blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Consider the threats: "Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Consider also the whole analogy of nature, in which nothing that is useful can be obtained without time and painful application. The wilder powers indeed, the ministers of the wrath of God, are not slow in working desolation; the lightning can blast the oak, and the whirlwind whelm the traveller in an instant. But all those bounteous processes, whether of art or nature, by which Providence supplies the wants of its creatures, are advanced by slow gradations to their issues. The same order prevails also in the moral world; neither knowledge, wealth, nor honours, nor any of the greater advantages which society presents to our ambition, can ordinarily be reached without long and laborious progression. And is it possible while heaven and earth thus bear testimony against them, that thinking men can believe idleness to be innocent; or fancy that the least exertion, nay the absence of all exertion, shall obtain the highest reward? And yet when I call dissipation idleness, I mark only one ingredient in its composition, and that too, I fear, the least noxious. How then can I but repeat as a truth, too clear to be doubted if only fairly canvassed, that she who spends her days in idleness and her nights in gaiety has no promise of salvation from the Gospel. This has been said a thousand times, and a thousand times too heard and forgotten. Yet there is another awful truth which grows out of the former:-if, through the merits of Christ, we do not here work out our salvation, we shall doubtless work out our destruction. Christianity recognizes no middle state; unless we are placed with the sheep on the right hand, we must stand with the goats upon the left, and "these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous. into life eternal.” But to return: having enumerated the principal advantages to be derived from an improved intellectual education, Mr. Smith gave a short summary of the course he proposes to be pursued for that purpose, previous to the age of sixteen. His young pupil is to learn a little, and only a little, of drawing and music, leaving higher advances in those accomplishments to taste or after opportunities. She is to read an cient and modern history; to be mistress of French and Italian; to learn a good quantity of Latin, neglecting prosody and all Latin composition: she is to be a good arithmetician, and to learn as much mathematics as a clever youth will master in six weeks; and finally, to afford time for these several attainments, the attendances of the posture and dancing masters are to be reduced in the proportion of eight to one. Mr. Smith concluded with a short enumeration of the several parts of his lecture, and a just and affecting picture of the blessings which a young female will render back to a parent who has so educated her, in return for the happiness which he has enabled her to enjoy. Now, Sir, the general principle which runs through Mr. Smith's lecture is not only true, but so obviously and unanswerably true, that it is perfectly amazing that it should need to be inculcated. Can it be a question whether woman possesses an understanding, or, if she does, whether it ought to be cultivated? Some difference of opinion may prevail, indeed, as to lesser points. Those who have considered the gradual formation of character, will probably think that Mr. Smith greatly halts behind nature when he supposes it fixed at seven years of age, or even at a much later period. And all surely must agree, that in supposing a boy of twelve or fourteen to possess a more cultivated mind than most women, he greatly undervalues the existing state of knowledge in the better order of females. The truth I believe is, that women possess much more useful knowledge than Mr. Smith gives them credit for; (more sometimes even than their husbands;) but then this is learnt not before sixteen, but afterwards; and it is not generally a knowledge of books; but of life, of manners, and human nature. And as for a boy of twelve or fourteen; he knows nothing except a little Latin and Greek, and only of that to prattle conceitedly, and get flogged for false quantities. However neither any nor all of these are the subject of my censure. What Mr. Smith has done, he has done well, and like his fair audience he is principally blameable for what he leaves undone. His sin, as I have said before, is a sin of omission; and it is no less than this, that neither in his observations on the course of education which he condemns, nor on that which he approves, did he give us any reason for supposing that he thinks religious instruction a matter of serious moment: he neither blamed its omission in the present system, nor proposed to introduce it into a new one. I shall be told, however, that, in his preceding lecture, he expressly guarded against any illiberal conclusions, by declar, ing his intention not to touch ou this topic. I have no doubt, Sir, I shall be thought extremely uncandid; yet I confess this introductory declaration is not in my eyes a sufficient apology. Mr. Smith was to lecture on female education without any restriction to particulars; why then should he omit the most important part of his subject? Consider his own account of the present system. He told us of a lady who confessed that the succession of masters was so rapid, that no time could be found for reading with her daughters except half an hour during the lesson in drawing, when the joint operations of intellectual and mechanical improvement might proceed together; and this confession Mr. Smith assumed as a fair specimen of mo dern education. Now if there be no time for reading left by these harpy accomplishments, none, it is obvious, can be found for religious instruction; and yet this fearful and fatal omission is passed by unnoticed. Nor, among the various evils incident to the present system, is this circumstance ever alluded to; that it greatly endangers the eternal salvation of every pupil engaged in it. Is it usual when we wish to beat down an opinion to omit the most powerful of all the arguments against it? Shall I be told that Sunday is still left open? It is true; the mercy of a most merciful Father has provided in that day a resource for mankind even from their own thoughtlessness; but to this may be applied what Mr. Burke so eloquently said of