the moral dispositions, that the mind shall effectually resist the insinuation of evil.

Religion is the basis of morality. He that would impart moral knowledge must begin by imparting a knowledge of God. We are not advocates of formal instruction-of lesson-learning-in moral

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any more than in intellectual education. Not that we affirm it undesirable to make a young person commit to memory maxims of religious truth and moral duty. These things may be right, but they are not the really efficient means of forming the moral character of the young. These maxims should recommend themselves to the judgment and affections, and this can hardly be hoped while they are presented only in a didactic and insulated form to the mind. It is one of the characteristics of the times, that there is a prodigious increase of books that are calculated to benefit while they delight the young. These are effective instruments in teaching morality. A simple narrative, (of facts if it be possible,) in which integrity of principle and purity of conduct are recommended to the affections as well as to the judgment,-without affectation, or improbabilities, or factitious sentiment, is likely to effect substantial good. And if these associations are judiciously renewed, the good is likely to be permanent as well as substantial. It is not a light task to write such books nor to select them. Authors color their pictures too highly. They must, indeed, interest the young, or they will not be read with pleasure; but the anxiety to give interest is too great, and the effects may be expected to diminish as the narrative recedes from congeniality to the actual condition of mankind.

A judicious parent will often find that the moral culture of his child may be promoted without seeming to have the object in view. There are many opportunities which present themselves for associating virtue with his affections,-for throwing in among the accumulating mass of mental habits principles of rectitude which shall pervade and meliorate the whole.

As the mind acquires an increased capacity of judging, I would offer to the young person a sound exhibition, if such can be found, of the principles of morality. He should know with as great distinctness as possible, not only his duty, but the reasons of it. It has very unfortunately happened, that those who have professed to deliver the principles of morality, have commonly intermingled error with truth, or have set out with propositions fundamentally unsound. These books effect, it is probable, more injury than benefit. Their truths, for they contain truths, are frequently deduced from fallacious premises, from premises from which it is equally easy to deduce errors. The fallacies of the moral philosophy of Paley are now in part detected by the public: there was a time when his opinions were regarded as more nearly oracular than now, and at that time and up to the present time, the book has effectually confused the moral notions of multitudes of readers. If the reader thinks that the principles which have been proposed in the present essays are just, he might derive some assistance from them in conducting the moral education of his elder children.

There is negative as well as positive education,-some things to avoid, as well as some to do. Of the things which are to be avoided the most obvious is, unfit society for the young. If a boy mixes without restraint in whatever society he pleases, his education will in general be practically bad; because the world in general is bad: its moral condition is below the medium between perfect purity and utter depravation. Nevertheless, he must at some period mix in society with almost all sorts of men, and therefore he must be pre

pared for it. Very young children should be excluded if possible from all unfit association, because they acquire habits before they possess a sufficiency of counteracting principle. But if a parent has, within his own house, sufficiently endeavored to confirm and invigorate the moral character of his child, it were worse than fruitless to endeavor to retain him in the seclusion of a monk. He should feel the necessity and acquire the power of resisting temptation by being subjected, gradually subjected, to that temptation which must one day be presented to him. In the endlessly-diversified circumstances of families, no suggestion of prudence will be applicable to all; but if a parent is conscious that the moral tendency of his domestic associations is good, it will probably be wise to send his children to day schools rather than to send them wholly from his family. Schools, as moral instruments, contain much both of good and evil: perhaps no means will be more effectual in securing much of the good and avoiding much of the evil, than that of allowing his children to spend their evenings and early mornings at home.

In ruminating upon moral education, we cannot, at least in this age of reading, disregard the influence of books. That a young person should not read every book, is plain. No discrimination can be attempted here; but it may be observed that the best species of discrimination is that which is supplied by a rectified condition of the mind itself. The best species of prohibition is not that which a parent pronounces, but that which is pronounced by purified tastes and inclinations in the mind of the young. Not that the parent or tutor can expect that all or many of his children will adequately make this judicious discrimination; but if he cannot do every thing, he can do much. There are many persons whom a contemptible or vicious book disgusts, notwithstanding the fascinations which it may contain. This disgust is the result of education in a large sense; and some portion of this disgust and of the discrimination which results from it, may be induced into the mind of a boy by having made him familiar with superior productions. He who is accustomed to good society feels little temptation to join in the vociferations of an alehouse.

And here it appears necessary to advert to the moral tendency of studying, without selection, the ancient classics. If there are objections to the study resulting from this tendency, they are to be superadded to those which were stated in the last chapter on intellectual grounds; and both united will present motives to hesitation on the part of a parent which he cannot, with any propriety, disregard. The mode in which the writings of the Greek and Latin authors operate is not an ordinary mode. We do not approach them as we approach ordinary books, but with a sort of habitual admiration which makes their influence, whatever be its nature, peculiarly strong. That admiration would be powerful alike for good or for evil. Whether the tendency be good or evil, the admiration will make it great.

Now previous to inquiring what the positive ill tendency of these writings is, what is not their tendency? They are pagan books for Christian children. They neither inculcate Christianity, nor Christian dispositions, nor the love of Christianity. But their tendency is not negative merely. They do inculcate that which is

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