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of truth; and the side of truth is obviously the side of morals; it is in fact one and the same cause; and it is of course the same cause with that of true religion also.

It is therefore no worthless part of education, even, in a religious view, to study the precise meaning of words, and the appropriate signification of language. To this end, I know no better method than to accustom young persons very early to a habit of defining common words and things; for, as definition seems to lie at the root of correctness, to be accustomed to define English words in English, would improve the understanding more than barely to know what those words are called in French, Italian, or Latin. Or rather, one use of learning other languages is, because definition is often involved in etymology; that is, since many English words take their derivation from foreign or ancient languages, they cannot be so accurately understood without some knowledge of those languages: but precision of any kind, either moral or philological, too seldom finds its way into the education of women.

It is perhaps going out of my province to observe, that it might be well if young men also, before they entered on the world, were to be furnished with correct definitions of certain words, the use of which is become rather ambiguous; or rather, they should be instructed in the double sense of modern phraseology. For instance, they should be provided with a good definition of the word honour in the fashionable sense, showing what vices it includes, and what virtues it does not include: the term good company, which even the courtly Petronius of our days has defined as sometimes including not a few immoral and disreputable characters: religion, which in the various senses assigned it by the world, sometimes means superstition, sometimes fanaticism, and sometimes a mere disposition to attend on any kind or form of worship: the word goodness, which is meant to mean everything that is not notoriously bad; and sometimes even that too, if what is notoriously bad be accompanied by good humour, pleasing manners, and a little alms-giving. By these means they would go forth armed against many of the false opinions which, through the abuse or ambiguous meaning of words, pass so current in the world.

But to return to the youthful part of that sex which is the more immediate object of this little work. With correct definition they should also be taught to study the shades of words; and this not merely with a view to accuracy of expression, though even that involves both sense and elegance, but with a view to moral truth.

It may be thought ridiculous to assert, that morals have any connexion with the purity of language, or that the precision of truth may be violated through defect of critical exactness in the three degrees of comparison; yet how frequently do we hear from the dealers in superlatives, of "most admirable, super-excellent, and quite perfect" people, who, to plain persons, not bred in the school of exaggeration, would appear mere common characters, not rising above the level of mediocrity! By this negligence in the application of words, we shall be as much misled by these trope-andfigure ladies, when they degrade as when they panegyrise; for, to a plain and sober judgment, a tradesman may not be "the most good-fornothing fellow that ever existed," merely because it was impossible for him to execute in an hour an order which required a week; a lady may

not be "the most hideous fright the world ever saw," though the make of her gown may have been obsolete for a month; nor may one's young friend's father be "a monster of cruelty," though he may be a quiet gentleman, who does not choose to live at watering-places, but likes to have his daughter stay at home with him in the country.

Of all the parts of speech, the interjection is the most abundantly in use with the hyperbolical fair ones. Would it could be added, that these emphatical expletives (if I may make use of a contradictory term) were not sometimes tinctured with profaneness! Though I am persuaded that idle habit is often more at the bottom of this deep offence than intended impiety, yet there is scarcely any error of youthful talk which merits severer castigation. And a habit of exclamation should be rejected by polished people as vulgar, even if it were not abhorred as profane.

The habit of exaggerating trifles, together with the grand female failing of excessive mutual flattery, and elaborate general professions of fondness and attachment, is inconceivably cherished by the voluminous private correspondences in which some girls are indulged. In vindication of this practice, it is pleaded that a facility of style, and an easy turn of expression, are acquisitions to be derived from an early interchange of sentiments by letter-writing; but even if it were so, these would be dearly purchased by the sacrifice of that truth and sobriety of sentiment, that correctness of language, and that ingenuous simplicity of character and manners, so lovely in female youth.

Next to pernicious reading, imprudent and violent friendships are the most dangerous snares to this simplicity. And boundless correspondences with different confidants, whether they live in a distant province, or, as it often happens, in the same street, are the fuel which principally feeds this dangerous flame of youthful sentiment. In those correspondences, the young friends often encourage each other in the falsest notions of human life, and the most erroneous views of each other's character. Family affairs are divulged, and family faults aggravated. Vows of everlasting attachment and exclusive fondness are in a pretty just proportion bestowed on every friend alike. These epistles overflow with quotations from the most passionate of the dramatic poets; and passages wrested from their natural meaning, and pressed into the service of sentiment, are, with all the violence of misapplication, compelled to suit the case of the heroic transcriber.

