of wormwood. He plays yet like a young prentice the first day, and is not come to his task of melancholy. All the language he speaks yet is tears, and they serve him well enough to express his necessity. His hardest labour is his tongue, as if he were loth to use so deceitful an organ; and he is best company with it when he can but prattle. We laugh at his foolish sports, but his game is our earnest; and his drums, rattles, and hobby-horses, but the emblems and mockings of men's business. His father hath writ him as his own little story, wherein he reads those days of his life which he cannot remember, and sighs to see what innocence he has outlived. He is the Christian's example, and the old man's relapse; the one imitates his pureness, and the other falls into his simplicity. Could he put off his body with his little coat, he had got eternity without a burden, and exchanged but one heaven for another. BISHOP EARLE.

Hang me all the thieves in Gibbet Street tomorrow, and the place will be crammed with fresh tenants in a week; but catch me up the young thieves from the gutter and the doorsteps; take Jonathan Wild from the breast; send Mrs. Sheppard to Bridewell, but take hale young Jack out of her arms; teach and wash me this young unkempt vicious colt, and he will run for the Virtue Stakes yet; take the young child, the little lamb, before the great Jack Sheppard ruddles him and folds him for his own black flock in Hades; give him some soap, instead of whipping him for stealing a cake of brown Windsor; teach him the Gospel, instead of sending him to the treadmill for haunting chapels and purloining prayer-books out of pews; put him in the way of filling shoptills, instead of transporting him when he crawls on his hands and knees to empty them; let him know that he has a body fit and made for something better than to be kicked, bruised, chained, pinched with hunger, clad in rags or prison gray, or mangled with gaoler's cat; let him In God's name, take care of the children, somebody;

know that he has a soul to be saved.

and there will soon be an oldest inhabitant in Gibbet Street, and never a new one to succeed him! Household Words.

Suppose, again, that a teacher is gentle-spirited and of a loving disposition; the first soon dwindles into a feeble non-resistance of injuries, and the last hungers and thirsts often until it perishes of inanition. I know it is a shocking thing to say, but the children are mostly selfish: so long as you are administering to their amusement or comfort, they will love you, but the moment it becomes necessary to thwart a whim or control a passion, you are altogether hateful; and they hate you for the time being, very cordially. I have been loved and hated myself a dozen times a week; and I know a little damsel now who, when her temper is crossed, tells her governess that she hates her pet cat, and is not above giving the innocent pussy a sly blow or kick as proxy for its much-enduring mistress.

Household Words.

Tell me not of the trim, precisely-arranged homes where there are no children; "where," as the good Germans have it, "the fly-traps always hang straight on the wall;" tell me not of the never-disturbed nights and days, of the tranquil, unanxious hearts, where children are not! I care not for these things. God sends children for another purpose than merely to keep up the race :-to enlarge our hearts, to make us unselfish, and full of kindly sympathies and affections; to give our souls higher aims, and to call out all our faculties to extended enterprise and exertion; to bring round our fireside bright faces and happy smiles, and loving, tender hearts My soul blesses the Great Father every day, that he has gladdened the earth with little children.

MARY HOWitt.

All minds, even the dullest, remember the days of their childhood; but all cannot bring back the indescribable brightness of that blessed season. They who would know what they once were, must not merely recollect, but they must imagine, the hills and valleys-if any such there were-in which their childhood played; the torrents, the waterfalls, the lakes, the heather, the rocks, the heaven's imperial dome, the raven floating only a little lower than the eagle in the sky. To imagine what he then heard and saw, collect from many vanished hours the power of he must imagine his own nature. He must his untamed heart; and he must, perhaps, transfuse also something of his maturer mind into those dreams of his former being, thus linking the past with the present by a continuous chain, So it is too with the calmer affections that have which, though often invisible, is never broken. grown within the shelter of a roof. merely remember, we imagine, our father's house, the fireside, all his features, then most of his smile, every tone of his voice. We must living, now dead and buried, the very manner combine, with all the passionate and plastic power of imagination, the spirit of a thousand invest with all that we ever felt to be venerable, happy hours into one moment; and we must such an image as alone can fill our filial hearts. It is thus that imagination, which first aided the growth of all our holiest and happiest affections, can preserve them to us unimpaired

We do not

"For she can bring us back the dead
Even in the loveliest looks they wore."
WASHINGTON IRVING.

