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right way to check it when it goes wrong, and to discipline it unto subjection to the law of right and duty, rather than the law of self-will and inclination. But does the child outgrow the need of this yoke? Does he not grow stronger, and sturdier, and firmer set in the opposition of his will, to all wholesome advices and restraints? Is not this the natural tendency? And the young man, full of the ardor and impulse characteristic of his age, does he not need a yoke-a disciplinary and controlling power of some kind? Where would his passions, his temper, his appetites, hurry him, blindfold and headlong had he no. safeguard-no check or restraint? And the man, the wise, sagacious, practical man, who has outlived the follies and fervors of youth, has he, therefore, outlived the necessity of imposing upon the neck of his inclinations and passions a yoke-a bond-a fastening to hold him to the law of duty, and high and holy enendeavor, rather than to the law of self-indulgence and selfinterest? And the old man-the very old man-who has passed his seventy or eighty mile-stones on his way to the realm of the dead, will it do for him to throw off the yoke? Is it safe for him to unloose from his neck the reins--to throw off all the restraints human and divine laws impose upon him? If it were safe-if the law of right had become the fixed law of this life-if his steps have been so confirmed in the paths of virtue and piety that they could not stray into wrong or forbidden paths-yet still does the old man need this yoke as much as ever. Does not age, with its infirmities and dependence-with its temptations to complaint and fretfulness-to irritability and impatience, and misanthropy, need the wholesome restraints of the Christian Yoke, to hold it uncomplaining and unmurmuring on its declining wayto keep it calin, and patient, and serene, and hopeful, till the last great change shall coine, and death itself shall unloose the yoke.

But need I stop here to argue the truth of the sentiment expressed in the text--that all men-but especially the young, do need, imperatively need, some sort of discipline and restraintsome coercion of their own wills--a yoke to bind and fasten their activities and energies in the right line of endeavor--to regulate and restrain all their faculties of thinking, willing, and doing within the right path--the grand highroad of religious duty that leads to God and blessedness. Will not every honest mind acknowledge, and that, too, with a strength of conviction forced from the profoundest depths of self-consciousness, that the human soul is in a disordered, wayward, and fallen state-wrong in all its natural propensions, and passions, and dispositions, and, therefore, unfit to guide and govern itself-unable, without a leader and a guide, out of itself to begin or end the journey of life aright.

While man was a sinless being-while he was a dweller beneath the clear sky of Paradise-his faculties did all spontaneously de

velope themselves, in exact and beautiful harmony with the law of holiness and love, through which God in His beneficence and wisdom works out the happiness of His intelligent creatures throughout the vast universe. But in laying down rules for the conduct of life now-in chalking out the course of education and discipline which will best develope his nature-we must never forget that that nature now, is nature in its fallen state-a nature inclined to evil-a nature which though upright as God made it, it has by the abuse of its free-agency, by voluntary transgression, ruined and disabled its original powers and capabilities for good -a nature, which though jarred and disordered in all its higher and nobler instincts, still it is a nature which God our Father seeks to restore again unto Himself, and to the dominion of his own most holy law by the discipline of labor, trial, suffering, and the still higher discipline of the cross.

Human life is educational and disciplinary. It is a period of probation and preparation. Nor can we understand all its grand ends and uses, till we have fully grasped the idea of its why and wherefore upon the earth. Improvement, and not enjoyment, ought to be the end and aim of our lives.

"Life is combat-life is striving,

Such our destiny below!

Like a scythed chariot driving

Through an onward pressing foe,

Deepest sorrow, scorn and trial,
Will but teach us self-denial!

Like the Alchemists of old

Pass the ore through cleansing fire;
If our spirits would aspire,

To be God's refined gold."

Correction, amendment, right moral and spiritual development is the true business, and ought to be the great labor and struggle of our earthly life. Earth, this sin-shadowed earth, is the place for labor and toil. Heaven, the holy and calm heaven, the place for rest and fruition. And he who strives and expects to find rest and enjoyment only in this life, but lays himself to sleep upon a bed of roses, whose thorns will sooner or later pierce him to the quick. Labor, discipline, and the patient wearing of the yoke, is the true way of life-a way whose ending is lost amid the beatitudes and blessedness of heaven. But the human soul prefers to follow its own impulses. It dislikes to submit its own will to any higher will. Subjection is painful to it. Domination, rule and power over others, it delights in. It dislikes obedience. It spurns labor. Wayward, self-loving, and selfwilled, it seeks its own, and not that which promotes the happiness of others, or even its own highest ultimate good.

And how shall a young soul, setting forth on the journey of life, be broken in-be habituated to bit, and bridle, and check

to the healthful, and wise restraints of virtue and goodness? When shall the taming and training process begin? Can it be commenced and carried forward hopefully, unless it is begun early --begun in youth? With the Prophet, we believe it is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth. Perhaps no greater calamity can befal a young man, than to be lord of himself-his own master-to acknowledge no will, no law, no authority, higher or more obligatory than his own. This was one of the main elements of Lord Byron's misfortunes-one of the most productive sources of that waywardness and self will, which marred and spoiled his whole life. Speaking of Lara, whose father died when he was but a child, he says:

"Left by his sire, too young such loss to know,
Lord of himself, that heritage of woe,
That fearful empire which the human breast,
But holds, to rob the heart within of rest,
With none to check-and few to point in time
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime!
Then, when most required commandment-then-
Had Lara's daring boyhood govern'd men.
It skills not-boots not-step by step to trace
His youth through all the mazes of the race.
Short was the course its restlessness had run,
But, long enough, to leave him half undone."

