you may then, by a word or two, direct their thoughts to God as their Benefactor. When the occasion is of impor tance enough to give propriety to the introduction of religious ideas, you may lead them in their sorrows to the consolation and hope which a belief in him affords.

You may thus do what is in your power to enthrone the idea of God in their minds, so that all the thoughts and affections shall pay homage to it. You may thus do what is in your power toward forming that temper of habitual devotion, to which God is continually revealing himself in his works, and in his providence. You may thus give the first impulse to those feelings of love, reverence, and trust, which connect a good man so strongly with God, that, if it were possible for him to be deprived of the belief of his existence, it would be with the same feeling of horror, with which he would see the sun darkening and disappearing from the heavens.

LESSON LXXXVIII.

The Young, of every Rank, entitled to Education
GREENWOOD.

THE benefits of education should be extended to all children, without exception. They never have been denied to those who are born to rank and wealth, or even to a competency and mediocrity of estate, except till very lately, and, in some respects, in the case of the female sex. But, even at this enlightened day, it is not entirely a superfluous task to vindicate the claims of the offspring of the poor, of the poorest, of the vilest, to that mental cultivation, which it is in the power of every community to bestow.

That old notion is not yet stowed away among the forgotten rubbish of old times, that those, who were born to labour and servitude, were born for nothing but labour and servitude, and that, the less they knew, the better they would obey, and that the only instruction, which was necessary or safe for them, was that which would teach them to move, like automatons, precisely as those above them pulled the strings. I say, we still hear this principle asserted, though perhaps in more guarded and indefinite language; and a more selfish, pernicious, disgraceful principle, in whatever terms it may be muffled up, never insulted human nature, nor degraded

human society. It is the leading principle of despotism, the worst feature of aristocracy, and a profane contradiction of that indubitable Word, which has pronounced all men to be brethren, and, in everything which relates to their common nature, equal.

In short, it is only to the domestic animals, to the brutes that God has given for our use, that this principle can with justice be applied. Their education is not to be carried beyond obedience, because their faculties will not authorize a more liberal discipline. We are to feed them well, and use them gently, and our duty toward them is performed. But, to say that this is the extent of our obligations toward any class or description of our fellow-beings, is to advance the monstrous proposition, that their capacity is as low as their circumstantial situation, and their degree among those who bear the yoke, and eat the grass of the field.

But the truth is, that the minds of any one class are as improveable as the minds of any other class of men, and may therefore be improved in the same way, by the same means, and to as good purposes. Once grant that all human beings have the same human faculties, and you grant to all the complete right of the unlimited cultivation of those faculties. Nor is it at all more rational to suppose, that a judicious education of the poor, conducted to any attainable extent, will be liable to abuse in their hands, and lead them to forget their station and their duty, than that it will have similar effects on those who are nourished on the lap of affluence. The experience that has been collected on this point, only strengthens the deductions of analogy, and confirms the important position, which has hitherto gained too little practical faith in the world, that, the more a people know, the less exposed they are to every description of extravagance.

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Wherever there is an unimproved mind, there is an un known amount of lost usefulness and dormant energy. If this is so through the negligence or perversity of the individual, with him is the guilt, and with him be the punishment; but if it is so through the influence of sentiments which are current in society, the fearful reponsibility rests with those who avow and maintain them. I see not why the man who would repress, and who does repress, as far as in him lies, the moral and intellectual capabilities of a fellowcreature, is not as culpable as if he abused and destroyed his

own.

I have said, that even the children of the vilest and lowest portion of the community share in the general right to the advantages of education. Their claim possesses a peculiar title to our consideration. Some have spoken, as if such were beyond or beneath our assistance, and would bring contamination from their birth-place. Their lot is in the region of irreclaimable wickedness, it is said; and as their parents are, so are they destined to become.

