heroism. And it was the natural expression of that all-pervading doctrine of the Bible, by which conscience is enthroned in the human mind; which leads a man to ask only what is right in the sight of God. He who has thoroughly emancipated himself from every other influence is, in the true sense, free; free in thought, and free in action. He feels that what is true is good, and good for him to know. Wherever the light of truth leads, he treads fearlessly. He may encounter reverend opinions; he may war with authorities; he may violate prejudices; but to him truth and duty and happiness are coincident. Tempests may lash the ocean; and the wrecks of a thousand foundered barks may be tossed in cruel mockery, upon its vagrant surges; yet he starts not with fears; he confides in reason because he has faith in God. The spirit of Christianity is the spirit of rectitude; and the spirit of rectitude, is twin sister to the spirit of truth, daughters, both, of God. It is only they, who like not to retain God in their knowledge, that are given up to believe a lie.

The impediment, to mental freedom, without, exist either in the circumstances of our physical condition, or in the subjects of inquiry. These may limit the mind's action.

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When we speak of liberality in relation to these impediments, we have in mind the range and compass of thought the amplitude of the field of vision. The proper opposite of it, in this sense, is imperfection, partiality, narrowness of views. A liberal scholar or critic is one, whose reading is not confined to elementary or professional books-to history or fiction to prose or poetry to this or that school - to one or another age. He is one, who has freed himself from the dominion of local and temporary tastes, who has escaped from the control of personal and peculiar associations, and expanding his thoughts and pathies to embrace the whole development of cultivated mind, has become a citizen of the world of letters. He does not cease to have predilections and associations of his own; but he has learned to set a proper value on the productions, and to make a proper allowance for the predilections and associations of other minds, differently taught and differently situated. A liberal judge of character is not confined to single acts or habits; he considers the current and complexion of the whole of life — the mass of a man's principles, feelings and actions. A liberal view of human nature, is neither that of the crimes and cruelties of history, nor that of the frivolities and follies of ordinary life, nor

that of the virtues and quiet enjoyments which have so sanctified and consecrated a few sunny spots on this world's surface. He is neither an optimist, nor a satirist, nor a misanthrope. He is a man, whose study has been man.

The world is a system; every thing is part of one great whole; and has relations to the whole, which go to make it, what it really is; and nothing is fully appreciated, when considered apart from these relations. Hence compass and correctness of view have an intimate relation to each other. To be just our ideas must be comprehensive. Liberality and truth are commensuThe mind is, in this sense, liberal and free, just in proportion to the largeness of its views of truth. And if we could once reach that central point, where the eye commands all nature and all being at one broad sweep; then and then only might our freedom of thought be pronounced absolutely unlimited.

rate.

In this respect, then, think what Christianity does for the freedom of the mind. How it struggles with the selfish principle; how it carries out the thoughts to distant objects; how it widens, and widens, and widens the circle of our contemplations and our sympathies, till self, and home, and country are lost in the magnificent idea of one universal brotherhood among men one human family; binding us to all that have lived before us, and all that shall live after us. What relations to the spiritual world it unveils, implicating our existence, and destiny with the existence and destiny of the angels; and associating our mortal life with the future history of all intelligent beings, giving to what we think and do here a bearing on the entire administration of the Almighty forever. What a universe, what an administration, what a God! No intellect can grasp the infinite idea. No mind can raise itself to these contemplations, and not cease to think as a child, or to feel as a child-not put away childish things.

Again; Christianity deserves a prominent place in a course of public instruction, because it is, in fact, an essential element in a finished education.

Christianity is one of the wants of the human mind; as much so as any class of ideas or emotions. It is not made indispensable by the authority of God; it is commanded by God, because it is indispensable to the perfection of man. It is no mere accident, no mere condition of something else. So far from it, that we cannot conceive of mental perfection, without including this as the crowning excellence. Without it we are not eduVOL. IX. No. 25.

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cated; our powers are not all and only developed; the noblest part of our nature is a waste; the faculties, that apprehend God, the affections that are warmed into life by the ideas of divinity, of love unmeasured, infinite, of greatness inconceivable, these best and holiest feelings of our moral nature, are left to slumber. Without it, we are neither fitted for the future, nor the present. Every man sees the inimitable perfection of Jesus Christ. No decent deist denies it. It meets the demands of conscience; it answers to our idea of man made perfect. And till we attain the consciousness of this perfection, we have neither peace nor self-approbation.

