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one and the same mind and will. To the educated eye of sound reason, there is one supreme intelligence everywhere manifest, without a single aberration; and there is, to the cultivated ear of religion, an omnipresent harmony, without one discordant note in all the spheres of God's own universe.

There is no apology for scepticism or infidelity in heaven, earth, or hell. There is not a more demonstrable proposition in the whole area of enlightened reason and cultivated intellect, than that the same mind that projected the universe and created the body, soul, and spirit of man, also projected the Oracles of Eternal Truth, which constitute the materials of that volume we so emphatically and impressively call the Holy Bible.

The works of the great sculptors, carvers, painters, architects-the Phidiases', the Praxitiles', the Raphaels', the Michael Angelos, of world-wide fame-are not more marked and characterized in the monuments left behind them, than are the shepherds, the husbandmen, the fishermen, the prophets, kings, and priests, that were the oracles and the amanuenses of the Holy Spirit of all divine wisdom and knowledge, embodied and embalmed on the pages of that much-neglected volume, emphatically denominated THE BOOK OF LIFE TO MAN.

This is not only the family Bible, the Sunday school Bible, the church Bible, but should be the common school, the academy, and the college Bible, and daily read, studied, and practiced in and by them all.

The Bible is, indeed, the tongue of creation. It inspires sun, moon, and stars. It not only echoes in the thunders of heaven, in the tempests, the whirlwinds, the earthquakes, and the volcanoes of earth. but it speaks in the still small voice of morning and evening in the conscience, in the heart, and in the soul of man. It was the great moral engine of ancient civilization, so far as it obtained a local habitation and a name amongst human kind.

For the best essay of modern times, on the subject of the best means of civilizing the tenantries of the British provinces in her East India possessions, a rich medal was voted to the author of an essay whose theory of civilization was Give to Pagandom the whole

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Bible in every man's vernacular, and teach every man to read it." The Bible and the schoolmaster are God's two great instrumentalities to enlighten, to civilize, and to aggrandize man.

The Assyrian empire was annihilated by the Medo-Persian, the Medo-Persian by the Grecian, and the Grecian by the Roman. But Bible civilization, even in its rudimental elements, when fettered by Grecian and Roman philosophers, falsely so called, sapped and mined the bases of Pagan governments, and gradually, but successfully, paved the way to a more rational, humane, and dignified civilization.

The whole philosophy of the highest civilization ever exhibited on earth, or, indeed, conceivable in our horizon, is summarily comprehended in two precepts, on which the greatest philosopher that ever appeared amongst men said, depended the whole Law and the Prophets. These two precepts are but two manifestations, or applications of one principle. Love to God, and love to man, on the part of man, is the gravitating principle conservative of a rational and moral universe. The centres of all systems are attracting and radiating centres. It is so in the physical, the moral, and the spiritual universe. The analogies of the physical to the spiritual, or of the spiritual to the physical universe, so far as observation extends its dominion, aided by the light of the Bible, and what is sometimes called the light of nature, fully and most satisfactorily demonstrate and attest that they are the offspring of one and the same Supreme Intelligence, and therefore, they severally, more or less, interpret and sustain one another.

We may change the terminology of whatever constitutes our beau ideal of a perfect social system; but the fact or reality of humanity, in its most extended horizon, is the fruit of a piety based upon a divine communication. Hence the Bible, daily in the hand of every pupil in every school, is not only the best antidote against the frailties and follies of man, but is also the sovereign directory in all that constitutes an amiable, honorable, and magnanimous man or woman.

A gentle-man and a gentle-woman may be, and, indeed, often are confounded, in our current dialect, with a genteel man and a genteel woman. But

these are the mere creatures of the tailor or mantua-maker, the barber or the milliner, possessing the fashionable diction and mannerism of a Bostonian, a Londoner, or a Parisian. These, indeed, are the creatures of perverted reason and a romantic fancy -- often at war with head, and heart, and conscience alienating our reason, our moral sensibilities, and our affections, from all that is truly amiable, estimable, and praiseworthy, in the legitimate aspirations of man or woman.