Young people who have been habitually gratified in all their desires will not only more indulge in capricious desires, but will infallibly take it more amiss when the feelings or happiness of others require that they should be thwarted, than those who have been practically trained to the habit of subduing and restraining them, and consequently will, in general, sacrifice the happiness of others to their own selfish indulgence. To what else is the selfishness of princes and other great people to be attributed? It is in vain to think of cultivating principles of generosity and beneficence by mere exhortation and

reasoning. Nothing but the practical habit of overcoming our own selfishness, and of familiarly encountering privations and discomfort on account of others, will ever enable us to do it when required. And therefore I am firmly persuaded that indulgence infallibly produces

selfishness and hardness of heart, and that nothing but a pretty severe discipline and control can lay the foundation of a magnanimous character. LORD JEFFREY.

Yet it may be doubted whether the pleasure of seeing children ripened into strength be not overbalanced by the pain of seeing some fall in the blossom, and others blasted in their growth; some shaken down by storms, some tainted with cankers, and some shrivelled in the shade; and whether he that extends his care beyond himself does not multiply his anxieties more than his pleasures, and weary himself to no purpose, by superintending what he cannot regulate.

DR. S. JOHNSON: Rambler, No. 69.

I know that a sweet child is the sweetest thing in nature, not even excepting the delicate creatures which bear them; but the prettier the kind of a thing is, the more desirable it is that it should be pretty of its kind. One daisy differs not much from another in glory; but a violet should look and smell the daintiest.

To keep him at a distance from falsehood, and cunning, which has always a broad mixture of falsehood,-this is the fittest preparation of a child for wisdom. LOCKE.

When one is sure it will not corrupt or effeminate children's minds, and make them fond of trifles, I think all things should be contrived to their satisfaction. LOCKE.

I am sure children would be freer from diseases if they were not crammed so much as they are by fond mothers, and were kept wholly from flesh the first three years. LOCKE.

If the mind be curbed and humbled too much in children; if their spirits be abused and broken too much by too strict an hand over them; they lose all their vivacity and industry. LOCKE.

Children, even when they endeavour their utmost, cannot keep their minds from straggling. LOCKE.

If improvement cannot be made a recreation, they must be let loose to the childish play they being made surfeit of it. fancy, which they should be weaned from by LOCKE.

The main thing to be considered in every action of a child is how it will become him when he is bigger, and whither it will lead him when he is grown up. LOCKE.

Forcing the empty wits of children to comMILTON. pose themes, verses, and orations.

To season them, and win them early to the love of virtue and true labour, ere any flattering seducement or vain principle seize them wandering, some easy and delightful book of education should be read to them. MILTON.

A child's eyes! those clear wells of undefiled thought; what on earth can be more beautiful! Full of hope, love, and curiosity, they meet your own. In prayer, how earnest; in joy, how sparkling; in sympathy, how tender! The man who never tried the companionship of a little child has carelessly passed by one of the great pleasures of life, as one passes a rare flower without plucking it or knowing its value. A child cannot understand you, you think: speak to it of the holy things of your religion, of your grief for the loss of a friend, of your love for some one you fear will not love in return: it will take, it is true, no measure or soundings of your thought; it will not judge how much you should believe; whether your grief is rational worthy or fit to attract the love which you seek; in proportion to your loss; whether you are but its whole soul will incline to yours, and ingraft itself, as it were, on the feeling which is your feeling for the hour.

is their propensity to imitation. Now, there is nothing which children imitate or apply more | readily than expressions of affection and aversion, of approbation, hatred, resentment, and the like; and when these passions and expressions are once connected, which they soon will be by the same association which unites words with their ideas, the passion will follow the expression, and attach upon the object to which the child has been accustomed to apply the epithet.

PALEY.