The history of the world, apart from its relation to the christian religion, is the mystery of mysteries. If God has not some such design in conducting human affairs as the Bible ascribes to him, if the present state of man is not a state of trial, of moral discipline and probation, under a dispensation of pardon and sanctifying grace, what are we, and what are we doing here? If life is a trial of faith for the working out of patience and experience and hope, it is, indeed, the fittest possible, for its purpose; if not, it is a perfect enigma. Assume the existence and character of the God of revelation, and faith must, of necessity, be the vital principle of our moral being. By it we draw nigh to him, in humble adoration; by it we cling to him in adversity; by it we muse upon him, and the heart burns within us; by it he becomes to us all and in all. And such faith, it is obvious, can be produced in man only by such discipline as life affords. It could not be developed in a state of existence, in which God is essentially more, or less known; or, in which his providence is one of pure rewards or unmingled punishments. It requires just such a checkered scene as this world affords, to nourish such a virtue as christian faith. So, also, of the other graces of the spirit; they are the growth of this world as it is; they could not spring up in any other soil.

Shakspeare has drawn a picture of a mind endowed with all other traits save christian principle, in his masterly delineation of Hamlet-contemplative, profound, all-comprehending, keenly alive to honor, to kindness, to magnanimity; but puzzled, oppressed, wearied even to the loathing of life, by the contemplation of events events which the least in the kingdom of heaven understands full well.

If, then, we are to be educated to live at all, why not to live right? If we are to be taught truth, why not the whole truth?

Why train generation after generation to circumscribe their vision to the scenes of their childhood? Why appeal continually to motives, which do not become us, motives either entirely false, or partial and degrading? Why assume, at the outset, in our systems of education, that there is something better to be held up to the view of youth than the truth and the whole truth, in relation to their condition and prospects? Why take it for granted, that God, who has adapted the mind to the theatre, in which it is to exist and act, has not so made it as to render the real circumstances, in which it is placed, the most efficient and most suitable motives to its exertion and development? It should be considered, that by employing a meaner incentive to action, we, in fact exclude the influence of nobler motives. When we appeal to pride, or avarice, we preclude the operation of patriotism, or benevolence, we preoccupy the ground. Rewards addressed to the ambition of the student, for example, take the place of the higher motives addressed to his conscience, to his love of letters, to his love of God.

Is there not something preposterous in the idea of opening the heart to virtuous and benevolent affections, by constantly addressing, and thus exercising, the selfish and wrong sensibilities? How are dormant principles of our nature ever to be awakened? Certainly not by neglecting to appeal to them, by suffering them to slumber. We might as reasonably hope to recover the strength of an enfeebled limb by entirely disusing it. The bad passions of a child are cultivated by presenting occasions of indulging them. His better feelings are strengthened in the same way.

The great precept of education should be to make use of all the means we have to bring out the best feelings, the best mental action, it should be to press upon the attention those objects, and those only, which naturally cherish and strengthen these feelings. The best feelings are, of course, the feelings, which most become our true condition; and the objects, which naturally produce these feelings are the objects, which make that condition what it is; the objects, with which we stand connected as intelligent, moral, social, immortal beings. Any view of life, which overlooks important relations of the human mind, especially its all important spiritual and eternal relations, is something less, infinitely less, than the truth, and cannot be wisely, or safely, made the foundation of a system of education. In this view, it is worthy of serious consideration, how far the

rewards held out to diligence and success in study, are justified by a truly christian philosophy. The practice of appealing to emulation, the pride of superiority, has, it is true, been encouraged by the approbation of nearly all the great and good men, who have had the conduct of our institutions of learning. It is but carrying the motives which stimulate men in real life, into the scenes of academical instruction. But, though it may be true, that, in so doing, we are only applying the incentives to literary enterprise and industry, by which most of the energy and perfection of talent in the world are produced, may it not, nevertheless, be wrong? Ought the conductors of education to take for granted, that men are, in fact, actuated by the best principles, in real life? Do we not, on the contrary, feel assured, that nothing is so desirable as the production of a higher and purer ambition in the leading members of society? That nothing is so important to the present generation, and to posterity, as the prevalence of christian motives among literary men, the sanctification, we may say, of genius? To train up a child in the way those, who have already become men, actually go, is not to follow the counsels of divine wisdom, nor to improve mankind.

So long as men are educated to make money merely, to attain to office, to distinguish themselves, they may indeed be taught to do these things. But they are neither of them, nor all together, the end of life. And in being made ends at all, they necessarily take the place of the true and higher objects of our being. Under such a system of motives the very best character cannot be produced. And though the pupil may be told, that there are higher, purer, nobler objects, of what avail can it be, so long as he is really induced to exert himself, and that too, by the very same instructor, for entirely different and even opposite ends? What must a child think of the consistency or sincerity of the parent, who calls on him to glorify God, or do good to men, in an act, which, at the very same time he urges by an appeal to the love of praise, or the fear of the lash?

It is not pretended, that this subject is clear of embarrassments. It is not doubted, that inferior motives may be employed to strengthen the superior ones. The splendor of the Jewish ritual, was doubtless intended to attract men to the worship of Jehovah, and to attach them to that worship, though ever so great veneration for the temple and its service, was not devotion to God. Filial obedience may be enforced by the rod, when other considerations fail to secure it. Right action,