When I was a young man I travelled in foreign lands, and was exposed to many temptations; but when I would have yielded, that same hand was upon my head, and I was saved. I seemed to feel its pressure as in the days of my happy infancy, and sometimes there came with it a voice in my heart, a voice that must be obeyed; Oh, do not this wickedness, my son, nor sin against thy God."

423. Of the importance, in a moral point of view, of adopting correct speculative opinions.

But, while we assert that there is ample basis in the mental constitution for a moral education, that this education ought to be commenced at an early period, and that such a course of training has its due share of encouragements, we acknowledge that it is not an easy thing in a few words to point out the characteristics, and to indicate the outlines of a system of moral culture. Accordingly, we shall not attempt it any further than to add a few general suggestions. We proceed, therefore, to remark, that suitable pains ought to be taken to introduce into the young mind correct speculative opinions.

It was seen in a former Chapter that the conscience acts in view of the facts which are before it. It will follow, therefore, if we adopt wrong opinions, whatever they may be, they will have an effect upon the conscience. If these opinions be important, be fundamental, they will be likely to lead us in a course which, under other circumstances, we should regard as wrong in the very highest degree. The belief that men by nature possess equal rights, is in itself nothing more than a speculative opinion; but this opinion, simple and harmless as it may seem in its enunciation, is at this moment shaking thrones, unbinding the chains of millions, and remodelling the vast fabric of society. The opinion that the rights of conscience are inalienable, and that no one can regulate by violent means the religion of another, is breaking the wheel of torture, and quenching the fire of persecution, and quickening into life the smothered worship of the world. The speculative opinion that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, appeared in the form of man, and by his death made an atonement for sin, is a truth, simple and ineffective as it may at first

sight appear, which has already changed the face of domestic and civil society, and, like a little leaven which leaveneth the whole lump, is secretly regenerating the whole mass of human nature.

We infer, therefore, that it is highly important to consider well what truths we adopt. The doctrine that it is no matter what we believe, if we are only sincere in it, is derogatory to the claims of human reason, and full of danger. What persecutor, what tyrant, what robber, what assassin may not put in his claim for a sort of sincerity, and, in many cases, justly too? It is a sincerity, a conscientiousness based on all the wisdom which human intelligence, in its best efforts, can gather up, and nothing short of this, which stands approved in the sight of human reason and of a just Divinity.

§ 424. Of the knowledge of the Supreme Being, and of the study of religious truth generally.

And, in connexion with what has been said in the preceding section, we proceed to remark further, that all morality must necessarily be defective, in a greater or less degree, which proceeds on the principle of excluding RELIGION. It is true that a man who is not religious, (in other words, who has not a sincere regard for the character and institutions of the Supreme Being,) may do some things which, in themselves considered, are right and are morally commendable; but he does not do all that is right, he comes short in the most essential part. And his failure there renders it difficult, perhaps we may say impossible, to speak of him, with any degree of propriety and truth, as a right, that is to say, as a just or holy person.

We assert, therefore, that moral education must include, as a leading element, some instruction in regard to the existence and character of God, and those religious duties which are involved in the fact of his existence and character. Our conscience, the office of which is to adjust our duties to our ability and the relations we sustain, imperatively requires this. In the eye of an enlightened intellectual perception, God stands forth distinct from, and pre-eminent above all others, as an object infinitely exalted; and a want of love to his character and of adhe

sion to his law is, in the view of conscience, a crime so grossly flagrant in itself as not to be atoned for by any other virtue. And not only this; a proper regard for the character of the Supreme Being has such a multiplicity of bearings and relations, in consequence of the diffusion of his presence, and the multiplicity of his acts and requirements, that the crime involved in the want of it seems to spread itself over the infinite number of transactions which, taken together, constitute the sum of life. So that the doctrine of the existence of God, received into the intellect, and attended, as it should be, with perfect love in the heart, is, beyond all question, the great foundation and support of a truly consistent moral life.

THE SENSIBILITIES, OR SENSITIVE

NATURE.

SENSITIVE STATES OF THE MIND OR SENTIMENTS.

PART THIRD.

IMPERFECT OR DISORDERED SENSITIVE ACTION.

PP 2