President Edwards framed seventy resolutions, all of them before he was twenty years old, as the great landmarks and guides of his life. How far the energy of these early resolves diffused itself over his subsequent career-how far these purposes of holy living contributed to the exalted piety for which he was conspicuous, the intellectual grasp and vigour which distinguish his writings, and the renown in which his name and memory are held by the whole Church, the judgment-day will alone reveal. Go ye and do likewise; reflect, deliberate, seek light from above, and settle, intelligently and firmly, the principles on which your future life shall be regulated. Do right, because it is right; shun wrong, because it is wrong; act justly, though the heavens fall; and then rest in the assurance that you will not lose your reward. You will have it in self-respect, you will have it in peace of conscience, you will have it in the honour of men, you will have it in the approbation and favour of Heaven.

But the only true source and standard of right opinions is to be found in the Holy Scriptures. Human nature is, after all, of itself, essentially weak. And nothing shows its weakness more than this perpetual craving after some guide and support out of itself, this living upon the judgment of others rather than our own. Such, undoubtedly, is the weakness of our nature, that it does absolutely need some external direction and assistance. Idolatry had its source in this deep consciousness of our being. All writers agree in tracing its original to the deification of dead men, who had been eminent in life for strength of will and vigour of action. The reverence felt toward these men, the habit of leaning upon them, and a certain indefinable hope of some subtle transfusion of their qualities to the worshippers, led to the erection of temples, and the payment of divine honours to their memory. But there is as real an idolatry now, as when the Greeks and the Romans bowed down to the thirty thousand divinites of their mythology. Its object, too, is substantially the same,-men, either truly eminent, or fancied to be so. The Moloch of our faith is public opinion, popular judgments, the thoughts and whisperings of our neighbours. The "mind of the street" must be sounded, the opinion of the town must be taken, before we can venture upon a new coat or a new dress. The idolatry remains; the form only is changed.

Human nature must, then, have something out of itself to lean upon. This is settled in universal experience, and confirmed by the voice of all history. The question is, Upon what shall it lean? The choice lies between two objects,-God and his word, or men and their opinions. Reader, we hold up these two several objects

to your observation. Regard them; study them; ponder their qualities, excellencies, assistances. Strength and weakness, wisdom and folly, virtue and vice, life and death, are here set before you. Make your choice; make it deliberately, thoughtfully, with prayer, and the result cannot be doubtful. The law and the testimony"—the truth and power of the living God-must carry it over those veriest nothings,-popular caprice, popular applause, and popular censure.

Finally; we ask the reader to contemplate the importance of a rightly-educated public opinion and conscience, together with the means of securing so invaluable a blessing. Since men are such echoes of each other in their moral opinions and practices, and since they are likely ever to remain more or less subject to this potent influence, it becomes a point of transcendent moment to enlighten their judgments, to elevate their principles, and to purge their manners; and this reformation must begin where the evil to be overcome has its source,—in the family and the school. Greater attention must be given to the reality of things; less to their shows and semblances. The young must be trained to attend more to the substance of objects than to those fair appearances which lure but to cheat. They must imbibe with the milk of infancy, and continue to mingle with the food of childhood and youth, the noble sentiment, that

"Worth makes the man, the want of it the fellow;"

that a good head is of more value than its covering; that a good heart is better than a graceful carriage; and that a life without a stain, a character above reproach, though the shell be roughly clad, and the manners lack a courtly polish, is a possession above the price of rubies. Men's moral judgments are out of joint; they are framed upon simulacrum, as Carlyle would phrase it,-upon mere semblance and seeming.

These reflections point to a reform in our methods of education. More of a religious element must be infused into them. There is a morbid dread of religion in our schools, to call it by no worse a name, which is of baleful influence and augury. Men are scared by the spectre of sectarianism. "Don't mention a God or a future world to our children, or you'll make them Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Churchmen, or something else as bad." This cry is as senseless as it is impious. Is there not much common ground among Christians of differing creeds? Is not the common ground the broadest and most important? Do not all Christians receive the essential doctrines of revelation,-the divine

origin and authority of the Holy Scriptures, the being and perfections of God, his moral government of the world, the fall and redemption of man, his accountability, the obligation of a pure morality, and the doctrine of a future judgment and endless retribution? But if religious instruction in schools necessarily involve denominational or sectarian teaching, then we say, without hesitation, let such instruction be given. The narrowest, blindest, and most intolerant bigotry of sectarianism is better than infidelity, whether it come in the bold and open form of old English deism, or in the more insidious and captivating guise of modern transcendentalism. It is better, also, than that utter indifference and insensibility to religious truth, so common in our day, which are but one remove from infidelity itself. Education without religion is education without its essence. To give men knowledge, and leave them immorality, would be but an equivocal boon. Rather, we might say, it would be to put into their hands an instrument of mischief, and supply stimulants to the use of it. It would be offering, not bread, but poison, to the eager appetite of the rising generation. Access to the tree of knowledge was once purchased by exclusion from the tree of life. Be it our endeavour-surely not an impracticable one-to commingle, in loving embrace, the foliage, flowers, and fruits of these twin sisters of paradise. The true dignity of man consists in a severe morality, in self-control, in humility and moderation, and in the voluntary performance of all his duties to God and his neighbour. Religious education is, consequently, the first want of a people. "The end of learning," says the great Milton, "is to repair the ruin of our first parents, by requiring to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, and to imitate him."

