thority of a parent will, in general, command. Nor does industry, by manual labour at home, answer the purpose of forming useful habits in children, so well as the business of a school. It generally commences at a less early period of life; is less regular and methodical; less sweetened by the presence of companions of the same age, and performing the same task, and ready to be playfellows as soon as the task is over: and, what is, perhaps, most important, less attention is paid to the tempers and manners of children during its progress, than is paid to those of children in a school. But if instead of comparing the advantages of a school with those of the uneducated poor who have industrious parents, we had compared them with those of children who have no parents, or whose parents are idle and profligate (a numerous class I fear); to what conclusions should we have been led? All argument would have been unnecessary, and the most unwilling would have been forced to wish that such wretched and pitiable objects, entering, or in imminent danger of entering, on a career of vice and infamy, and threatening mischief to all around them and to the community at large, were placed in a school, though it were one of the lowest kind.

I have chiefly insisted on the advantages resulting from the habits acquired at school, and have noticed, in a general way only, a few of those which attend the diffusion of knowledge arising from the poor being taught to read. Jacobinical demagogues will find themselves thwarted in various ways by the people, on whom their arts are to be practised, being able, in some measure, to judge for themselves. In such a community they will not be looked upon as oracles. They will find numbers to pause before they assent. They will find their assertions canvassed; their sophistry, in some cases, detected; and the arguments opposed to them understood. In such a community truth and sound principles will have great and numerous advantages, and those who attack them will be likely to find their cause continually declining till it becomes hopeless. Suppose the people sunk in brutish ignorance, and the case will be reversed. Let some misfortune press on the poor, which it is possible to ascribe to government;

or let a division of property be held out to their cupidity: and noisy declaimers will have every advantage. Their falsehoods will escape detection: their most flimsy arguments will be received as demonstrations: their projects will be looked upon as master-pieces of wisdom: and their pro- . mises and predictions will be believed. Truth will achieve no conquests, because she will find herself deprived of her weapons. She will carry with her no conviction, because, if she contrives to obtain a hearing, she will not find auditors capable of understanding her. Force must decide the contest; and, in a free country, the success of government must always be doubtful when the few are to defend it against the many. The dark side of this picture has been lately exemplified in Ireland, and we may, perhaps, see it exemplified in Spain. For an illustration of the bright side, we may look at the history of Britain since the commencement of the French Revolution.

I have endeavoured to shew, that village schools, even when nothing beyond mere reading is taught in them, instead of favouring jacobinism, raise an important barrier against it. The objection to them, therefore, which I have been considering, seems to be fully answered by this positive argument in their favour. To the advantages derived from parochial and charity schools as the supporters of order and civil government, we may add that an ability to read and write a little is an indispensable qualification for conducting even the lowest branches of commerce, which furnishes employment for so great a proportion of our population, and is so essential, in the present state of Europe, to our very existence as a nation. Our village schools, therefore, even of the humblest kind, must be acknowledged to be of very high political importance. But that argument in their favour, which has incomparably the greatest weight, especially in the eyes of those who, like N. D. view all worldly concerns as subservient to the salvation of man and the glory of God, remains to be mentioned. They appear to me decidedly favourable to the progress of true religion. The effect which they produce on the habits, and through the habits on the dispositions, as far as regards jacobinism, has been already shewn.

promote their country's welfare; and if, with this intention, they now and then mistake the means, the common frailty of the human judgment may well be their excuse. Besides, added the good old man, as nobody I suppose suspects them of being bribed by the enemy, even those who think but indifferently of them must acknowledge, that it is their interest that their country should be safe and prosperous; which is more than you ean always say of those who oppose their measures, because it may be for their interest, and that of their party, that our fleets and armies, for instance, should be defeated, or our difficulties and dangers be increased, that the administration may be thereby disgraced, and, perhaps, forced out of office: not, said the good old man, that I impute to them either the knowingly entertaining of any such unworthy motives; but the human heart is very deceitful, and we all of us are too apt not to be very sorry for the discredit or fall of our enemies, especially where their loss would be our gain. But in truth, added he, what I dislike in both parties is their violence. I find a variety of opinions prevailing among men, even on subjects where the facts, comparatively speaking, may be easily ascertained, and where the passions and interests of men are little concerned. Can I then be surprised that there should be similar diversities of judgment in matters so difficult (to say nothing of the interests and passions of men) as all political affairs must necessarily be, in the present complicated state, and multiplied relations, of our great and rich community. Alas! said he, I wish I could see many of my friends around me, who acknowledge the divine authority of Christianity, imbibe more of its spirit; that they would carry it more into common life, and discover more of its effect on their tempers and pursuits. They profess, for instance, he added, to believe in a future state of eternal duration, and yet they are as eager about the concerns of this transitory state as if it were to last for ever. But to return, said he, to the Christian Observer. Some, I find, have objected to it on the ground of its making rather too free with the religious professors of the present day. In truth, to reprove well is one of the most difficult, as it is one of the most important of all our du ties. It requires great love and great