There is another accidental advantage in marriage, which has likewise fallen to my share; I mean the having a multitude of children. These I cannot but regard as very great blessings. When I see my little troop before me, I rejoice in the additions which I have made to my species, to my country, and to my religion, in having produced such a number of reasonable creatures, citizens, and Christians. I am pleased to see myself thus perpetuated.

They who provide much wealth for their children, but neglect to improve them in virtue, do like those who feed their horses high, but never train them to the manage. SOCRATES. Some who have been corrupt in their morals have yet been infinitely solicitous to have their children piously brought up. SOUTH.

A house is never perfectly furnished for enjoyment unless there is a child in it rising three years old, and a kitten rising three weeks.

SOUTHEY.

Call not that man wretched who, whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love.

SOUTHEY.

These slight intimations will give you to understand that there are numberless little crimes which children take no notice of while they are doing, which, upon reflection, when they shall themselves become fathers, they will look upon with the utmost sorrow and contrition, that they did not regard before those whom they offended were to be no more seen. How many thousand things do I remember which would have highly pleased my father, and I omitted for no other reason but that I thought what he proposed the effect of humour and old age, which I am now convinced had reason and good sense in it! I cannot now go into the parlour to him and make his heart glad with an account of a matter which was of no consequence, but that I told it and acted in it. The good man and woman are long since in their graves, who used to sit and plot the welfare of us their children, while, perhaps, we were sometimes laughing at

the old folks at the other end of the house.

SIR R. STEELE: Spectator, No. 263. Fidelia, on her part, as I was going to say, as accomplished as she is, with all her beauty, wit, air, and mien, employs her whole time in care and attendance upon her father. How have I been charmed to see one of the most beauteous women the age has produced, on her knees, helping on an old man's slipper! Her filial regard to him is what she makes her diversion, her business, and her glory.

SIR R. STEELE: Spectator, No. 449.

affability, frequent admonition, all signification of love, tenderness, care, and watchfulness, must be expressed towards children.

JEREMY TAYLOR.

Nothing seems to weigh down their buoyant Spirits long; misfortune may fall to their lot, but the shadows it casts upon their life-path are fleeting as the clouds that come and go in an April sky. Their future may, perchance, appear dark to others, but to their fearless gaze looms up brilliant and beautiful as the walls of a fairy palace. There is no tear which a mother's gentle hand cannot wipe away, no wound that a mother's kiss cannot heal, no anguish which the sweet murmuring of her soft, low voice cannot soothe. The warm, generous impulses of their nature have not been fettered and cramped by the cold formalities of the world; they have not yet learned to veil a hollow heart with false smiles, or hide the basest purposes beneath honeyed words. Neither are they constantly on the alert to search out our faults and foibles with Argus eye: on the contrary, they exercise that blessed charity which "thinketh no evil." TEGNER.

By frequent conversing with him, and scattering short apothegms, and little pleasant stories, and making useful applications of them, his son was in his infancy taught to abhor vanity and vice as monsters. IZAAK WALTON: Life of Sanderson.

In order to form the minds of children, the first thing to be done is to conquer their will. To inform the understanding is a work of time, and must, with children, proceed by slow degrees, as they are able to hear it; but the subjecting the will must be done at once, and the sooner the better; for, by neglecting timely correction, they will contract a stubbornness and obstinacy which are hardly ever conquered, and not without using such severity as would be as painful to me as the child. In the esteem of the world they pass for kind and indulgent, whom I call cruel, parents, who permit their children to get habits which they know must afterwards be broken. When the will of a child is subdued, and it is brought to revere and stand in awe of its parents, then a great many childish follies and inadvertencies may be passed by. Some should be overlooked, and others mildly reproved; but no wilful transgression ought to be forgiven without such chastisement, less or

more, as the nature and circumstances of the offence may require. I insist upon conquering the will of children betimes, because this is the only strong and rational foundation of a religious education, without which both precept and example will be ineffectual. But when this is thoroughly done, then a child is capable of being governed by the reason and piety of its parents till its own understanding comes to maturity, and the principles of religion have taken root in the mind. MRS. S. WESLEY.