the fertility and ravage of the East, that "it evinces only the unequal struggle between the bounty of Providence to bestow, and the power of man to destroy." Is Sunday practically so employed? Or does any man of common sense believe, that the mother, who can let her daughters live six days in the week without God in the world, will pay much regard to the consecration of the seventh? In point of fact we all know, that it is thought pretty fair if a young lady can be up early enough to get to church before the confession is finished; and I leave it to the philosophers to determine what impression the most powerful exhortation from the pulpit is likely to produce, when the fair disciple passes from the church to the Park, and after spending two hours under the eye and shadow of her God, wastes the three next in strolling through Kensington gardens, nodding to belles, and flattered by coxcombs. To religion may be applied what Juvenal says of poetry, Nec locus ingenio nisi cum se carmine solo Vexant, et Dominis Cyrrhæ Nysæque feruntur Pectora nostra duas non admittentia curas. Magnæ mentis opus -currus et equos faciesque Deorum Aspicere their illustrations, their images, the cast of their ideas, the character of their feelings, the style and tendency of their reasonings, all bear the same impress. I fear, Sir, religion is not often left to be supposed except by those who are careless whether it be supposed or not; and I know no index more decisive of the disposition of certain celebrated reviewers in this particular, than the absence of all religious sentiment and reference from every part of their work. This negative proof of their character is equally convincing with their late review of Mrs. More's hints so ably exposed and confuted in one of your former numbers. Their total neglect of the temple of God is scarcely less criminal than its wanton profanation. Still it may be said, Mr. Smith ought themselves as it were surrounded perhaps to have condemned the ex- by it in every quarter, and touch it clusion of religion from the present at every turn. Their language, plan of education, but he was not bound to notice it in a new one, having, as he had, expressly warned his hearers against supposing it unnecessary, because it was not mentioned. There is some truth in this, and I am far from wishing to censure Mr. Smith harshly; but surely it is rather extraordinary that what is of little importance should be detailed with accuracy, and what is of most importance left wholly to supposition. When we wish to exhibit a portrait of perfect beauty, it is not quite usual to leave out the most expressive feature in the countenance. Waving, how ever, the reasonableness of such an omission, I must confess myself astonished, that in lectures on such a subject, Mr. Smith was able, as a matter of feeling, to avoid entering largely on the field of religious instruction; it is so rich a topic and one which speaks so directly to the heart. Mr. Smith may say his zeal for Christianity is well known; but it is for this very reason that I think his omission so extraordinary. Does a father never notice his child, because every body is convinced he is fond of him? Does a lover pay no attention to his mistress, because forsooth all the world knows the strength of his attachment? I confess I should be a little suspicious of his tenderness, if he could be content to flirt with every idle girl in the room, without casting one fond glance towards the object of his affections. The course of nature is not so. The father notices his child, and the lover is attentive to his mistress, not because they value the world or its opinion, but because they cannot help it. Their expressions of kindness are involuntary, and require no motive but the delight which attends them. Thus it is also in writing and talking of religion: "Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh" They who are deeply impressed with its importance find I own therefore, Sir, when I consider the magnitude of the omission which I have mentioned, and the character of the gentleman who has been guilty of it, I cannot but be grieved and astonished. The great evil flowing from it is this: that those who heard the lectures will suppose they find in them an implied approbation of the present habits of high life; for if they are wicked why did not Mr. Smith protest against them? His observations were sufficiently miscellaneous, and more than once naturally carried him to that quarter. And still more, why did he not make the future prevention of those habits the great object of his new system? I confess, the questions, if asked, would embarrass me not a little; and yet surely it cannot be that a man of so very acute and reflecting a mind, who believes the truth of Christianity, and acknowledges the purity and extent of its precepts, should think those habits innocent. Mr. Smith mingles freely in female society: is it possible he can think there is at present a sufficient infusion of religious principle in their fashionable circles? Can he think that to dress, and dance, and paint, and play at cards, and talk nonsense, is "to fight the good fight of faith, and lay hold on eternal salvation?" Can he think that a succession of routs, and shews, and dinners, and lectures, bears any affinity to a "patient continuance in welldoing?" Is a passion for constant amusement exactly the same thing with "mortifying the deeds of the flesh?" Is it to "put on the Lord Jesus and be transformed by the renewing of the spirit?" Is the vanity of those who are flattered, and the envy of those who are not, exactly that charity which "suffereth long and is kind, which seeketh not her own, which beareth all things and believeth all things?" On this subject, I own, I am serious even to sadness. Oh I would circle the earth barefoot, were its circumference ten times what it is, to be sure that the thoughtless, lovely, laughing sylphs that dance and flutter around me, shall all one day find admittance into that city, where "The Lord shall be our everlasting light, and our God our glory." But, alas! "without holiness no man shall see the Lord," and never was holiness trained in the nursery of fashion. religious excellence. The present object of female industry is the accomplishment of the person. Mr. Smith's improved style aims at the cultivation of the intellect. This is something; it is something to advance from animal to rational