pecially in early age, should have taught us is impoffible.

This is not the place to animadvert on the ufual mifapplication of the phrase, "knowing the world;" which term is commonly applied in the way of panegyric, to keen, defigning, selfish, ambitious men, who itudy mankind in order to turn them to their own account. But in the true fenfe of the expreffion, the sense which Chriftian parents would wish to imprefs on their children, to know the world is to know its emptinefs, its vanity, its futility, and its wickedness.

To

know it is to defpife it, to be on our guard againit it, to labour to live above it; and in this view an obscure Christian in a village may be faid to know the world better than a hoary courtier or wily politician. For how can they be said to know it, who go on to love it, to value it, to be led captive by its allurements, to give their foul in exchange for its lying promises?

But while fo falfe an estimate is often made in fashionable fociety of the real value of things; that is, while Chriftianity does not furnish the ftandard, and human opinion does; while the multiplying our defires is confidered as a fymptom of elegance, though to fubdue those defires is the grand criterion of religion, while moderation is beheld as indicating a poornefs of fpirit, though to that very poverty of spirit the highest promife of the Gofpel is affigned; while worldly wifdom is fedulously enjoined by worldly friends, in contradiction to that affertion, that the wisdom of the "world is foolishness with God;" while the praise of man is to be anxiously fought in oppofition to that affurance, that "The fear of man worketh a fnare ;" while they are taught all the week, that "The friend"fhip of the world" is the wifeft purfuit; and on Sundays that "it is enmity with God;" while these things are fo (and that they are fo in a good degree who will undertake to deny ?) may we not venture to affirm that a Christian education, though it be not an impoffible, is yet a very difficult work?

CHAP. VI.

THE EARLY FORMING OF HABITS.

On the Neceffity of forming the Judgment to direct thofe Habits.

IT can never be too often repeated, that one of the great objects of education is the forming of habits. I may be fufpected of having recurred too often, though hitherto only incidentally, to this topic. It is, however, a topic of fuch importance, that it will be useful to confider it fomewhat more in detail ; as the early forming of right habits on found principles feems to be one of the grand secrets of virtue and happiness.

The forming of any one good habit feems to be effected rather by avoiding the oppofite bad habit, and refifting every temptation to the oppofite vice, than by the mere occafional practice of the virtue required. Humility, for instance, is lefs an act than a difpofition of mind. It is not fo much a fingle performance of fome detached humble deed, as an inceffant watchfulnefs against every propenfity to pride. Sobriety is not a prominent oftenfible thing; it evidently confifts in a feries of negations, and not of actions. It is a confcientious habit of refifting every incentive to intemperance.-Meekness is beft attained and exemplified by guarding against every tendency to anger, impatience, and refentment.-A habit of attention and application is formed by early and conftant vigilance against a trifling fpirit and a wandering mind. An habit of induftry, by watching against the blandishments of pleasure, the wafte of fmail portions of time, and the incroachment of fmall indulgences.

Now, to ftimulate us to an earnest defire of working any or all of these habits into the minds of children, it will be of importance to confider what a variety of uses each of them involves.

To take, for example, the cafe of moderation and temperanee. It would feem to a fuperficial obferver, of no very great importance to acquire a habit of self

denial in refpect either to the elegancies of decoration, or to the delicacies of the table, or to the common routine of pleasure; that there can be no occafion for an indifference to luxuries harmless in themselves, and no need of daily moderation in those persons who are poffeffed of affluence, and to whom therefore, as the expence is no object, fo the forbearance is thought of no importance. Thofe acts of felf-denial, I admit, when contemplated by themselves, appear to be of no great value, yet they affume high importance, if you confider what it is to have, as it were, dried up the spring of only one importunate paffion; if you reflect, after any one fuch conqueft is obtained, how eafily, comparatively fpeaking, it is followed up by others.

