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Scotland, in as far as they are made the means of reclaiming from the paths of idleness and vice the neglected offspring of careless parents, in our populous towns and cities, and have for their object, like the West-London Lancastrian Association, the TAKING THE CHILDREN FROM THE STREETS TO TRAIN THEM UP TO GOODNESS†, they are cer tainly deserving of every support and encouragement. But when they fall short of, or attempt to do more than this, un der the guidance of hot-headed, ignorant, and mistaken zealots, ever more anxious to propagate their own selfish opin ions, and sow dissensions in the church of Christ, than to in culcate those sublime lessons, which have a natural tendency to eradicate vice, prevent the commission of crime, and promote that spirit of harmony and brotherly love, which according to the test laid down by the author of our holy religion, is the true badge of Christianity, and distinguishes his sincere followers from hypocritical professors of every sect and com munion; or when they take their rise in situations where their services are rendered perfectly nugatory, unless at the expense of encouraging habits of sloth and indolence among parents, whose circumstances enable them to give their children a suitable education at school through the week, are not destitute of ability, and have sufficient leisure to look after the religious and moral improvement of their little ones after church hours, on Sabbath, themselves, they may be pro

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that on examining the registers of marriages in the collegiate church for the 6 years, ending 31st Dec. 1812, he found, from the signatures, that so many as 9756 persons had been married within that period, who were not able to write their own names!

The humane propriety of such an institution, especially in London, will the more appear, when we consider the tender age at which the young are there made amenable to the laws, and may be capitally convicted. Will it be believed, that on Wednesday the 16th of February 1814, five children, the youngest 8, and the oldest 12 years of age, were condemned to death? Yet such was the case, as appears by the following statement, for the correctness of which the reader is referred to the Calendar of Criminals tried at the Old-Bailey. Fowler, aged 12 years,

Wolfe,

Morris,

Solomons,

Burrell,

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for a burglary in a dwelling house.

for a burglary, and stealing a pair of

shoes.

By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, IF YE LOVE

ONE ANOTHER,

John xiii. 35.

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar, I. John, iv. 20.

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ctive of more harm than good. It was, from this latter coneration, and the infinite importance of parents attending the spiritual edification of their offspring personally, that r worthy minister gave no encouragement to the late atmpt of a person, (who, by the by, was not of the best rete as to moral character,) to set up one of these seminaries our village, under the specious pretence that it was a work of cessity and mercy. For where (he said,) the whole of the ildren were or might be taught their necessary lessons in urse of the week by the schoolmaster, (who is a very worthy aracter, and an experienced, judicious teacher,) at an expense thin the reach of every householder in the parish, it cannot called a work of charity; and as for mercy, (he replied, to the erson who made the proposal,) whether is she to be accountthe most merciful mother who acts the tender and becoming art of a nurse herself, when providence puts it in her power do so, or her, who merely to save herself a little trouble, or o obtain more leisure for gadding abroad, commits her helpss charge to the care of an hireling.' It is impossible to desribe the satisfaction the good man seemed to feel on seeing is sentiments so faithfully expressed, as he was pleased to ay, in the first paper I sent to the Cheap Magazine. 'Ay; y;' said Mr. ALLWORTHY, after having perused The Beacon: EVERY WELL REGULATED FAMILY SHOULD BE SUNDAY-SCHOOL OF ITSELF. The important truth annot be too often repeated, and many such may I see in my arish; for who more fit to superintend the spiritual edificaion of his own children after church hours than the parenthe father of the family? It is his natural duty, and he is comnanded to it also by Revelation. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, und shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up*.' Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from itt. We have also the example of faithful ABRAHAM: For I know him (saith the Lord) that he will command his children, and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judg ment; and of DAVID, who instructed SOLOMON his son in his duty, and, with great affection, said to him, "Now, my son, the Lord be with thee, &c. Besides, this may be inferred from the injunctions laid upon children themselves, to honour and obey their parents, and the denunciations uttered against rebellious children. But if all this will not do, a sense of their VOL. II.

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* Deut. vi. 6. 7. II. Chron. xxii. II.

+ Prov, xxii. 6.

Gen xviii. 19.

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own danger, and the responsibility that attaches to parents i the use or abuse of their sacred trust, one would think shoul have some effect. The same wise man who says, Corre thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight w thy soul;' says also: A child left to himself bringeth his m ther to shume;' but even this is not the worst of it; what a awful example have we in the case of ELI, of the dreadful pur ishment of UTTER DESTRUCTION, ROOT and BRANCH those thoughtless parents expose themselves to, from the wrat of a justly incensed God, who neglect to attend to the princip and conduct of their children. In that day I will perform gainst ELI all things which I have spoken concerning his house: when I begin I will also make an end. For I have told him, that I will judge his house for ever, for the iniquity which he knoweth; b cause his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.*

"It is very strange, indeed," replied Mr. MEANWELL, "that the circumstance of the Jewish lawgiver having laid so much stress on parents attending to the religious instruction of their children themselves, the many examples we have in Scripture, and the dreadful punishment that awaited ELI for his neglect, should have been so much overlooked by Christians in our day, especially as the same doctrine is evidently implied in the admonition of the Apostle: Children obey your parents, in the Lord: for this is right;' and in the injunction to fathers to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lordt, which does not at all accord with the too prevailing practice of parents delegating their spiritual authority and powers to others on such slight and trivial grounds."

