to be overcome by one of an opposite kind, begun and carried out in accordance with those laws and conditions of nature that bear upon it.1

These come directly within the province of education; and from it the Christian learns the means by which the acquisition of right habits is made most easy and perfect, and those of an opposite nature best overcome. From it he graces and virtues are to be long practised and exercised before the contrary vices will be subdued, and before we arrive to a confirmed and settled state of goodness."(TILLOTSON.) "Virtue is a habit of mind to be acquired with great industry and application; to be forcibly introduced into the soul in opposition to vice, which has gotten, it is to be supposed, a long and undisturbed possession of it, and must be dislodged with great difficulty and by a persevering resolution. And this is not to be effected in a little time; the inhabitants are all on its side; and it has so carefully strengthened the place that the siege must be both long and doubtful."(C. How: Meditations.)

1 The evil principle in man's nature "is to be altered and corrected only by discipline and the infusion of such principles into the rational and spiritual part of man as may powerfully sway his will and affections by convincing his understanding that the practice of virtue is preferable to that of vice; and that there is a real happiness as well as an honesty in the one, and a real misery as well as a turpitude in the other."-(Dr. R. SOUTH: Sermons.) "To practise the necessary duty contrary to the vicious inclination, till the habit of vice be wrought out, and the habit of virtue be introduced, is the necessary repentance of a sinner."-(Dr. WHICHCOTE.) "It is by gradual advances rather than impetuous efforts, that victory is obtained.”—(T. A'KEMPIS.) “It is not one overthrow that will dishearten the old man; he must be baffled and vanquished over and over before he will cease to rebel. Nor, must you think to find virtue easy till you have accustomed yourself to it; for nothing but custom can entirely subdue custom." (Introduction to a Holy Life.) "The culmination of virtue is to practise it till it becomes pleasant."—(ANON.)

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2" Many that are accounted powerful preachers spend all their zeal in the earnest pressing the immediate practice of the law, without any discovery of the effectual means of performance; as if the works of righteousness were like those servile employments that need no skill and artifice at all but industry and activity.... That you may not stumble at the threshold of a religious life by this common oversight, I shall endeavour to make sensible that it is not enough for you to know the matter and reason of your duty, but that you are also to learn the powerful and effectual means of performance before you can successfully apply yourselves to immediate practice." (MARSHALL: On Sanctification.) "Even for the Christian there is an art of education; an art which calculates upon human nature, rests upon it, accepts its aid as freely as it acknowledges its obstacles. Christian education recognizes, accepts, cultivates nature, addresses itself to the will and the reason, acts by example and habit, establishes the rights and the elements of law and morality."-(VINET.) "Much application is requisite to maintain and fix the authority of reason and preserve the subordination of the inferior faculties. The obliquity of our wills, however contracted, must be rectified to the utmost of our power. We must carefully watch our weak humours, our wild appetites, our

learns the value of early impressions,1 the power of example,2

wandering inclinations. . . . The heart must be kept with all diligence, and all its movements under direction. An habitual guard is requisite, not only on our words and actions, but in respect of our thoughts, whereon depends our whole conduct. If our thoughts be not cautiously observed and adjusted by the rules of sobriety_and_virtue, they are very apt to run adrift and become licentious."-(Rev. J. BALGUY: Sermons.) Holiness, to be secured, must be treated as an interest, a pursuit, a profession. It must be made the vocation of the soul, the business of life, the practical handicraft of the inner man."-(Dr. DARLING: The Closer Walk.) "Wise Christians ought to practise every way of life that can fit them for further degrees of grace, that can strengthen and preserve their union with the Spirit of God."-(LAW: Spiritual Perfection.)

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1 "The first impressions which children receive in the nursery, while under the mother's immediate care, are seldom so obliterated but that, sooner or later, their influence conduces to form the future life; and though the child that is trained up in the way that he should go may depart from it for a season, there is reason to hope that he will be found in it when he is old."-(Rev. JOHN NEWTON.) "The force of early habits is such that they generally determine our practice through life; and when once contracted and confirmed, are seldom or ever to be broken."-(Dr. J. BROWN: Sermons.) "Custom is most perfect when it beginneth in young years. This we call education, which is, in effect, but an early custom."-(BACON.) It is certainly a great advantage to religion to be planted in a tender and fresh soil; and if parents be careless and neglect this advantage, the enemy will be sure to sow his tares whilst the husbandman is asleep. . . . Possession is a great point, and it is of mighty consequence to have nature planted with good seeds before vicious inclinations spring up and grow into strength and habit."-(Archbishop TILLOTSON.) "You that are young, and have hitherto been in a great measure innocent, may prevent the Devil, and, by an early piety, give God the first possession of your souls; and by this means never be put to the trouble of a great and solemn repentance, having never been deeply engaged in a wicked life." (Ditto.) "Vice may easily be discouraged at first. It is like a slight disease, which is easily to be cured, but dangerous to be neglected. The first approaches of sin and temptation are usually very modest; but if they be not discouraged they will soon grow upon us and make bolder attempts."—(Ditto.) 2"The good parent," says Thomas Fuller," showeth them (i. e. his children) in his own practice what to follow and imitate; and in others what to shun and avoid. For, though the words of the wise be as nails, fastened by the masters of the assemblies, yet sure their examples are the hammer to drive them in to take the deeper hold."-(Holy and Profane State.) "Rules without examples are neither understood nor considered by those to whom they are propounded; and he that goes about to over-rule his family to piety, without making conscience of it in his own practice, nay, who doth not make his own life a great pattern of what he persuades to, undermines his own endeavours, and shall not only fail of success, but be ridiculous for his pains."-(Holy Living.) "Let him who would engage his family to devotion give them a fair copy of it in his own example, and then he shall not fail of the honour and comfort to see it transcribed and imitated by those about him." (Ditto.) "There is a majesty in holy example; it not only commands, but charms men into compliance; there is life and spirit about it, insomuch that it animates and inflames all about a man; it makes piety