How much future virtue and felf-government, in more important things, may a mother therefore be fe-curing to that child, who fhould always remain in as high a fituation as she is in when the first foundations of this quality are laying; but should any reverse of fortune take place in the daughter, how much integri ty and independence of mind alfo may be prepared for her, by the early excifion of fuperfluous defire. She, who has been trained to fubdue thefe propenfities, will in all probability, be preserved from running into worthless company, merely for the fake of the fplendor which may be attached to it. She will be refcued from the temptation to do wrong things, for the fake. of enjoyments from which fhe cannot abftain. She is delivered from the danger of flattering those whom the defpifes; because her moderate mind and well-ordered defires do not folicit indulgencies, which could only be procured by mean compliances. For the will have been habituated to confider the character as the leading circumftance of attachment, and the fplendor as an accident, which may or may not belong to it; but which, when it does, as it is not a ground of merit in the poffeffor, fo it is not to be the ground of her attachment. The habit of felf-control, in fmall, as well as in great things, involves in the aggregate lefs lofs of pleasure, than will be experienced by disappoint ments in the mind ever yielding itself to the love ofi

prefent indulgences, whenever those indulgences should be abridged or withdrawn.

She who has been accustomed to have an early habit of restraint exercised over all her appetites and temper; fhe who has been used to fet bounds to her defires as a general principle, will have learned to withstand a paflion for drefs and perfonal ornaments; and the woman who has conquered this propenfity, has furmounted one of the most domineering temptations which affail the fex. While this feemingly little circumftance, if neglected, and the oppofite habit formed, may be the first step to every fucceffive error, and every confequent diftefs. Thofe women who are ruined by fedaction in the lower claffes, and those who are made miserable by ambitious marriages in the higher, will be more frequently found to owe their mifery to an ungoverned paffion for drefs and show, than to motives more apparently bad. An habitual moderation in this article growing out of a pure felf-denying principle, and not arifing from the affectation of a fingularity, which may have more pride in it, than others feel in the indulgence of any of the things which this fingularity renounces, includes many valuable advantages. Modefty, fimplicity, humility, economy, prudence, liberality, charity, are almoft infeparably, and not very remotely, connected with an habitual victory over perfonal vanity, and a turn to perfonal expence. The inferior and lefs ftriking virtues are the fmaller pearls, which ferve to ftring and connect the great ones.

An early and unremitting zeal in forming the mind to an habit of attention, not only produces the outward expreffion of good breeding, as one of its incidental advantages; but involves, or rather creates, better qualities than itself; while vacancy and inattention not only produce vulgar manners, but are ufually the indication, if not of an ordinary, yet of a neglected underftanding. To the habitually inattentive, books offer little benefit; company affords little improvement; while a felf-impofed attention fharpens obfervation, and creates a fpirit of infpection and inquiry, which often lifts a common understanding to a degree of eminence in knowledge, fagacity, and usefulness, which

indolent or negligent genius does not always reach. A habit of attention exercifes intellect, qcickens difcernment, multiplies ideas, enlarges the power of combining images and comparing characters, and gives a faculty of picking up improvement from circumftances the leaft promifing; and gaining inftruction from those flight, but frequently recurring occafions, which the abfent and the negligent turn to no account. Scarcely any thing or perfon is fo unproductive, as not to yield fome fruit to the attentive and fedulous collector of ideas. But this is far from being the highest praise of fuch a perfon; fhe, who early imposes on herself a habit of ftrict attention to whatever fhe is engaged in, begins to wage early war with wandering thoughts, useless reveries, and that difqualifying train of busy, but unprofitable imaginations, by which the idle are are occupied, and the abfent are abforbed. She who keeps her intellectual powers in action, ftudies with advantage, herfelf, her books, and the world. Whereas they, in whofe undifciplined minds vagrant thoughts have been suffered to range without reftriction on ordinary occafions, will find they cannot eafily call them home, when wanted to affift in higher duties. Thoughts, which are indulged in habitual wandering, will not be readily restrained in the folemnities of public worship or of private devotion.

But in fpeaking of the neceffary habits, it must be noticed that the habit of unremitting induftry, which is indeed clofely connected with thofe of which we have juft made mention, cannot be too early or too sedu-loufly formed. Let not the fprightly and the brilliant reject industry as a Plebian quality, as a quality to be exercifed only by thofe who have their bread to earn, or their fortune to make. But let them respect it, and adopt it as an habit to which many elevated characters have, in a good measure, owed their distinction. The mafters in fcience, the leaders in literature, legiflators and ftatefmen, even apoftles and reformers would not, at least in fo eminent a degree, have enlightened, converted, and astonished the world; had they not been eminent poffeffors of this fober and unoftentatious quality. It is the quality to which the immortal Newton