Destined! and so they are, if you will not save them. They are destined, and forever chained down, to a state of moral loathsomeness, in which degradation seems to be swallowed with the food, and vice breathed in with the air. And shall they stay in such a pit of darkness? Is not their situation the strongest possible appeal, which can be made to your pity, and your generosity, and your sense of justice, and your love of good? Does it not call on you, most loudly and imperatively, to pluck these brands from the burning, ere yet they have been scorched too deeply and darkly by the flame?

Nothing is more probable, than that such children may be preserved to virtue by a timely interference; nothing is more certain, than that they will be lost, if they remain. I know of no case, which promises such ample success and reward to the spirited efforts of benevolence, as this. Vice may be cut off, in a great measure, of her natural increase, by the adoption of her offspring into the family of virtue and, though it is true, that the empire of guilt receives con stant emigrations and fresh accessions of strength, froin all the regions of society, yet it is equally as true, that they, whose only crime it is that they were born within its con'fines, may be snatched away, and taught another allegiance, before they have become familiar with its language, its cus toms, and its corruptions, and have vowed a dreadful fidelity to its laws.

LESSON LXXXIX.

Childhood and Manhood-an Apologue.-CRAbre.
"Men are but children of a larger growth.

'Twas eight o'clock, and near the fire

My ruddy little boy was seated,

And with the title of a sire

My ears expected to be greeted:

But vain the thought: by sleep oppressed,
No father there the child descried;
His head reclined upon his breast,

Or, nodding, rolled from side to side.

Let this young rogue be sent to bed"
Nought further had I time to say,
When the poor urchin raised his head
To beg that he might longer stay.
Refused, towards rest his steps he bent
With tearful eye and aching heart;
But claimed his playthings ere he went,
And took up stairs his horse and cart.

For new delay, though oft denied,
He pleaded; wildly craved the boon:
Though past his usual hour, he cried
At being sent away so soon.
If stern to him, his grief I shared ;
(Unmoved who hears his offspring weep?)
Of soothing him I half despaired;

But soon his cares were lost in sleep.

"Alas! poor infant!" I exclaimed,
"Thy father blushes now to scan,

In all which he so lately blamed,

The follies and the fears of man. The vain regret, the anguish brief,

Which thou hast known, sent up to bed, Portrays of man the idle grief,

When doomed to slumber with the dead."

And more I thought, when, up the stairs,
With "longing, lingering looks," he crept,
To mark of man the childish cares,
His playthings carefully he kept.
Thus mortals, on life's later stage,

When nature claims their forfeit breath
Still grasp at wealth in pain and age,
And cling to golden toys in death.

"Tis morn; and see, my smiling boy
Awakes to hail returning light,-
To fearless laughter-boundless joy,-
Forgot the tears of yesternight.

Thus shall not man forget his wo?
Survive of age and death the gloom?
Smile at the cares he knew below?
And, renovated, burst the tomb ?

O, my Creator! when thy will

Shall stretch this frame on earth's cold bed Let that blest hope sustain me still,

Till thought, sense, memory-all are fled. And, grateful for what thou may'st give, No tear shall dim my fading eye, That 'twas thy pleasure I should live, That 'tis thy mandate bids me die.

LESSON XC.

The Skies.-BRYANT.

Ay, gloriously thou standest there,
Beautiful, boundless firmament!
That, swelling wide o'er earth and air,
And round the horizon bent,
With that bright vault and sapphire wall,
Dost overhang and circle all.

Far, far below thee, tall gray trees
Arise, and piles built up of old,

And hills, whose ancient summits freeze
In the fierce light and cold.

The eagle soars his utmost height;

Yet far thou stretchest o'er his flight.

Thou hast thy frowns: with thee, on high
The storm has made his airy seat:
Beyond thy soft blue curtain lie

His stores of hail and sleet:
Thence the consuming lightnings break;
There the strong hurricanes awake.

Yet art thou prodigal of smiles

Smiles sweeter than thy frowns are stern Earth sends, from all her thousand isles, A song at their return: