Select Thoughts on Religious Subjects (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1836 Excerpt: ...education; but shall I be understood, if I observe, that all such should be very righteous, but still not righteous overmuch. Children are naturally volatile: they must be humoured in things that are innocent, as well as corrected for their faults: their educators, therefore, need tempers--firm, though mild and dispassionate: solid understandings; and gracious, affectionate, and generous hearts. To oppose this volatile disposition is to oppose nature itself--it rather needs regulation than reproof; we should therefore first please, that afterward we may profit. Though a child should be allowed to be innocently gay, yet all these little gayeties may need a mild control. Parents and guardians must first be beloved before they can be obeyed, unless by terror, which only excites the obedience of vile servility, and which consequently creates detestation; and when from the fear of these things the mind is emancipated, the worst of consequences ensue from such an ill-judged education. It is not in the power of language to reach the evils that arise from the neglect of the duty of education. Carelessness and indifference are the open roads to profaneness and infidelity. What wiser method can we adopt than to take young minds under our fostering care for this best of purposes. The minds of youth, though corrupted in themselves, have not had that corruption strengthened and fed, by having been matured in sin through the contaminating example of others. Had the yielding twig, which at first bends with little resistance, been allowed to grow into maturity, it might be broken, but it would not yield or bend. The more I look at the subject, the more satisfied I am that the reign of education is the reign of order and happiness, and that to promote it is an injunction ar...