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the force of habit, and in general the nature and strength of the various influences that go to mould and fashion the individual character. It points out the close

to become visible, and not only shows it to be necessary, but represents it with all its advantages of goodness, beauty, and ornament; it confutes men's mistakes about it, answers their objections against it, removes their suspicions, shames their cowardice and lukewarmness; in a word it doth (after the manner of all great engines) work powerfully, though almost insensibly." (Ditto.) Christian parents "will find," says Defoe," that those liberties their children take from the encouragement of their example will be ten times more difficult to restrain afterwards than those they have from their own inclination, or the example of others."-(The Family Instructor.) "While we would earnestly contend that mankind are born in a sinful state, we would as strenuously maintain that evil example, taken in connection with the absence of religious instruction and training, is the chief cause of making children actual transgressors, and that it has been the destruction of thousands. Children are imitative creatures, and they are almost sure to follow the evil conduct which they constantly see before them."-(Rev. H. SMITH: Mental and Moral Training.) "That is the wise teaching which produces a wise and virtuous life by example rather than by precept; to let the child catch, as it were, holiness from the atmosphere he breathes, and not teach him that the possession of that holiness depends upon his accepting this or that particular article of belief."-(J. A. LANGFORD.)

"The custom and frequent practice of a thing begets in us a faculty and easiness in doing it." "This is the nature of all habits, the farther we proceed, the more we are confirmed in them. And that which at first we did voluntary, by degrees becomes so natural and necessary that it is almost impossible for us to do otherwise." "A rooted habit becomes a governing principle, and bears almost an equal sway in us with that which is natural. It is a kind of new nature, superinduced, and even as hard to be expelled as some things which are primitively and originally natural." (TILLOTSON: Sermons.) "The first effect of the law of habit upon the human character is to familiarize the mind either with vice or virtue; and of consequence, either to diminish the horrors of the one, or the difficulties of the other. The path of virtue is at the beginning rugged and steep; but habit soon renders it easy, and at length delightful." (HOUGHTON.) "That vice may be uneasy and even monstrous unto thee, let iterated good acts and long confirmed habits make virtue almost natural, or a second nature in thee." (Sir T. BROWNE.) "The law of habit, when enlisted on the side of righteousness, not only strengthens and makes sure our resistance to vice, but facilitates the most arduous performances of virtue."-(Dr. CHALMERS.) "In the great majority of things habit is a greater plague that ever afflicted Egypt: in religious character, it is eminently a felicity. The devout man rejoices to feel that, in aid of the simple force of the divine principles within him, there has grown up by time an occasional power, which has almost taken place of his will, and holds a firm, though quiet domination through the general action of his mind. He feels this confirmed habit as the grasp of the hand of God which will never let him go."-(JOHN FOSTER.)

2 We are told of Dr. Chalmers that on one occasion "he powerfully contrasted two methods of religious education. The one, no stranger in Scotland, that of imparting to the minds of children a complete system of

and intimate connection that subsists between mind and body, and how they act and react upon each other,'-how many of our states of mind are the direct result of con