But what a mass of false perceptions, false judgments, and false principles, in morals, is exhibited in almost all our schools! It would be a curious research, as Dr. Arnold suggests, to gather up the several points in a character which boys respect and admire, in order to show what a crooked rule they walk by. In the true scale of excellence the order is,-first, moral perfection; secondly, force of understanding; and, thirdly, physical strength and dexterity. At school this order is reversed. The most active and expert player is the best fellow; the cleverest scholar comes next in the scale; while the best boy, with nothing but goodness to recommend him, rises but little above contempt. The habitual breach of duty, even, is countenanced and upheld. Everywhere else but in schools, it is but a natural feeling that it is disgraceful to do our business ill; that it is contemptible either to have no employment, or, having one, to neglect it. Not so in these scholastic communities. Here the

contrary often happens; idleness is a glory, industry a reproach. We have heard of a college student who, from an affectation of genius, would ask what the exercise of the hour was in the recitationroom, after having spent the day in idleness, and toiled at his lesson much of the preceding night, under his bed, with the light behind the covers, lest it should be known that he sat up at night! Such a man, one would think, must despise himself for the rest of his natural life. But the most fearful laxity in the code of school morals is the estimation in which falsehood is held. Lying is far from being considered as hateful a vice as the Holy Ghost teaches us to regard it: but little disgrace is attached to it. It is fearful to contemplate the amount of direct falsehood, of unfair concealment, of deceitful representation, and the long train of similar wickedness practised without compunction or shame, often with exultation even, by schoolchildren.

Nothing but the simple, plain, earnest teaching of the word of God can change this sad state of things to a better. That divine word is quick and powerful. Its influence upon the understanding is as healthful and invigorating as it is upon the heart; its quickening energy as great upon the intellectual as upon the moral perceptions. It is the great and controlling agency to be employed in the production of a better public opinion, a sounder public conscience, a higher standard of public morals, a purer and healthier action of the public heart. In the accomplishment of so desirable and excellent a result, religious education, based upon the Bible, is the one thing needful. Other measures may change and subside, as the national mind changes and subsides beneath them; but this is a measure which creates the national mind, and which insures, by its firm and broad substructions, the solidity, harmony, and durability of the whole social structure. It is the bond of our union, the charter of our liberties, the ward and keeper of our constitution; the palladium of our happiness, our safety, and our right. It seems to us that there is urgent need of a reform in this matter. We want a stronger infusion of godliness into the sources of public sentiment; a greater use of direct, plain, and earnest Bible teaching, both in the family and in the school. Here, Christian brethren, is a great work; a work to which every Christian man and every Christian woman must put their shoulder and their heart. Say not that you are too obscure and insignificant for the labour. God works by small as well as by great instrumentalities. Gideon and his three hundred, armed with their pitchers and their lamps, and bearing a divine commission, shall discomfit and put to flight the swarming hosts of Midian. God

magnifies his own power by the feebleness of the means as accompanied with the splendour of the result. He accepts a prayer or a sigh, and pours the treasures of his goodness on a nation in return when royal gifts are wanting.

ART. III.-ENGLISH GRAMMAR.

1. The Grammar of English Grammars, with an Introduction Historical and Critical; the whole methodically arranged and amply illustrated; with Forms of Correcting and of Parsing, Improprieties for Correction, Examples for Parsing, Questions for Examination, Exercises for Writing, Observations for the Advanced Students, Decisions and Proofs for the Settlement of Disputed Points, Occasional Strictures and Defences, an Exhibition of the several Methods of Analysis, and a Key to the Oral Exercises: to which are added Four Appendixes, pertaining separately to the Four Parts of Grammar. By GoOLD BROWN, formerly Principal, &c., Author, &c. New-York: S. S. & W. Wood, 1851. 8vo., pp. 1028. 2. The English Language. By ROBERT GORDON LATHAM, M. D., F. R. S., &c. Third Edition, revised and greatly enlarged. London: Taylor, Walton, & Maberly, 1850. 8vo., pp. 609.

WE have selected the two works whose title-pages stand at the head of this article, not for the purpose of formally reviewing them in particular, nor because we intend wholly to condemn or wholly to approve either of them. We present them rather as fair specimens of the two modes of treating the English language now in vogue. Mr. Brown is a thorough-going practical grammarian of the orthodox school. The most rigid empiricist will find no new-fangled terms or notions here to offend him. The author is a teacher of grammar himself; and his book is a complete repository of grammatical items. The old fable of Apollo and the critic tells us that the cunning god rewarded a diligent collector of all the faults and errors in a certain work of fame by presenting him with a bag of chaff, from which he had directed him to cull out all the wheat. We hope Mr. Brown will receive some more substantial compensation for the immense labour he has been at in this work. He has certainly gathered instances enough of false grammar (so called) to make his fellow-grammarians of every age and clime, from whose works he has collected them, stand aghast at the sight of their own heresies. We have more than a suspicion, however, that if his own book were served in the same way, a pretty handsome sum of the like coin might be paid back to him. What a great pity it is that teachers cannot follow their own rules; but so it seems