judgment; much discretion in selecting the occasion, and in regulating the time, the manner, and the language of our correction. And I own I sometimes have thought that, perhaps, our Christian Observer (at least some of his correspondents) has a little offended in some of these particulars. Especially I have doubted, whether he has quite enough attended to one principle which should ever be kept in view, a fundamental canon, I might term it, in the art of reproving, I mean that a reprover should shew, while he is performing his invidious office, that he is fully sensible of the real good qualities, whatever they may be, of the subject of his reproof, and inclined to do complete justice to them. Againas all reproofs must give at least temporary pain, and imply a temporary inferiority in the object of our censure, we should be careful that our language and manner in reproving may be as little as possible assuming or dictatorial; that they may be those of a friend rather than of a censor: such, in short, as to shew, that we are actuated by love, and that, instead of affecting superiority, or taking pleasure in our task, we are unwillingly executing a duty we long to quit, and approaching the faults of a friend as we would touch the wounds of a parent. Again there are many faults which may be bt subjects for reproof, but for reproof in private. A parent will be restrained from chastising his children in public by judgment, no less than by affection; by a regard not only to their feelings, but to their improvement: least of all would he execute the painful duty in the presence of those whom both he and the children knew to be likely to aggravate their faults, and triumph in their punishment. In like manner, the reprover of the faults of the religious world will be very cautious how he speaks of them in public, lest his reproofs not only lose their proper effects, but are productive even of such as are opposite. For he knows that the præcursor of all reformation is humility; and that public punishment too often tends to generate and foment pride, to harden and to irritate. He will remember, that what is said before the world is spoken be fore those who will listen with eagerness, and treasure up with malicious ofliciousness, all that they hear to the disadvantage of the party reproved;

who take pleasure in his sufferings and degradation. And as a Christian Observer's leading motive in reproving a brother must be his amendment, he will, doubtless, endeavour to inspire confidence and conciliate affec tion, and, as far as possible, to divest his reproof of all which, by giving offence, may prevent its producing the desired effect.

I could not help smiling to hear my old friend run on thus. He observed me, and smiling in his turn; I see, said he, you think that I still have a smack of my old profession, and, indeed, you must allow an old schoolmaster to understand the principles and effects of castigation. But to be mere serious. What a lesson, ob served he, does St. Paul afford us in writing to the Corinthians, of the af fectionate concern which will be felt even by a legitimate superior in censuring the faults of a fellow Christian; and how does he seem to rejoice in being absolved from the necessity of continuing to use the language of rebuke. Yet let me not be so much misunderstood as to be supposed to mean, that our Christian Observer ought not to endeavour to correct the foibles, and still more to amend the faults and censure the sins of Christians. If they really deserve the hot noured name, if they have any share of humility, that grace which is the peculiar characteristic of real Christi anity, their pride may, indeed, be rouzed for a moment by this mention of their faults, but it will soon give place to very different emotions. Much, indeed, has any one reason to suspect himself; wretched, indeed, is the quality of that man's humility, who, while he is loud in general ac knowledgments of his sinfulness, cannot bear to be censured for any parti cular fault, or even for a foible. In truth, such general acknowledgments of sinfulness result from a wish to raise ourselves in the estimation of that religious circle, on the good opinion of which we chiefly pride our selves, and therefore by them we are gratifying our vanity rather than evincing our lowliness.

While; therefore, on the one hand, I have recommended so much calition and gentleness to the reprover of his brethren's faults; I would, on the other, urge the persons to whom I have been alluding, to endeavour to divest themselves of that morbid sen

sibility to reproof, which I find one of the Observer's correspondents imputes to them, and to labour to acquire something of a sounder and a hardier temperament. They will best accomplish this by cultivating a spirit of humility, and by a more steady practice of the ( fear sadly neglected) duty of self-examination. Per haps if they closely examine their whole character, they may be dispos ed to adopt the words of a worthy friend of mine in public life, who, being one day blamed in one of the newspapers for some minor fault, exclaimed, oh, I could tell Messrs. the Editors much worse things of myself than that. Let them accustom themselves more to have, as the scripture expresses it, their conversation in heaven, and to refer all their actions to the praise or censure of a higher circle than that of the world around them. This will greatly tend to exterminate the vicious disposition in question, which derives its chief sup port from an overvaluation of worldty credit, and an undue solicitude to obtain the praise and escape the censure of man. For my part, said my old friend, it was a practice with me in my younger years, when I was in more danger than I now am of becoming the victim of this untversal passion, an inordinate solici tude concerning the estimation of men, to shut myself up daily for half an hour, and endeavour to bring round me in idea those invisible beings whom Christianity assures me are the real spectators of my conduct. I supposed myself to lay before them the chief pursuits and occupations of the preceding four and twenty hours, and to receive their approbation or censure. I found this practice often, said he, of great use to me, in sup porting me against a laugh or a sneer which my over great strictness, as it was called, was sometimes apt (6 draw on me; and I acquired a habit of looking forward to the reception I should meet with at my trial on the following day, as much as if I had been really to be subjected to such a serutimy: and though, after some time, (I fear rather from idleness thar. from any other really adequate cause), I admitted my want of leisure excuse for breaking off the practice, it left a habit of living above the world, if I may so term it, the benefits of which I trust I feel even to this day!

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