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which may serve as examples, and about which it would be easy for the teacher to gather numerous similar instances, if the mind of the child were awakened to desire them. And I have endeavored to arrange them in an order which may assist their

use.

I have also given, in many cases, much briefer explanations than would be necessary if they were intended only for private study. Indeed I have often aimed to do little more than indicate to the teacher the way in which I thought the explanation should be attempted. I would be understood, in these remarks, rather as telling what I would have made the book if I could, than as describing it as it is. My entire want of experience in the instruction of children not only made my labor more difficult, but compels me to distrust my success. it would have wholly prevented my attempting the work, had it not been much needed, while they who had the advantage of experience wanted the leisure and opportunity to make this use of it. I have endeavored to help myself by the advice of others; and I now attempt to state the general principles I have had in view, in the hope that I may thus assist

And

teachers to carry them out, and supply my own defects.

I think a lesson should be read by a class, and then conversed upon; and read, perhaps, again, on the next Sunday, and this repeatedly, until it seems to be exhausted; and then the next lesson may be read. And after the volume has been gone through, it may be begun again, if the teachers have reason to believe that the suggestions of the lessons would admit of farther developement, from the greater knowledge either of the teacher or the taught.

There are many things in this book which it would be wrong to expect children of the age I spoke of to comprehend fully; and there are, perhaps, many more such things than I am aware of. But I hope there are few of which the pupils cannot learn something; and it may not be always useless to have principles and doctrines stored in the memory, even if they are at the time very imperfectly understood.

There are two suggestions I would make, because, however obvious, it seems to me they cannot be known too well or remembered too constantly, by the instructers of our children.

The first, I have endeavored to intimate by the text which I have placed upon the title-page, and have also endeavored to regard through this little volume. It is, that in all the explanations which may be given of these lessons, in all the conversations they suggest, and in the whole course of instruction, there should be a constant endeavor to lead the minds of the children to the Lord; to bring Him constantly before them, as our Father in heaven, as the Source and Giver of every thing good and true, and as constantly present and constantly guiding and helping us. It should be done, not only because this belief must be the central life of all religious feeling, but because it is also the central light of all religious knowledge; for only in proportion as it actually exists and operates in the mind and heart can there be any true progress in a truly religious education.

The other point I would impress upon instructers, is, to guard their pupils from the idea that Correspondence, (the principal subject of these Lessons,) is a fanciful and imaginative thing. It should be taught systematically, and as a most exact and most practical science. Swedenborg sometimes calls it the science of sciences, because it is a science

which gives to all other sciences new order, meaning and instructiveness; and this is precisely the point of view in which it should be presented to the minds of the young. I do not know that there is much danger of this error entering into a school or family of the New Church. But it is abroad in the world, and prevailing there. Many truths of the New Church are now penetrating the whole atmosphere of social thought, brightening it, perhaps, as with the twilight of the morning, and bringing into view many things, which the darkness of night had veiled; but presenting them obscurely and in distorted forms. Some of the most popular works of the day owe their charm and popularity to the use made of these things; but they are not so used as justice to them or to their origin would require; neither the name nor the sun-light of the Church is on them, and I fear the blessing of the Church is not with them. Nor do I know any way of effectually guarding against this error, but by acknowledging these truths as the gift of the Lord and of his Church, and being grateful for them, because they may help us to "cease to do evil and learn to do well."

T. P.

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