"It is remarkable enough," said I; "for did parents weigh well (to say nothing of their moral qualifications,) the incapacity of some of those would-be bishops who are most ready to intrude their services to teach, they would not be so fond of sending their little ones to them for tuition, or of even endangering them so far as to put them under their care in any menial capacity. What, for instance, (as poor BRAG WELL observed,) could be expected from such a tutor as StMON FRISK; yet it would appear, that not contented with his occupation otherwise, he was wont to assemble his little flock for purposes of instruction in the fields. This fact of itself speaks volumes, and sufficiently indicates the propriety of par ents and heads of families being cautious whom they trust with the education of their children, as it proves to a demon stration, that it is not always the best qualified for the busines of tuition that are most forward to offer their services; and this of all considerations, should weigh well to induce parents obey the dictates of reason and religion, and take upon the selves the pleasing and profitable task to which they are,

*I. Sam. i 12. 13.

† Ephes. vi. 1. 4.

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ed, bound by their baptismal engagement, to bring up their ildren in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; then may ey expect to know by experience the comfortable truth of at text, A wise son maketh a glad father;'-then may they pect, that in giving up their account with joy, they shall be le to say: 'Behold, I, and the children the Lord has given me." "As to the diffusion of tracts," I continued, "that in as far they are judiciously chosen, and calculated for the purpose, ey certainly might be made the happy instruments of doing uch good; but even these, by an imprudent zeal, and want of scernment in the selection, may be converted to the worst of urposes; and, instead of being made vehicles for conveying seful information, and inspiring men with just and rational leas of the DEITY, may be turned into tools for rivetting hore firmly the shackles of ignorance and prejudice; giving en low and unworthy conceptions of that exalted and ador ble BEING, before whom angels' veil their faces; and for being made more subservient to promote the spirit of party, than to dvance that Catholic unity, which should attach all men to ach other as children of the same common parent, and cement he little differences of Christians in the bonds of peace, by the es of affection and brotherly love.

"The PRESS, I observed, was but a passive instrument, and might be converted to either good or bad purposes of either lluminating and liberating the human mind, or of darkening and enslaving it. It does not depend so much upon THE PRESS, as upon what flows from it, that the sentiments of manind are formed; and while we have men of learning and of alent (of whom better things should be expected) prostituting themselves in flattering the prejudices of the people, instead of endeavouring, by every gentle and judicious effort, to remove them, and more zealous to keep up delusions, in which their own interest or fame (as they may call it,) are interwoven, than to do them away by exposing their absurdity and fallacy, we need neither wonder at the insipid and pernicious trash, which, under the most specious names and pretences, issues from the press, or the avidity by which it is devoured by those whose vitiated tastes have not been taught to relish more rational food. What, for instance, can we expect from those who are taught by their spiritual instructors, to esteem a publication in which is set forth, under the specious title of Memorials of Providence, the story of a poor man, who, being sadly pinched for want, in consequence of not receiving payment for his coal on a certain day, instead of making the case of his family known to any of his neighbours, and applying for a little temporary aid, which, considering the character he bore, would most likely (without the intervention of a miracle) not

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have been withheld, went, we are told, (it being a fine moon light night) to a retired spot,' after he had got his family bed, where he is represented on the wooden cut engaged in t act of prayer, and on his return found upon a stool, or for before the bed a joint of meat roasted, and a loaf of bread abo the size of our half-peck loaves!!? Another publication intr duces a story, in which one of the heroes is taken to a watch house, in consequence of a riot he had been engaged in at a theatre on a Saturday night, when in a state of intoxication in which it appears he did considerable mischief, and not only endangered the life of a police-officer, who had seized him in the execution of his duty, but had actually made a desperat effort to leap from the gallery to the pit, from which he wa providentially prevented by one of the audience catching hold of his coat; yet behold the moral of the story when the young man was brought to his senses next morning-Not a word a bout the injury he had done to his neighbour's property-No repugnance for the stroke that had nearly proved fatal to the poor peace-officer-No repentance for the dreadful act of su cide, which he had not only imagined, but nigh fully accom plished No expressions of gratitude to that providence which had so opportunely snatched him from the brink of destruc tion-And no earnest supplication for forgiveness to that God whose image he had debased by his drunkenness, and whose sacred name he had most probably blasphemed by his impreca tions-No all these, which were sufficient, one would have thought, to have weighed down the spirit of the most obdurate, and made him betake himself to a Throne of Grace, were overlooked or forgotten, as things of no value by this person, who is made to say: My companions knew nothing, and cared for nothing; but I had received a religious education; I had been trained up at Surry Chapel Sunday School; I had been in the habit, in my youth, of hearing the Gospel at RowLAND HILL'S Chapel, and had, by these means, received that information, and those impressions, which all the aboundings of iniquity could never stifle! All the concern of this good young man, who, ac cording to his own account, had received a religious educa tion, seems to have been for the uneasiness that his conduct must occasion to his mother, and that, but for him, she would have been at the house of God on that Sabbath-morning by eleven o'clock!!! What good," I said, " can be expected from the press among the illiterate and uninformed, who are taught by those who have the direction of their consciences. to hug such fancies, in preference to the sober and rational dictates of true religion and sound judgment.”

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"These stories," Mr. MEANWELL observed, tainly intended for the use of children, and can have little effect upon grown-up people."

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