To the excellency of the practice, here recommended, there are many who can set their seal from blessed experience, knowing that the advantages arising from an early acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures are incalculable. Of this we need no stronger additional proof, than the testimonies of those who are drawing towards the close of life. Those who have received instruction from these writings, and have endeavoured to walk according to their precepts, feel, in such solemn moments, a consolation therefrom, and often recurring to the promises therein contained, find them as an anchor to their souls, in times of close conflict.

And how often do we find children, not more than seven or eight years old, who have had this care bestowed upon them, adverting to passages of Scripture, or pious hymns, which their parents have taught them, and which in sickness have proved a support under their bodily suffering, and enabled them, though they hardly knew what prayer was, to ask patience, and submission to the Divine will.

There is another class who have borne

ample testimony to the excellency of the Sacred writings, though under very different circumstances, and with very different feelings. Though they have been engaged in the pursuit of wealth, honour, fame, or some other phantom, yet when they have heard the Scriptures spoken of by those who knew their worth, they have felt the witness in their own bosoms to respond to the truth.

Nevertheless, neglecting to peruse them, and to see for themselves, these, when the world, with all its promised enjoyments, was fast receding from their view, and they have seen through the medium of a wounded conscience, the mistake they have made, have declared to the world, that if they had their time to live over again, their principal study should be the Holy Scriptures. It is evident, that there must be a superior excellency in those Sacred writings, or why should they be so uniformly adverted to in those solemn moments?

The interest that is manifested, and the pains that are taken to educate the children of persons in low circumstances, furnish the cheering hope that many will thus be pre

served from those habits of idleness and dissipation which are now so prevalent. These when they become parents themselves, will be more generally able to instruct their own children, at least, in the first rudiments of learning.

Every mother who has a sufficient portion of learning, ought to teach her children to spell as soon as they are capable of it. And there are very few mothers so situated as to prevent them from performing this duty, if they are careful to occupy their time as they ought to do.

To make a child fond and careful of its book, is a great point gained, and one that is, with proper management, not very difficult to accomplish. It will then listen to instruction as an indulgence and pleasure, not as a task. It is a good method, when children do not learn easily, to form the letter we wish them to remember on a piece of paper, and pin it on their sleeve. By this means, we can repeatedly ask them its name, until they get a perfect knowledge of it.

And if a child learns only one, or two

letters a day, how soon will it obtain a knowledge of the whole alphabet. It has been often asserted, that some children take months at school to learn their letters. This is time lost: yes, worse than merely lost.

This difficulty of obtaining a knowledge of the alphabet, at an age when a child is sent to school, operates as a discouragement, and it is apprehended, that few such children ever acquire that fondness for books, and that love of reading, which they would do if taught before their minds became occupied with other things.

Dr. Franklin observed, that he read with facility when very young, and that he did not remember being without that acquisition. To this early instruction of his parents, and a love for reading, he attributes much of his subsequent usefulness to mankind.

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He also adds this testimony to the care of his parents. By assiduous labour, and honest industry, they decently supported a numerous family, and educated with success thirteen children, and seven grandchildren." "He was pious and prudent, she was discreet and virtuous."

A child that is early taught to read, has many advantages. If it is furnished with suitable books, of which there is a great variety, it will improve itself, and obtain a knowledge of many things which will be of future use. And by proper reading, the mind is more likely to be preserved from imbibing those pernicious ideas which are diffused through the medium of false and frightful stories, against which, the infant mind cannot be too carefully guarded.

The object which we ought to keep in view, is the cultivation, and perfection of those powers with which we are blessed; that when the time of maturity arrives, they may be employed for the promotion of that happiness to ourselves, and that usefulness to society, for which they were given.

FALSEHOOD AND DETRACTION.

These vices are often mentioned by Solomon, who doubtless had much knowledge of their effects on the human heart. We, too, see the baneful consequences of tale