In books designed for children there are two extremes that should be avoided. The one, that reference to religious principles in connection with matters too trifling and undignified, arising from a well-intentioned zeal, causing a forgetfulness of the maxim whose notorious truth has made it proverbial, "Too much familiarity breeds contempt." And the other is the contrary, and still more prevailing, extreme, arising from a desire to preserve a due reverence for religion, at the expense of its useful application in conduct. But a line may be drawn which will keep clear of both extremes. We should not exclude the association of things sacred with whatever are to ourselves trifling matters (for these little things are great to children), but with whatever is viewed by them as trifling. Everything is great or small in reference to the parties concerned. The private concerns of any obscure individual are very insignificant to the world at large, but they are of great importance to himself; and all worldly affairs must be small in the sight of the Most High; but irreverent familiarity is engendered in the mind of any one, then, and then only, when things sacred are associated with such as are, to him, insignificant things.

WHATELY:

Annot. on Bacon's Essay, Of Studies. The influence exercised by such works is overlooked by those who suppose that a child's character, moral and intellectual, is formed by those books only which are put into his hands with that design. As hardly anything can accidentally touch the soft clay without stamping its mark on it, so hardly any reading can interest a child without contributing in some degree, though the book itself be afterwards totally forgotten, to form the character; and the parents, therefore, who, merely requiring from him a certain course of study, pay little or no attention to story-books, are educating him they know not how. WHATELY :

Annot. on Bacon's Essay, Of Studies.

CHRIST.

But Silence never shows itself to so great an advantage as when it is made the reply to calumny and defamation, provided that we give no just occasion for them. We might produce an example of it in the behaviour of One, in whom it appeared in all its majesty, and One

whose Silence, as well as his person, was altogether divine. When one considers this subject only in its sublimity, this great instance could not but occur to me; and since I only make use of it to show the highest example of it, I hope I do not offend in it. To forbear replying to an unjust reproach, and overlook it with a generous, or, if possible, with an entire neglect of it, is one of the most heroic acts of a great mind; and I must confess, when I reflect upon the behaviour of some of the greatest men of antiquity, I do not so much admire them that they deserved the praise of the whole age they lived in, as because they contemned the envy and detraction of it. ADDISON: Tatler, No. 133.

What can be a stronger motive to a firm trust and reliance on the mercies of our Maker than the giving us his Son to suffer for us? What

can make us love and esteem even the most inconsiderable of mankind, more than the thought that Christ died for him? Or what dispose us to set a stricter guard upon the purity of our own hearts, than our being members of Christ, and a part of the society of which that immaculate person is the head? But these are only a speci

men of those admirable enforcements of moral

ity which the apostle has drawn from the history of our blessed Saviour.

ADDISON: Spectator, No. 186.

Being convinced upon all accounts that they had the same reason to believe the history of our Saviour as that of any other person to which they themselves were not actually eye-witnesses, they were bound, by all the rules of historical faith and of right reason, to give credit to this history. ADDISON.

When these learned men saw sickness and frenzy cured, the dead raised, the oracles put to silence, the demons and evil spirits forced to confess themselves no gods, by persons who only made use of prayers and adjurations in the name of their crucified Saviour, how could they doubt of their Saviour's power on the like occasions?

ADDISON: On the Christian Religion.

However consonant to reason his precepts appeared, nothing could have tempted men to acknowledge him as their God and Saviour but their being firmly persuaded of the miracles he ADDISON. wrought.

Who would not believe that our Saviour healed the sick and raised the dead when it was.

published by those who themselves often did the: same miracles?

ADDISON.

Let a man's innocence be what it will, let his. virtues rise to the highest pitch of perfection, there will still be in him so many secret sins, so many human frailties, so many offences of ignorance, passion, and prejudice, so many unguarded words and thoughts, that without the advantage of such an expiation and atonement as Christianity has revealed to us, it is impossible he should be saved. ADDISON.

We sometimes wish that it had been our lot to live and converse with Christ, to hear his divine discourses, and to observe his spotless behaviour; and we please ourselves with thinking how ready a reception we should have given to him and his doctrine. ATTERBURY.