doctrinal orthodoxy, and without moral culture, leaving that system to produce its own fruits as it might. The latter that of training children in such a course of virtuous obedience to the divine law as would prepare them for the reception of greater and greater light respecting the doctrines of religion. He pointed out the vast superiority of the latter system." (Chalmeriana.) "First of all they should rather seek to teach a feeling than a doctrine; to bathe the child in their own feeling of love to God and dependence on him, and contrition for wrong before him, bearing up their child's heart in their own, not fearing to encourage every good motion they can call into exercise to make what is good happy and attractive; what is wrong, odious and hateful; then, as the understanding advances, to give it food suited to its capacity, opening upon it gradually the more difficult views of Christian doctrine and experience."-(Dr. BUSHNELL: Christian Nurture.) "If they are put upon an effort to be good, connecting the fact that God desires it, and will help them in their endeavour, that is all which in an early age they can receive, and that includes everything; repentance, love, duty, dependence, faith.” — (Ditto.) "Some there are who think they have happily enough laid the foundation of the religious education of their children when they have loaded their memory with sacred words, with portions of Scripture and Catechisms, of the meaning and sense whereof they are absolutely ignorant, and taught them to say prayers which they neither do nor can understand It were certainly far better to endeavour by words, plain, easy, familiar, and adapted to their capacities, to awaken their affections; that is to stir up their love and their desires, and their joys, and turn them towards God and divine things." (GEORGE MONRO.) Very small children are more likely to be worried and drummed into apathy by dogmatic catechisms than to get any profit from them."-(Dr. BUSHNELL.)—“ It is only bigotry that can make the mistake of supposing that the making a child learned in some of the technical terms of a belief is making it religious." (J. A. LANGFORD.) "The best Christian religious doctrine (to be taught a child) is the life of Christ."-(J. P. RICHTER: Levana.)

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"In the present condition of our nature, the human mind is connected with a material and organized substance, the body, with which its operations stand in a state of union so close, perfect, and necessary, that neither can act without the action, direct or indirect, of the other. It follows from this fact, that in judging of mental operations, it is necessary always to take into our account the great variety and frequent change of the state, workings, and accidents of the corporeal system."(Dr. PYE SMITH.) "The purest, the most ideal sentiment still pertains on some side to organization. The inspiration of the poet, the passion of the lover, the enthusiasm of the martyr have their languors and shortcomings that often depend on very pitiable material causes."--(COUSIN.) "Our moral failings are often nothing more than consequences of our bodily defects."-(SALZMANN.) "In curing the diseases of the soul, we are directed by the method of curing the diseases of the body, which is sometimes by medicine contrary to their nature, and sometimes by those which are like to it."-(BATES: Spiritual Perfection.) Very wonderful is the intimate connection, the subtile interaction between the forces of our physical and moral nature. It is a fact of infinite practical signi

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ditions of body, and the laws to which they are subject not mental, but physical. Hence frequently our failure to act up to what we know to be right, results not from badness of heart, but from infirmity of body, or want of proper training. Many good and pious men fret themselves about

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ficance, which cannot be ignored without grave peril. The intelligent recognition of it would save many good people from much sorrow, as it would save others from grievous sin."-(Rev. R. W. DALE.) When I consider "the effect which physical health has upon a man's temper, and, therefore, upon his happiness, upon his working power, and consequently upon his usefulness-when I consider how many men are snappish, melancholy, languid, who by means of good physical training might be amongst the most amiable, cheerful, and active of mortals; when, in short, I consider the very deep sympathy which exists between the body and the soul, the mysterious chain which binds together our physical, mental, and moral nature, I do feel that a strong, active, healthy body is one of the greatest blessings which any man can enjoy."—(Rev. H. STOWELL BROWN.)

"The cause of morality-of every thing that is connected with the outward movement of the race-is more dependent upon the bodily health, upon the organic soundness of the human constitution, than many politicians, moralists and divines seem ready to believe."-(Dr. JOHN BROWN.) "Health is a Christian grace, more than that a great deal; it is the mother of almost all the Christian graces; so much so that in respect of multitudes, although it is not difficult for them to exercise Christian graces when they are perfectly healthy, it is almost impossible for them to do it when they are not healthy."-(H. W. BEECHER.) "Animus enim adeo a temperamento et organorum corporis dispositione pendet, ut si ratio aliqua possit inveniri quæ homines sapientiores et ingeniosiores reddat quam hactenus fuerunt, credam illam in medicina quæri debere." (DESCARTES.) "The want of consolation in the soul is often owing. to bodily disease. It is not more surprising for a conscientious man under the influence of a morbid melancholy to doubt and despair than it is for a sick man to groan, or a child to cry when it is chastised The consciousness of sin and the apprehension of the wrath of God are often the results of bodily distemper."- (BAXTER : Saints' Rest.) "It is quite true that from the infirmities of our nature, from the momentary strength which the most casual circumstances may give to opposing objections, from the depressing influence of sorrow, of a trivial indisposition, of a transient fit of melancholy, of impaired digestion, even of a variation of the weather (for on all these humiliating conditions does the boasted soundness of human reason depend), a man shall for an hour, or a day, really doubt of that which he never doubted yesterday and which he would be ashamed to doubt tomorrow." (HENRY ROGERS.) "As the allwise Creator, in his great wisdom often accomplishes his beneficent designs through the instrumentality of physical agents, it is legitimately within our power by conserving the mental and physical health, to adapt the mind for the more ready reception and retention of those truths on the right appreciation of which man's eternal welfare depends."-(Dr. FORBES WINSLOW.)

2 "Melancholy and inward dejection of mind must be much avoided by all that engage in a Christian course of life; and if it grow too much