professor commit or countenance an act so pregnant with meanness, falsehood, and violence, he brings the stigma of hypocrisy upon himself, and a scandal upon the service of his Master.

Among men, the proper test of the presence and influence of religion is its visible occupation of the conscience. If it be real, it runs through the character in its whole length and breadth. Then it is that the entire conduct is restricted within those lines of circumscription, of which the clear written declaration of the divine will has furnished the directory rule. Speculative religion, or that which plays about the heart, or that which glows in the fancy, or that which enshrines itself in human eloquence, leaves a large area about the centre of busy life free from its intermeddling; but the religion of the conscience is every where intrusive, crossing our common paths, meeting us at every turn, and dispersing over all the concerns of active existence luminous indications of the divine will. It is an oracle which requires no formal consultation, no journeys to its shrines; it is ever in ministerial attendance, coming at every call, at hand in every exigence, anticipating the casuistry of the passions, those false prophets within us, and showing, in fiery traces, all the interceptive lines by which God has restricted the path of his

faithful servants. The true Christian is known as much in the little as in the great things of life: he sees the transgression in the principle. "The fear of the Lord is clean," and therefore every unclean practice, whether in his contracts, his engagements, his money transactions, his common intercourse, his manners, or his conversation, is under the control of an incessant monitor. It is true, we are contemplating a rare specimen; but the Gospel of Jesus has settled the standard, and placed it above human interference. It is in a graceful symmetry, or an union of the parts into one consistent and refulgent whole, that the perfection of the Christian gentleman resides. As there may be a greatness known to the sculptor, which owes something to the neglect of proportion; so what to man's perceptions is heroic, is often the result of a colossal grandeur: but the character of gentleman rejoices in the combination and consent of its parts; and when the character of Christian accedes to it, its dimensions are enlarged, while its proportions are maintained; and this is the state of man to which the epithet of great does in truth belong, though the multitude allow nothing to be great but that by which society is convulsed, or a domineering spirit is let loose upon the world.

SECTION XV.

EDUCATION OF THE CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN.

THERE is a strange want of adaptation in our scholastic institutions to the production of a character at all answering to the Christian model: none of our methods lead up to it. To keep the proper destiny of man in the view of a child; to present life as a whole to his contemplation, and as a gift bestowed for a certain end; to inculcate a principle of steady direction; to fill the soul with a consciousness of the claims upon it, and of its essential relations and affinities; to set in their right order the first impelling powers; to institute a determinate progression; to place before each his personal vocation, and to open in clear perspective the lines of specific duty comprehended in the great practical plan of God's moral government, are things unthought of in our schools of highest reputation for the formation of gentlemen. If Christianity be true, and if it do really involve all that is most worthy of attainment,. the education of the country is rotten at the core. It has no prospective or final connexion with the Christian scheme of com mutative forbearance and love, nor is any one

us,

of the constituents of St. Paul's definition of charity included in its scope or contemplation. In many of our great schools it is even forgotten that life is a functional gift; that we breathe to think, and think to act in a prescribed course of duty and charity; that it is our great business to know and practise the will of Him who made and to start in the career of life as candidates for his forgiveness; that each of us has a post to maintain, a station to fill, a part to act, a fearful responsibility to encounter. Warped by these errors of discipline from the true line of dignity and modesty, a juvenile throng is successively mixing at random with our bearded - population, bringing with them fresh importations of anti-christian habits, the natural product of a fighting, fagging, flogging system, alternating between slavery and tyranny; where, if a knowledge of the world is gained by anticipation, precocity in vice maintains at least a parallel progress. They come forth to the world Christians in name, but Heathens in prejudice, furnished with an estimate of life and its blessings, alike inconsistent with their proper relation to man, and their baptismal covenant with God.

The amusements of our gentlemen are the mirror in which the state of education in the country is reflected. Some of them may be of

a virtuous, some of an innocent character, and some of no character at all, but by far the greater part of them are steeped in the depravity of our nature, and of a crimson colour. The persecution of inferior animals, a ruthless entertainment furnished by their forced exertions, brawling festivities, and impure spectacles, still form the prevailing portion of man's delights. in this largely educated country. In mass and quantity no nation upon earth can boast such provisions for the moral and literary education both of the rich and poor: our established religion is the religion of the Gospel; and our great seminaries of learning are in theoretical union with its principles; but the country contains few instances of schools wherein the precepts and injunctions of our religion are explictly, consistently, and systematically recognised and acted upon. Can it be affirmed of any of our public schools, that any system exists in them for placing virtue, reason, and religion, above force, and tyranny, and passion? Fine things may be said of them at anniversary dinners, or where there may be an interest or pride in complimenting the scenes of our boyish achievements and unworn sensibilities; but it is nevertheless lamentably true, that, except some stated exterior observances of religion, vestiges