love. Grant that we may always fo ufe both the one and the other, as is conformable with thy defign and our real benefit. Let us never separate knowledge and virtue, and labour as diligently at the improvement of our hearts and lives, as in the cultivation of our understandings. Teach us to know ourselves, to keep a guard upon our appetites and affections, to turn them to the best and worthieft objects, and to fupprefs every inordinate motion as it arifes within, that it may not gather strength and become a paffion. Vouchfafe us the grace to think and act always as rational and moral creatures, and to feek our happiness on the path of duty and virtue. Bestow these thy bleffings particularly on fuch of us as are employed in the formation of juvenile hearts, and furnish them with all the neceffary talents and endowments for this arduous and important task. Blefs to the furtherance of these aims the confiderations in which we are now about to engage, and hear our prayer for the fake of Chrift, in whofe name we farther call upon thee, faying: Our father, &c.

PROV. xxii. 6.

Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it.

E

VERY fuperior attainment of mind to which a man can arrive by reflection and practice, all the fagacity and knowledge he may acquire by its

means,

means, are only fo far eftimable as he is enabled thereby to promote his own real happiness and that of other men. This however he can no otherwife do than by willingly and faithfully following the light of his understanding; by not only thinking and judging agreeably to truth, but likewife by acting in conformity with it; by not only nicely diftinguishing between good and ill, but likewise by loving and fecking the good alone, and by detesting and avoiding the ill. His understanding and his will, his fentiments and his behaviour, fhould therefore be in perfect unifon. The knowledge of truth fhould lead him to the love and the practice of virtue. And this, my friends, fhould also be the aim of a rational and chriftian education; which confifts, as I lately had occafion to mention, not barely in forming the minds, but likewise in forming the hearts of children, and in training them to religion and to christianity. Of the former, the formation of their minds, we have already difcourfed. The fecond, or the formation of their hearts, fhall employ us to-day, and, if it be the will of God, on Sunday next; and the third, namely, their introduction to religion and to chriftianity, we purpose to take in hand on the first convenient opportunity.

To form the hearts of children, means to direct their appetites and affections to the worthieft objects, to inspire them with a predominant love for all that is true and right and proper, and thereby to render the performance of their duty easy and

pleafant

pleasant to them. The formation of the heart presupposes, as every one readily perceives, the formation of the mind; and though the latter be in fome measure diftinct from the former, and may fubfift alone, yet the former can by no means fubfift independently on the latter. It is inherent in our nature, that our will, on moft occafions, fhould follow the perceptions and dictates of our understanding. We will only that which we conceive to be good; and we abhor only that which we hold to be bad; and if at times we are indifferent or averfe towards the good, and covet and feek the bad, it is that we then confider the good as bad, and the bad as good. The more justly therefore we think and judge, and the more eafy and natural this way of thinking and judging is become, fo much the jufter likewife will be the determinations of our will and the affections and averfions arifing from them. Of course then, the more carefully the understanding of a child or a youth is cultivated and formed, the greater success may we promise ourselves in regard to the formation of his heart; which, in fact, for the most part confifts only in teaching him to apply the just ideas and judgments that have been communicated to him, or that we have helped him to acquire, to whatever has any reference to his moral conduct and the happiness of himself and others; in endeavouring to facilitate to him this application by a wife ufe of every favourable circumstance, and by removing or diminishing the inward or outward impediments

which stand in his way, or which may make it very difficult for him to follow the lights of his underftanding. In this view many practices may and fhould be adopted, and if I may venture to say so, many artifices used, which are extremely various, according to the diverfity of perfons we have to do with, and the opportunities that offer. Accordingly, it is not poffible, in a difcourfe that is devoted to the inftruction of numbers, to fay all that is neceffary for every one in particular to know and to obferve. We must content ourselves with fome general rules of prudent conduct in forming the hearts or the moral characters of children, and leave the closer adaptation of these rules to the difcretion of fuch individuals as are actually employed in the application of them.

The first rule is this: Study to find out their temperament, and conduct yourself according to it. The temperament is, as it were, the foil that is to be cultivated, and the diversity of this foil is not fo great but it may foon be difcovered. More or lefs vivacity and quickness of apprehenfion, more or less fenfibility to good and evil, to pleasure and pain, more or lefs vehemence in the affections, more or lefs difpofition to reft or to activity, in these confifts the principal diversity in what may be called the temperament of children. All these various temperaments may equally lead either to the virtues or to the vices. To excite and to promote the former and to prevent the latter, is the principal business of

worthy parents and honeft tutors. Great vivacity, fenfibility, activity, are excellent qualities, when they are directed purely to good and proper objects, and have reason for their guide. You need not therefore ftifle or suppress them, but you must spare no pains to give them the best direction, and to keep them within the bounds of moderation. The vivacity of intellect must be employed on important sciences and useful knowledge; the tenderness of heart, expanded to a delicate fenfibility to all that is really beautiful, generous and great; and the activity must be fo conducted as to become an officious zeal for being truly ferviceable and generally ufeful. Children and young people who have these qualities, must be frequently and expressly cautioned against the misuse of them, and fhewn the evil to themselves and to others that will arife from this misuse. They, on the other hand, who difcover greater tardiness in their ideas and actions, who are more difpofed to inaction and floth, and are more difficult to be fet in motion, fhould not be difpirited and stupified by bitter reproaches or harsh treatment. They are naturally timid, and have little confidence in themselves. They require therefore to be handled with greater gentlenefs and patience; they should be encouraged, be drawn out of the obfcurity which they feek, and be placed frequently in fuch circumftances as are adapted to make ftronger impreffions upon them, and to give as it were a new impetus to their intellect. Every temper,

as