The resurrection is so convincingly attested by such persons, with such circumstances, that they who consider and weigh the testimony, at what distance soever they are placed, cannot entertain any more doubt of the resurrection than the crucifixion of Jesus. ATTERBURY.

Our Saviour would love at no less rate than death; and from the supereminent height of glory, stooped and debased himself to the sufferance of the extremest of indignities, and sunk himself to the bottom of abjectedness, to exalt our condition to the contrary extreme.

You have the representatives of that religion which says that their God is love, that the very vital spirit of their institution is charity,-a religion which so much hates oppression, that, when the God whom we adore appeared in human form, he did not appear in a form of greatness and majesty, but in sympathy with the lowest of the people, and thereby made it a firm and ruling principle that their welfare was the object of all government, since the Person who was the Master of Nature chose to appear himself in a subordinate situation.

He walked in Judea eighteen hundred years ago: his sphere melody, flowing in wild native tones, took captive the ravished souls of men, and being of a truth sphere melody, still flows and sounds, though now with thousand-fold accompaniments and rich symphonies, through all our hearts, and modulates and divinely leads them. CARLYLE.

In like manner did the King eternal, immortal, and invisible, surrounded as he is with the splendours of a wide and everlasting monarchy, turn him to our humble habitation; and the footsteps of God manifest in the flesh have been on the narrow spot of ground we occupy; and small though our mansion be amid the orbs and the systems of immensity, hither hath the King of glory bent his mysterious way, and entered the tabernacle of men, and in the disguise of a servant did he sojourn for years under the roof which canopies our obscure and solitary world. DR. T. CHALMERS: Discourses on Mod. Astron., Disc. IV.

Tacitus has actually attested the existence of Jesus Christ; the reality of such a personage; his public execution under the administration of Pontius Pilate; the temporary check which this gave to the progress of his religion; its revival a short time after his death; its progress over the land of Judea, and to Rome itself, the metropolis of the empire;-all this we have in a

Roman historian.

DR. T. CHALMERS:

Evid. of Chris., chap. v.

For my own part, gentlemen, I have been ever deeply devoted to the truths of Christianity; and my firm belief in the Holy Gospel is by no means owing to the prejudices of education (though I was religiously educated by the best of parents), but has arisen from the fullest and most continued reflections of my riper years and understanding. It forms at this moment the great consolation of a life which as a shadow passes away; and without it I should consider my long course of health and prosperity (too long, perhaps, and too uninterrupted to be good for any man) only as the dust which the wind scatters, and rather as a snare than as a blessing.

LORD CHANCELLOR ERSKINE: Speech in the Prosecution of Paine as author of The Age of Reason, 1794.

In the mystery of Christ's incarnation, who was God as well as man, in the humiliation of his life, and in his death upon the cross, we behold the most stupendous instance of compassion; while at the same moment the law of God received more honour than it could have done by the obedience and death of any, or of all, his creatures. In this dispensation of his grace he has reached so far beyond our highest hopes that, if we love him, we may be assured that he will with it freely give us all things. Access to God is now opened at all times, and from all places; and to such as sincerely ask it he has promised his Spirit to teach them to pray, and The sacrifice of Christ to help their infirmities. has rendered it just for him to forgive sin; and whenever we are led to repent of and to forsake it, even the righteousness of God is declared in the pardon of it. ROBERT HALL: Excellency of the Christian Dispensation. That he shall receive no benefit from Christ is the affirmation whereon his despair is founded; and one way of removing this dismal apprehension is, to convince him that Christ's death (if he perform the condition required) shall certainly belong to him.

HAMMOND: Fundamentals.

conditionate, receiving Christ as the gospel offers All the decrees whereof Scripture treateth are him, as Lord and Saviour; the former, as well as the latter, being the condition of Scripture election, and the rejecting, or not receiving him thus, the condition of the Scripture reprobation. HAMMOND.

The end of his descent was to gather a church of holy Christian livers over the whole world. HAMMOND.