Now here we have the secret element of all that frowardness which manifested itself in so many ungainly forms in the life and history of that majestic but erring man. And we may lay it down as an axiom that whenever we find a youth restiff under wise and just restraints, or irreverent and reckless of the opinion or good feelings of others, there is an obliquity in the moral nature of that youth, that will, sooner or later, unless checked, work out evil and sorrow to himself and others. In Byron's own words, to be lord of ones-self-to own no interest, no law and no restraint, but his own self-will-is to a youth, a "heritage of woe." And hence, indeed, one of the deepest sources of sympathy for the young, who in early life are deprived of a father's wise and kind restraints.

But let us enquire concerning that discipline--that particular and peculiar kind of yoke, that can manage and shape human life and character aright, so as finally to evolve the perfection and symmetry of the soul, bring it ultimately into everlasting harmony with goodness, the end of its creation. Let us begin with the beginning of life and notice in their natural order the several yokes, which all human souls must successively put on and wear, according to their age and condition, before the habits of the soul's life can be permanently conformed to the law of holinessthe law of its happiness.

First, then, the yoke that must be put on the earliest is, the yoke of parental obedience-implicit, unquestioning obedience.

And grievously does that parent sin against God and the soul of the child God has committed to his care, if he neglects to enforce daily and habitually this great law of his child's social and moral welfare. Is it not a melancholy sight-indeed, does it not excite one's indignation and pity-when you see, as one often does see, a spoiled and petted child-the little tyrant of the family, governing and ruling both the father and the mother-subjecting them to its capricious will-making them the pitiable slaves of a foolish and mismanaged child-a four or five year old despot! How often do you see a child you could have loved, had it been left unspoiled in the innocence and childish simplicity of its nature, and trained to that teachableness, and obedience, which always mark an interesting and promising childhood. But sit half an hour in that family circle! See how concerned and timidly the mother puts forth her commands, fearful they shall be openly disobeyed and she be put to shame by her young child in the presence of strangers. And mark the egotistic teasing, selfish, obstinate, overbearings of the young one. By turns it is noisyby turns fretful and sullen-a being, which God gave as a blessing, a light, a very joy to that family home, has by the ill-timed indulgence and mismanagement of its parents, been changed and metamorphosed into a shame and a reproach, and a prophet of future evil to itself and others. Alas! how has the glorious image of God, stamped upon that young child's nature, been defaced by a bad and foolish home training! You can plainly see that instead of the seeds of kindness, gentleness, modesty, and self-control, cast by parental hands into that young soul before you, the dragon's teeth have been sown. You cannot smile upon such a child kindly. You cannot speak to such a child lovingly. Its frowardness and self-will repel you. And when you-when others when patient and painstaking instructors of the young, all turn away with a moral aversion from this unhappy victim of parental mismanagement and folly, who will pity and help it? Who, indeed, will or can? Shall we hope that some kind angelsome unseen, unearthly one, from the realm of the blessed-some guardian genius, such as of old men did believe watched over children and folded around them the wings of protecting love, shall watch and wait, and find some period, some favorable hour, to throw over that young child's nature, the regenerating and renovating forces of a lovelier and more genial life? Shall we dare to hope, that that work which is the father's and mother's work, shall be done by any other than the father's and mother's own hands? Shall we expect the blessing of the God of Families upon that household where the father and the mother, instead of being the priest and priestess of the household, are its victimswhere, instead of keeping the yoke of a wise and gentle obedience around the necks of their children, they wear the yoke of a child tyrant around their own? Solemn, indeed, and heavy is the re

sponsibility of the office of the instructors and educators of the young. Oh! they do need wisdom, and patience, and Divinest sympathy to fit them and sustain them in their toilsome and difficult work. How much of authoritativeness and absolute command must be exercised in that small kingdom, a school-room, where twenty, thirty, forty, or a hundred active and inquisitive young minds are ever on the stretch to know or to do some new thing.

And here, too, the youth who has been trained to habits of docility and submission in the home government of the family, who has worn naturally, and gracefully, and reverently, the yoke of parental authority, is most likely to be benefitted by the efforts of an industrious and conscientious instructor. Oh! how unfit for the relative duties and business of life, is that young man or woman, who in the discipline of the family and the school has never been accustomed to wear the yoke of a dutiful and loving obedience! My young friends-you who are scholars and learners -you who now hear me, let me speak plainly and frankly to you. Is it not better and infinitely more becoming for a manly and noble boy, or a large-hearted and good girl, to say I will reverence and obey my parents; I will look up with respect and confidence to my teachers and parents, whose instructions and advice, if I heed them, can make me wiser and better. Is not this. I ask you, better than to be an obstinate, indocile, and unloveable girl, or a coarse, bold, bad and obstinate boy-the Anarch of the familygruff and coarse, and unmannerly, mistaking impudence for manliness, and a vulgar swaggering air for the deportment of a gentleman. It is a most common error, and a dangerous one it is, that schools and masters are the educators of our youth. Their instructors they are: but their educators in the high, and holy sense of the word they are not. The training of the feet, and of the hands, and of the eye, and the ear, by music masters, and dancing master, and drawing masters, is not education. The knowledge of the ancient and modern languages, and the sciences and fine arts, as taught by the best and most accomplished instructors is not education. That is something which neither the schools, nor books, nor masters, can give. The body is trained, and in many cases trained well, and so is the intellect. It is plied with tasks, and books, and lectures, and made strong, and sharp, and wise, and fit for the all absorbing ends of life; that is, for buying and selling, and making merchandize, and the accumulation of material good. But where are the professors of benevolence, justice, truth, temperance, humanity, charity, and piety? Where are these accomplishments taught? Who studies them? What are the text books? Where are the institutions and professors of these, of all accomplishments the most exalted, because the divinest? You, my hearers, let me say to you respectfully, who are parents are these professors, and your homes the insti

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