LIII. THE DUTY OF PARENTS TOWARDS THEIR (PART II.) PROVERBS XXII. 6. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. ONE grand article of a parent's duty to his children is the care of their virtue, and the using of proper expedients and precautions to preserve and inculcate it. This you will say was the business of education, which has been already treated of; but there are certain other precautions and expedients which do not fall under the notice of what is commonly reckoned education, and which therefore we choose to make the subject of a separate exhortation; though to say the truth, it matters little how our duty is arranged or divided, if it be but understood and practised. Now the first and principal and most direct way of encouraging virtue in our children, is by our own example. The great point in a young person, or indeed in any person, is the being accustomed to look forward to the consequences of their actions in a future world; and this is not to be brought about by any other method than the parents' acting with a view to those consequences themselves. Whatever parents may be in their own conduct, they cannot but wish to have their children virtuous; both because they know that virtue at the setting out has a better chance for thriving in the world than vice (though with all chances it may turn out otherwise), and because, unless a man has deliberately, and from conviction, cast off all expectation of a future state (which is not, I trust and believe, the case with many, if with any), he cannot but desire, if he love his children at all, to have them happy in that state-he cannot but know that to promote and secure that happiness and that interest is, after all, the very best thing which he can do for them. And I will suppose it to be the wish and purpose of every parent. But then how do they go about to accomplish it? They gravely, perhaps, and solemnly give them lessons of virtue and morality-warn them with much seeming earnestness against idleness, drunkenness, lewdness, dissoluteness, and profligacy; whereas they themselves hang about all day without employ, come home disordered by intemperance, are cried out against in the whole neighbourhood for some profligate connexions, and waste and destroy their substance in riot, dissipation, and high living. Or they will tell their children, possibly, of the great importance of religion—that every thing beside is of short duration, and, consequently, small importance, in comparison with this-that death closes all our cares but this-whatever else therefore they regard, to take care of this. This is the conversation perhaps that they hold with their children, whilst their own conduct all the while has not much of the influence of religion discoverable in it. The offices and ordinances of religion, which are the apparent, and therefore, as examples, the affecting and influencing spirit of it, are put by and neglected, if there be any pretence or cause for neglecting them--not seldom without any pretence or excuse at all. All that the child sees of the parents is, that they are continually taken up with the pursuit of some pleasure; or that they busy themselves about some worldly advantage, as much as if there were no such things as religion and a future state ever heard of. One hour the parent shall be representing to the child the tremendous authority of God Almighty-that the whole world is in His hands-that He is the giver of all good, and has the power to inflict upon us every evil-that He is the author of life and death-that it is He only that can kill the body, and after that can cast into hell-fire-that He is never, therefore, to be named or thought of without awe and veneration. Thus will the parent talk one hour, and the next, perhaps, if a very slight provocation fall in his way, the child shall hear him cursing and swearing, and dealing about the name and vengeance of God, the terrors of hell and damnation, with as little concern, and upon as frivolous an occasion, as if these things were only tales to frighten fools with, and to be sport to the wise man. Even the understanding of a child is not to be imposed upon by such mockery, or made to believe that a parent can be sincere, or really is in earnest in delivering rules and principles of behaviour, which manifestly possess no sort of influence upon his own-which he forgets or breaks on every occasion that arises; and when the child has once found out this, or suspects it, the discovery has a fatal effect upon the parent's authority in general; for whatever lessons of prudence, or maxims of morality, or admonitions, or exhortations he afterwards gives his child, they will only pass with it for so much form and affectation: whereas, did the parent regularly and constantly act with a view to a future judgement and the laws of religion himself, the child would easily learn to turn its eyes and attention the same way, and with very little talking to; and the custom of considering itself accountable hereafter for what it does here, thus silently and insensibly formed by the parent's example, would have a chance of remaining with it to its life's end. This is the least troublesome, and only true way of inculcating religion into young minds, and does not disgust or frighten them with the suddenness of it. A second thing, by which much may be done towards the preserving and cultivating of a young person's virtue, is in the choice of professions. Professions differ much in the opportunities and temptations to particular vices young persons differ as much in the disposition and inclination they discover to different vices. Hence, it is manifest, there is room for judgement in selecting professions the least favourable to those vices to which the child discovers a propensity, and the most likely to qualify and correct them. Instances of this may be the following: if a youth betray a turn for a loose and dissolute course of life, some calling in which he will be early restrained, and live at first under immediate inspection and authority, and above all, one in which his hand and mind will be kept constantly employed, and in which sobriety and regularity of behaviour is the general character, and much insisted upon as a point of reputation; some calling of this kind (and of this sort are most employments in trade and business) seems best adapted to keep within bounds his craving for pleasure, and by degrees moderate it. If he show a propensity to sottishness, low company, and mean diversions, it may remedy this to advance : him into politer stations of life, where he will hear these vices and propensities reprobated, and a spirit of honour and dignity set up against them and it will carry him away from those places where he is beginning to form mean attachments and bad habits. If there be reason to suspect him of a mercenary, sordid temper,which in youth is not common,-a liberal education and a liberal profession are the best remedy. An intercourse with young persons of these lines of education and profession will probably cure it. If he be envious, proud, and passionate, impatient of superiority and disappointment, the more private his condition of life is, the better; where he will meet with fewer quarrels, competitions, and mortifications. But This all seems very plain and rational, and yet it is not only neglected in practice, but expressly contradicted, and a rule the reverse of this pretty generally observed. Men choose sometimes their children's professions with a view to the dispositions they remark in them. how do they direct their choice?-Commonly to such callings and ways of life as are of all others the most likely to foment, call out, and encourage every bad disposition they have betrayed. Thus, does a child seem addicted to dissolute and licentious pleasures, is what we call wild and ungovernable? He is despatched abroad to a distance, and enters one of those professions where he will be out of the reach of his parents or of any other authority; without superintendence and control; with every opportunity and every temptation to vice, together with the example and encouragement and conversation of those he is placed amongst. If his temper be narrow and mean and mercenary, a trade and employment by which that tendency is naturally increased is sought out for him, where a selfish and |