fuperiority. As we must despair of the victory, let us difdain the contest.

Above all things then you should beware that your pupils do not take up with a vague, general, and undefined religion; but look to it that their Chriftianity be really the religion of Chrift. Instead of flurring over the doctrines of the Crofs, as difreputable appendages to our religion, which are to be difguifed or got over as well as we can, but which are never to be dwelt upon, take care to make these your grand fundamental articles. Do not dilute or explain a way thefe doctrines, and by fome elegant periphrafis bint at a Saviour, inftead of making him the foundation ftone of your fyftem. Do not convey primary, and plain, and awful, and indif penfable truths elliptically, I mean as fomething that is to be understood without being expreffed; nor study, fashionable circumlocutions to avoid names and things on which our falvation hangs, in order to prevent your difcourfe from being offenfive. Perfons who are thus iniftructed in religion with more good-breeding than feriousness and fimplicity, imbibe a diftafte for plain fcriptural language; and the fcriptures themselves are fo little in ufe with a certain fashionable class of readers, that when the doctrines and language of the Bible occafionally occur in other authors, or in converfation, they present a fort of novelty and peculiarity which offend; and fuch readers as difufe the Bible are apt, from a fuppofed delicacy of tafte, to call that precife and puritannical which is in fact found and fcriptural. Nay, it has feveral times happened to the author to hear perfons of fense and learning ridicule infulated fentiments and expreffions that have fallen in their away, which they would have treated with decent refpect had they known them to be, as they really were, texts of fcripture. This obfervation is hazarded with a view to enforce the importance of early communicating religious knowledge, and of infufing an early tafte for the venerable phrafeology of fcripture.

The perfons in queftion thus poffeffing a kind of Pagan Chriftianity, are apt to acquire a fort of Pagan expreffion alfo, which juft enables them to fpeak with complacency of the "Deity," of a "Firft Caufe," and

of ** somit encr. Nay, fome may even go so far as to tak za “the Francer of our religion," of the "Au* mur of Chrykamy, in the fame general terms, as *** WN & GARr the prophet of Arabia, or the lawgiver of Chura, er Athens, or of the Jews. But their JULIET, IRS retrit net a little at the unadorned name of Chrit; ang cpecially the naked and unqualified serm or our Sameur, or Redeemer, carries with it a queerit, meiegant, not to fay a fufpicious found. they wui eagre's a serious difapprobation of what is rugs under the moral term of vite, or the forenfic KINN FUM ; but they are apt to think that the fcripture term er in has losething fanatical in it; and, alle der eillores a great respect for morality, they Do Not much reach bocacts, which is indeed the fpecác mà en▼ meracy of a Chriftian. They will trent reably of a man's reforming, or leaving off 2 Vicious audit, or growing more correct in fome indivonal prochee; but the idea conveyed under any of the torture phrases Saifying a total change of heart, then would trigomatice as the very fhibboleth of a fect, though it is the language of a Liturgy they affect to acin.re, and of a Gotpel which they profefs to receive.

CHAP. XIII.

Beats fuggefted for furnishing Young Persons with a Scheme of Prayer.

THOSE who are aware of the incstimable value of prayer themselves, will naturally be anxious not only that this duty thould be earnettly inculcated on their children, but that they thould be taught it in the best manner; and juch parents need little perfuafion or counfel on the fubject. Yet children of decent and orderly (I will not lay of ftrictly religious) families are often fo fuperficially inftructed in this important bufinefs, that when they are asked what prayers they ufe, it is not unufual for them to anfwer," the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed." And even fome who are better taught, are not always made to understand with fufficient clearness the specific diftinction between the

two; that the one is the confeffion of their faith, and the other the model for their fupplications. By this confused and indistinct beginning they fet out with a perplexity in their ideas, which is not always completely difentangled in more advanced life.

1

An intelligent mother will feize the firft occafion which the child's opening understanding shall allow, for making a little courfe of lectures on the Lord's Prayer, taking every divifion or fhort fentence feparately; for each furnishes valuable materials for a dif tinct lecture. The child fhould be led gradually through every part of this divine compofition; the fhould be taught to break it into all the regular divi fions, into which indeed it so naturally refolves itself. She fhould be made to comprehend one by one, each of its fhort but weighty fentences; to amplify and spread them out for the purpofe of better understanding them, not in their most extensive and critical fenfe, but in their moft fimple and obvious meaning. For in those condenfed and fubftantial expreffions every word is an ingot, and will bear beating out; fo that the teacher's difficulty will not fo much be what the fhall fay, as what the fhall fupprefs, fo abundant is the expofitory matter which this fuccine pattern suggests.