existence. But if woman be also, as she is, a moral and immortal being, then I say that not to make the improvement of her moral nature the first object, in a system of early institution, is a degree of fatuity in comparison with which the wildest ravings of the wildest bedlamite are reasonable. Or shall I be told that girls are naturally so amiable, that little more is necessary than to teach the great doctrines of Christianity, and preserve them from the direct influence of vice. Admitting the assumption, the answer is obvious: according to the means of obtaining excellence, must be the obligation to improve them. If women begin higher than men, they will be expected also to end higher. But is it indeed true that any child of Adam is so little tainted with the universal corruption? What says the Apostle? "I know that in me dwelleth no good thing;" " We are all concluded under sin;" "We know that the whole, creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." Or are moral and religious excellence of so easy attainment, that a little industry and a small allotment of time will be suffi cient? Ask those who have made the trial and advanced farthest in the race: they are the best judges; and judges, let me add, from whose decisions those who are too idle to imitate their example have no appeal, for ignorance has no right to question the results of knowledge. Look then at Andrews, moistening with his tears the manual of prayers by which he confessed his sins to his Maker. Look at Hooker, humbly asking mercy of God on his death bed, and owning, that though he had loved him in his youth and feared him in his age, yet if he should be extreme to mark what is done amiss 3 A But admitting all that can be asked; admitting that Mr. Smith's audience will understand the propriety of some religious instruction to be implied, and that a certain retrenchment should be made, for that purpose, from the lessons of the posture master in the old system, and the Latin master in the new; still I ask, is this sufficient? I for one have no difficulty in saying, that religious and moral instruction cannot hold their proper place in education, unless they hold the first place; any more than religious and moral principles in after life can be contented with a less elevated station. That man is not a Christian who does not, habitually sacrifice every other object to the strict performance of his duty; and that is not a Christian education in which every other attainment is not pursued in subservience to the formation of moral and CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 54. none might abide it. In truth the life of a Christian, happy as it is, is still a life of labour. Constant difficulty, frequent slips, constant danger of regression where he hoped the most for advancement, are almost his daily bread. We need but open the New Testament and read half a page to correct our notions as to the easiness of a religious life. Was our Redeemer himself only made perfect through sufferings, and shall they, who have suffered scarcely at all, fancy they have so soon attained to perfection? Can the Apostle, even in the conclusion of his labours, declare that he "counts not himself to have apprehended, but forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those which are before, presses towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ;" and shall we, who have neither received his illumination nor been disciplined in his trials, think we have reached the goal almost as soon as we have commenced the race? Or have we yet like him "approved ourselves in patience, in afflictions, in watchings, in fastings, by pureness, by knowledge, by long suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned?" Indeed I know nothing more generally alarming than the insensibility which prevails as to the real demands of the Gospel. We go on eating and talking, working and playing, and think all the nice girls and good young men we meet with will go to heaven without trouble; though perhaps they have nothing more to recommend them to everlasting rewards, "which eye hath not seen nor ear heard," than a certain share of constitutional good humour, and a happy ignorance of some kinds of vice. God forbid I should say that all the labour of all our lives will be enough to purchase our acceptance. Not so. "It cost more to redeem our souls, so that we must let that alone for ever." God forbid too I should presume to limit the mercies of the Almighty: "Ile will have compassion on whom he will have compassion:" but of this I am sure, that such shreds and patches, such poor imitations of true Christian virtues, will never make up the rich wedding garment which can alone entitle us to claim admission to the supper of the Lamb. And they are at least in great danger of being consumed by the fiery darts of the wicked one, who, instead of grasping the shield of faith and girding on the whole armour of righteousness, fence themselves only with the poor faithless mail of good dispositions, and a sense of character and propriety. After all, Sir, are not the first simple truths which present themselves to the mind on this subject quite unanswerable? We come into the world we know not how, and here we live fifty, sixty, seventy years, making no allowance for casualties, and on our behaviour during this short period the mighty stakes of eternal life and death are depending. Need I ask if we have any time to lose? Or need I ask Mr. Smith, who rates so highly, (in my opinion over-rates) the importance of our earliest years in forming the character, whether, if time is ever to be lost, that is the time to lose? If an advocate should be called upon to prepare, in a single day, his defence to a cause of great magnitude, and to the full mastery of which the time was barely sufficient, should we expect to see him lounging about the streets half the morning? Some recreation must be allowed to refresh nature, and some food to sustain her; but he can give no time to needless diversions or indulgences. without betraying the interests of his client. Our cause is at issue, and we have but a day to make ready our defence. Alas, we shall be equally unprepared whether our morning is occupied in learning music or reading Cicero. I have now done with Mr. Smith and his lecture; except only to assure the lecturer that nothing can be farther from my thoughts than any personal incivility to him. I |