child,” said a religious man," my mother used to bid me kneel beside her, and place her hand upon my head while she prayed. Ere I was old enough to know her worth, she died, and I was left much to my own guidance. Like others, I was inclined to evil passions, but often felt myself checked, and, as it were, drawn back by the soft hand upon my head. 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."

§ 300. 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. Our beliefs have amazing power. 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 is the great teacher and redeemer of men, 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.

What

We infer, therefore, that it is highly important to consider well what truths we adopt. We think much of sincerity; nevertheless, 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. 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.

§ 301. Further remarks on the same subject.

The important remark of the Saviour to his disciples," and ye shall know the TRUTH, and the TRUTH shall make you free," seems to have a connexion with this subject. It indicates that the truth, in other words, substantial and well-balanced knowledge (whatever other aids and appliances may be requisite in the progress of the religious life), is naturally effective, in a very high degree, in the renovation of the character and the support of just morals. In that great day when all hearts are tried, our Conscience itself will frown upon us, as guilty of a great dereliction of duty, if we have not taken every possible means to enlighten it.

The false practices of heathen nations, as we have had occasion to see in a former chapter, are very many of them based on false speculative opinions. The ef fect of their reception of the truth, as it is revealed in the Christian system, is at once to do away these practices. Touched by the quickening influences of divine knowledge, the benumbed and torpid conscience starts into a newness of life, and exercises once more its long-abdicated authority. The whole heathen world, so far as it has come under the influence of the Gospel, is a proof of this remark. It is the Word of God, filled as it is with moral and religious truth, which is destined to be instrumental, under the superintendence of a beneficent Providence, of the rectification of the moral errors of the human race.

§ 302. 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 many things which are right and are morally commendable, but he does not do all that is right; he comes short in the most essential part; and he thus throws doubt and perplexity, a sort of dimness and obscuration, over whatever lustre might otherwise have shown itself in his other acts. In fact, the amount in which such a person fails to do right is so very great, as compared with the amount in which he does not fail to do right, that it is almost a common remark, although not strictly true, that an irreligious person does nothing right. At the same time, although he may do some things right, yet his failure in infinitely the most essential point renders it 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 adherence 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.

§ 303. Of the application of the principle of habit in morals. The law of HABIT, the nature of which, and some of its applications, have been explained in former chapters, has an important bearing here also. The more scrupulous and exact we are in the observance of the practical part of morals, the more easy it will become. Every repetition of morality, in whatever acts it may show itself, will strengthen the moral tendency. So that, at last, the whole life will run easily and vigorously in the path of rectitude.

The utterance of the truth is morally right; deviation from the truth, or utterance of falsehood, is morally wrong. And here, perhaps, we may find an illustration of the effects of the law of Habit, in its

connexion with morals. It probably has come within the reader's notice, that there are some men who, in practice as well as in principle, are exceedingly scrupulous in the utterance of the truth. When they repeat either what has come under their own observation or what they have learned from the narrations of others, they are strictly and seriously exact in their statement. They are conscientiously anxious not to admit the slightest deviation; and this anxiety extends not only to the statement itself, but to the manner in which it is received and understood by others. They thus form a HABIT of veracity; and those results, which might naturally be supposed to be involved in a case of habit, are witnessed. Such persons have so long and so steadily exhibited this trait of strict veracity, that it seems to be inherent in them, something incorporated in the constitution itself. No temptations, whether sudden or remote, are able to make them swerve from the truth; and their assertion, whenever and wherever made, instead of being met with misgivings and monitory cautions, is readily and fully received by those who hear it.

There is a second class of persons, who would esteem themselves injured in having their veracity suspected, but who have formed habits which render it necessary that their testimony should be carefully examined. We allude particularly to the habit which some have formed, of telling extraordinary stories, or anecdotes of whatever kind, which are intended and are calculated to interest. They consider themselves, in a measure, pledged to meet the interest which they know to be excited on the part of those present, and are, therefore, under an extraordinary temptation to enliven and embellish their narration. If any circumstances have escaped their memory which were essential to the unity of the story, their own invention is taxed to furnish them, since it is too late to search for, and of too much consequence to omit them. In this way they become in time not a little insensible to the false colouring which they give to their state