under the dominion of paffion or of intereft. Hence, the child from the beginning, receives deceitful impreffions of things, falfe, imperfect, perplexed information refpecting the plainest and most important objects, which no future culture or care is able to overcome. When time at length calls for the aid of regular nurture, to what attainments are the minds of youth directed? To accomplishments rather ornamental than useful; to the power of naming the fame objects in two, three, or four different languages; to the art of pleafing by modes of fpeech and behaviour, to the means of thriving and fhining in the world; too often, to things which pollute the imagination, miflead the heart, and harden the conscience! The very leading maxims of our education are erroneous and feductive. Under the plaufible epithets of noble emulation, manly ambition, honest pride, the worst, the most deteftable and deftructive of human paffions are generated in the youthful breaft. The firft leffon which the promising towardly boy receives from his mafter, is," Be the firft of your form let no one

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furpass you." And the fond parent's heart leaps for joy, to hear that the child underflood the leffon, and put it in practice; not confidering to what all this leads; envy, jealousy, info, lence, falfe fhame, every evil work. The fuccefs

ful candidate looks down with felf gratulation on. his competitors; they regard him with hatred and averfion; confpiracies are formed to make his fuperiority fit uneafy upon him, and to undermine it; a flame is kindled, not with the celestial .fire which exalts and refines, but with the infernal fpirit of the wicked one, which devours and confumes. What is to refult from this, when children wax into men, and the grand career opens to view? Confult the history of courts and cabi, nets, the history of the Alexanders and Cefars, the Scipios and Hannibals of ages paft; the hif tory of the ftatesmen and heroes of modern times, and it will be found, that the inftructors of mankind, almoft without exception, themfelves mif... led by falfe ideas of glory, communicated them without reserve to the world, and the effect has been, and is, ftriving for the maftery, has in i every age converted the earth into a field of blood.

THIS fome divines have called the ftate of na ture; as if it could have been the intention of the Author of nature to people the globe with animals more ferocious than lions and wolves; for they devour not one another of their own fpecies, No, it rather belongs to the character of Deity to interpofe a remedy for fuch an unnatural ftate, and to bring men back to himself, by reconciling

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them among themfelves. And how is this to be
effected? By a total inversion of our maxims, of
our fpirits and our plans; by making us unlearn
what we had been taught, and to put ourselves--
under the tuition of a new mafter, who fhould
"fhew" to man "a more excellent way," and
be himself the great example of what he re-
commended to others. This mafter, this grand
defiderandum for the wifdom and happinefs of
the human race, prefents himself to us in the per-
fon of Jefus of Nazareth; and for this bleffed
purpose the minifters of his religion are fent forth
as witneffes for him, "to the uttermoft parts of
the earth." The fpirit of the world had crept
into his own little family: "There arose a reà-
foning among them, which of them fhould be:
greateft," He mildly terminated the difpute,
by placing a little child in the midst of them, and
by declaring that the way not only to rife in the
kingdom of heaven, but even to obtain admiffion
into it at all, was to reverse their whole fyftem
of fentiment and conduct, to renounce ambition,
and to revert to the fimplicity, the docility of
childhood. "Whofoever 'fhall humble himself
"as this little child, the fame is greateft in the
"kingdom of heaven." When I think of this,
my fpirit is ftirred within me, at the reflection,
that on the eve of the nineteenth century, in

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Christian Britain, in her far-famed metropolis, it should be an amusement to grown men to urge on little children to do violence to their own nature, by beating, brufing, tearing each other.The fame worldly fpirit actuated the wife of Zebedee, and her two afpiring fons to folicit the two first posts of honor in his kingdom. Jefus Chrift gently waved the demand, and, to prevent its producing difcord among the difciples, affured them all, that the way to rife in his kingdom was to defcend. "Whofoever will be "the greatest among you, let him be your mini"fter; and whofoever will be the chief among

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you, let him be your fervant; even as the Son " of man came not to be miniftered unto, but to "minifter;" plainly intimating that usefulness is true greatness; that real dignity confifts not inovertopping others, but in voluntary humilia. tion of ourselves. Nor was this a vain parade of words, an oftentatious difplay of felf-denial, a yoke imposed on the necks of others, which the imposer himself difdained to touch.

The hiftory and character of Jefus are comprised in two fhort fentences, "He went about doing good." "He was meek and lowly in heart."

AGAIN, the fpirit of the world, and the juftice of the world, fay, 66 An eye for an eye, and a "tooth for a tooth; thou fhalt love thy neigh

"bour and hate thine enemy." This law is founded on the unnatural state of human fociety. Were the voice of the great teacher understood and felt, no man's eye or tooth, no not a hair of his head, would fuffer by the hand of violence; there would be no enemy to hate; the inhabitants of the world would be one vaft united fa-· mily, difpofed to love, to cherifh, and to affift one another. The fpirit of the world faith, Revenge is fweet." "Raze it, raze it, even "to the foundation thereof; happy fhall he be "that rewardeth thee as thou haft ferved us." But what faith the teacher fent from God?" Love

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your enemies, blefs them that curse you, do

good to them that hate you, and pray for them "which defpitefully ufe you and perfecute you." Whether of these two fpirits, it may be afked, is the better, the more excellent, most congenial to the conftitution and frame of the human mind? The foul must inwardly recoil from maxims and practices which prejudice and habit have rendered current. It is truly mortifying to find two of the most favoured of the whole college of the Apoftles, if we may give them that appellation, James and John, so dreadfully carried away by the spirit of the world, so hasty in their decifions, fo ignorant of their master's character, and of the defign of his miffion, as to propofe, in refentment