But antecedent to this epistolary period of life, they should have been accustomed to the most scrupulous exactness in whatever they relate. They should maintain the most critical accuracy in facts, in dates, in numbering, in describing, in short, in whatever pertains, either directly or indirectly, closely or remotely, to the great fundamental principle, Truth. It is so very difficult for persons of great liveliness to restrain themselves within the sober limits of strict veracity, either in their assertions or narrations, especially when a little undue indulgence of fancy is apt to procure for them the praise of genius and spirit, that this restraint is one of the earliest principles which should be worked into the youthful mind. The conversation of young females is also in danger of being overloaded with epithets. As in the warm season of youth hardly anything is seen in the true point of vision, so hardly anything is named in naked simplicity;

and the very sensibility of the feelings is partly a cause of the extravagance of the expression. But here, as in other points, the sacred writers, particularly of the New Testament, present us with the purest models; and its natural and unlaboured style of expression is perhaps not the meanest evidence of the truth of the gospel. There is throughout the whole narratives no overcharged character, no elaborate description, nothing studiously emphatical, as if truth of itself were weak, and wanted to be helped out. There is little panegyric, and less invective; none but on great, and awful, and justifiable occasions. The authors record their own faults with the same honesty as if they were the faults of other men, and the faults of other men with as little amplification as if they were their own. There is perhaps no book in which adjectives are so sparingly used. A modest statement of the fact, with no colouring and little comment, with little emphasis and no varnish, is the example held out to us for correcting the exuberances of passion and of language, by that divine volume which furnishes us with the still more important rule of faith and standard of practice. Nor is the truth lowered by any feebleness, nor is the spirit diluted, nor the impression weakened, by this soberness and moderation; for with all this plainness there is so much force, with all this simplicity there is so much energy, that a few slight touches and artless strokes of scripture characters convey a stronger outline of the person delineated, than is sometimes given by the most elaborate and finished portrait of more artificial historians.

If it be objected to this remark, that many parts of the sacred writings abound in a lofty, figurative, and even hyperbolical style; this objection applies chiefly to the writings of the Old Testament, and to the prophetical and poetical parts of that. But the metaphorical and florid style of those writings is distinct from the inaccurate and overstrained expression we have been censuring; for that only is inaccuracy which leads to a false and inadequate conception in the reader or hearer. The lofty style of the Eastern, and of other heroic poetry, does not so mislead; for the metaphor is understood to be a metaphor, and the imagery is understood to be ornamental. The style of the scriptures of the Old Testament is not, it is true, plain, in opposition to figurative; nor simple, in opposition to florid; but it is plain and simple in the best sense, as opposed to false principles and false taste; it raises no wrong idea; it gives an exact impression of the thing it means to convey; and its very tropes and figures, though bold, are never unnatural or affected: when it embellishes, it does not mislead; even when it exaggerates, it does not misrepresent; if it be hyperbolical, it is so either in compliance with the genius of Oriental language, or in compliance with contemporary customs, or because the subject is one which. will be most forcibly impressed by a strong figure. The loftiness of the expression deducts nothing from the weight of the circumstance; the imagery animates the reader, without misleading him; the boldest illustration, while it dilates his conception of the subject, detracts nothing from its exactness; and the divine Spirit, instead of suffering truth to be injured by the opulence of the figures, contrives to make them fresh and varied avenues to the heart and the understanding.

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CHAPTER XI.

On Religion. The necessity and duty of Early Instruction, shown by analogy with human learning.

IT has been the fashion of our late innovators in philosophy, who have written some of the most brilliant and popular treatises on education, to decry the practice of early instilling religious knowledge into the minds of children. In vindication of this opinion, it has been alleged, that it is of the utmost importance to the cause of truth, that the mind of man should be kept free from prepossessions; and in particular, that every one should be left to form such judgment on religious subjects as may seem best to his own reason in maturer years.

This sentiment has received some countenance from those better characters who have wished, on the fairest principle, to encourage free inquiry in religion; but it has been pushed to the blamable excess here censured, chiefly by the new philosophers; who, while they profess only an ingenuous zeal for truth, are in fact slily endeavouring to destroy Christianity itself, by discountenancing, under the plausible pretence of free inquiry, all attention whatever to the religious education of our youth.