When the child has a pretty good conception of the meaning of each divifion, the fhould then be made to obferve the connection, relation, and dependance of the feveral parts of this prayer one upon another; for there is great method and connection in it. We pray that the "kingdom of God may come," as the best means to "hallow his name ;" and that by us, the obedient fubjects of his kingdom, "his will may be done." A judicious interpreter will obferve how logically and confequently one claufe grows out of another, though the will ufe neither the word logical nor confequence; for all explanations fhould be made in the most plain and familiar terms, it being words, and not things, which commonly perplex children, if, as it fometimes happens, the teacher, though not wanting fenfe, want perfpicuity and fimplicity."

d

*It might perhaps be a safe rule to establish for prayer in general, to

The young perfon, from being made a complete mistress of this fhort compofition, (which as it is to be her guide and model through life, too much pains cannot be bestowed on it,) will have a clearer conception, not only of its individual contents, but of prayer in general, than many ever attain, though their memory has been perhaps loaded with long and unexplained forms, which they have been accustomed to fwallow in the lump without fcrutiny and without difcrimination. Prayer fhould not be fo swallowed. It is a regular prefeription which fhould ftand analysis and examination: it is not a charm, the fuccefsful operation of which depends on your blindly taking it, without knowing what is in it, and in which the good you receive is promoted by your ignorance of its contents.

I would have it understood that by these little comments, I do not mean that the child fhould be put to learn dry, and to her, unintelligible expofitions; but that the expofition is to be colloquial. And here I muft remark in general, that the teacher is sometimes unreasonably apt to relieve herself at the child's expence, by loading the memory of a little creature on ocfions in which far other faculties should be put in exercise. The child herself fhould be made to furnish a good part of this extemporaneous commentary by her anfwers; in which anfwers fhe will be much aflifted by the judgment the teacher ufes in her manner of queftioning. And the youthful understanding, when its powers are properly fet at work, will foon ftrengthen by exercise, fo as to furnish reasonable, if not very correct answers.

Written forms of prayer are not only useful and proper, but indifpenfably neceffary to begin with. But I will hazard the remark, that if children are thrown exclusively on the best forms, if they are made to commit them to memory like a copy of verses, and to repeat them in a dry, customary way, they will pro

fufpect that any petition which cannot in fome fhape or other be accommodated to the fpirit of tome part of this prayer, may not be light be adopted. Here, temporal things are kept in their due fubordinaev are asked for moderately, as an acknowledgment of our , and of God's power; "for pur Heavenly Father knoweth need of thefe things."

duce little effect on their minds. They will not understand what they repeat, if we do not early open to them the important scheme of prayer. Without fuch an elementary introduction to this duty, they will afterwards be either ignorant, or enthuliafts, or both. We should give them knowledge before we can expect them to make much progrefs in piety, and as a due preparative to it: Chriftian inftruction in this refembling the fun, who, in the course of his communications, gives light before he gives heat. And to labour to ex

cite a fpirit of devotion without first infusing that know. ledge out of which it is to grow, is practically reviving the Popish maxim, that "ignorance is the mother of devotion," and virtually adopting the Popish rule of praying in an unknown tongue.

Children, let me again obferve, will not attend to their prayers if they do not understand them; and they will not understand them, if they are not taught to analyfe, to diffect them, to know their component parts, and to methodise them.

It is not enough to teach them to confider prayer under the general idea that it is an application to God for what they want, and an acknowledgment to Him for what they have. This, though true in the grofs, is not fufficiently precife and correct. They fhould learn to define and arrange all the different parts of prayer. And as a preparative to prayer itself, they fhould be impreffed with as clear an idea as their capacity and the nature of the fubject will admit, of HIM with whom they have to do." His omniprefence is perhaps, of all his attributes, that of which we may make the first practical ufe. Every head of prayer is founded on fome great fcriptural truths, which truths the little analysis here fuggefted will materially affist to fix in their minds.

On the knowledge that "God is," that he is an infinitely Holy Being, and that "he is the Rewarder of "all them that diligently feek him," will be grounded the first part of prayer, which is adoration. The creature devoting itfelf to the Creator, or jelf-dedication, next presents itself. And if they are first taught that important truth, that as needy creatures they want