It is undoubtedly our duty, while we are instilling principles into the tender mind, to take peculiar care that those principles be sound and just; that the religion we teach be the religion of the Bible, and not the inventions of human error or superstition: that the principles we infuse into others, be such as we ourselves have well scrutinised, and not the result of our credulity or bigotry; nor the mere hereditary, unexamined prejudices of our own undiscerning childhood. It may also be granted, that

it is the duty of every parent to inform the youth, that when his faculties shall have so unfolded themselves, as to enable him to examine for himself those principles which the parent is now instilling, it will be his duty so to examine them.

But, after making these concessions, I would most seriously insist, that there are certain leading and fundamental truths: that there are certain sentiments on the side of Christianity, as well as of virtue and benevolence, in favour of which every child ought to be prepossessed; and may it not be also added, that to expect to keep the mind void of all prepossession, even upon any subject, appears to be altogether a vain and impracticable attempt? an attempt, the very suggestion of which argues much ignorance of human nature.

Let it be observed here, that we are not combating the infidel; that we are not producing evidences and arguments in favour of the truth of Christianity, or trying to win over the assent of the reader to that which he disputes; but that we are taking it for granted, not only that Christianity is true, but that we are addressing those who believe it to be true : an assumption which has been made throughout this work. Assuming, therefore, that there are religious principles which are true, and which ought to be communicated in the most effectual manner, the next question which arises seems to be, at what age and in what manner these ought to be inculcated? That it ought to be at an early period, we have the com

mand of Christ; who encouragingly said, in answer to those who would have repelled their approach, "Suffer little children to come unto me."

But, here conceding, for the sake of argument, what yet cannot be conceded, that some good reasons may be brought in favour of delay; allowing that such impressions as are communicated early may not be very deep; allowing them even to become totally effaced by the subsequent corruptions of the heart and of the world; still I would illustrate the importance of early infusing religious knowledge, by an allusion drawn from the power of early habit in human learning. Put the case, for instance, of a person who was betimes initiated in the rudiments of classical studies. Suppose him, after quitting school, to have fallen, either by a course of idleness or of vulgar pursuits, into a total neglect of study. Should this person at any future period happen to be called to some profession, which should oblige him, as we say, to rub up his Greek and Latin: his memory still retaining the unobliterated though faint traces of his early pursuits, he will be able to recover his neglected learning with less difficulty than he could now begin to learn; for he is not again obliged to set out with studying the simple elements; they come back on being pursued; they are found, on being searched for; the decayed images assume shape, and strength, and colour; he has in his mind first principles, to which to recur; the rules of grammar, which he has allowed himself to violate, he has not, however, forgotten; he will recall neglected ideas, he will resume slighted habits, far more easily than he could now begin to acquire new ones. I appeal to clergymen who are called to attend the dying beds of such as have been bred in gross and stupid ignorance of religion, for the justness of this comparison. Do they not find that these unhappy people have no ideas in common with them? that they possess, therefore, no intelligible medium by which to make themselves understood? that the persons to whom they are addressing themselves have no first principles to which they can be referred? that they are ignorant, not only of the science, but the language of Christianity?

But, at worst, whatever be the event of a pious education to the child, though in general we are encouraged, from the tenor of Scripture and the course of experience, to hope that the event will be favourable, and that "when he is old he will not depart from it;" is it nothing for the parent to have acquitted himself of this prime duty? Is it nothing to him that he has obeyed the plain command of "training his child in the way he should go?" And will not the parent who so acquits himself, with better reason and more lively hope, supplicate the Father of mercies for the reclaiming of a prodigal, who has wandered out of that right path in which he has set him forward, than for the conversion of a neglected creature, to whose feet the gospel had never been offered as a light? And how different will be the dying reflections even of that parent whose earnest endeavours have been unhappily defeated by the subsequent and voluntary perversion of his child, from his who will reasonably aggravate his pangs, by transferring the sins of his neglected child to the number of his own transgressions!

And to such well-intentioned but ill-judging parents as really wish their children to be hereafter pious, but erroneously withhold instruction till the more advanced period prescribed by the great master of splendid

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