Education is a transcendently interesting theme. Its merits, its claims, its achievements, its enjoyments, its honors, and its rewards, are not to be told in a few minutes, nor inscribed on a few pages. It is more than mere science, art, literature, philosophy, theology, or Christology. It is the perfect development and decoration of man--body, soul, and spirit. It developes and adorns his animal, intellectual, moral, and spiritual nature. It enthrones reason and conscience within him, and subordinates his animalism to the direction and control of an enlightened conscience and a purified heart.

To achieve these is the great end and intention of a rational, moral, and religious education; and, as assumed in our premises, it must be adapted to our whole constitution, our position in the social compact, and our eternal destiny in the universe of God. Any of these overlooked, neglected, or disparaged, must ordinarily, in the common course of humau events, terminate unfortunately and unhappily. The individual pupil is, first of all, the loser; but society must, more or less, suffer in every such failure.

We have in all communities, formally or informally, a joint-stock concern. The honest, industrious, frugal, and successful operators in the busy hive of humanity, always suffer from, and generally have to pay all the costs of all the drones, spendthrifts, and marauders within their respective localities. More than half the common and necessary expenses of social life, are imposed upon us through the neglect of a rational system of universal education, in the full-orbed development of what legitimately enters into its unsophisticated definition and import.

Were we arithmetically to compute our taxes paid annually, chargeable to

to

the neglect of a rational system of intellectual, moral, and religious education, based upon the mature oracles of reason, of human experience, and the authentic annals of expenditure on account of the drones, loungers, and criminals, in erecting for them jails, court-houses, penitentiaries, hospitals, and providing armies and navies say nothing of lawyers, judges, courts of oyer and terminer, &c.---all of which, or most of which, are the legitimate results of the entire or partial neglect of timely physical, intellectual, moral, and religious culture. These, indeed, are the four cardinal points in human education, in reference to which the ship of our humanity must direct its course across the ocean of human ignorance and depravity, at the peril of ship, cargo, and all the hauds aboard.

No sage philosopher, no profound political economist, no commou philanthropist, no minister of state or of church, has given to this subject a tithe of the thought and earnest attention which its vital importance and its superlative claims legitimately demand at our hands. That an amelioration of the social system is practicable, and that it is desirable, every man of enlightened reason and sober thought must admit. A cold indifference, indeed a sinful apathy, seems to exist on the part of many who possess an influence which, were it discreetly used and brought to bear on the public mind, might not only stay the progress of this social delinquency, but introduce such a system of moral education, based on the true science of man and of the social system, as would at least prevent the growth or spread of these noxious elements, which ultimately work the degradation and ruin of every people.

We hold it to be a paramount duty of every citizen, to seek the good of that people amongst whom himself and his posterity are, by Divine Providence, located. The amor patrice of the Greeks and of the Romans-of the ancient and modern Jews and Gentiles, though not a virtue wholly disconnected from our native selfishness, is still a duty of paramount importance, not merely to ourselves, but in its wide-spreading and long-enduring influence, more or less bearing upon the destiny of subsequent generations.

No man on earth, by any divine or

human warrant, lives solely for himself. Others providentially have lived, and do live for him; and both religiously and morally he is obliged to live for others, or to make his life profitable to them. No man, in any society, lives for himself, or dies for himself. This is an oracle both of reason and of revelation. And this fact alone is superlatively suggestive of the premises from which we should reason on the whole subject of education--physical, intellectual, and moral. The world is so constituted, that its fortunes or its misfortunes may be materially, if not essentially, changed for the better or for the worse, by the education of one individual actor in the drama of one generation. This actor, this agent of good or evil to contemporaries and to posterity, on some scale, large or small, often has been, and may hereafter be, the creature of a propitious or an unpropitious education. Histories and biographies of all sorts-literary, moral, philosophical, political, and religious abound with examples and illustrations of the influence. direct and indirect, of the incalculable good or evil commenced, conducted, and consummated by individuals, clubs, associations, councils, and conventions, in each or in all of which, one, two, or three master-spirits prompting, inspiring, guiding, and controlling the decisions, have originated, matured, and consummated crises of good and evil in church and state-in public and in private life- in sciences and in arts, useful and ornamentalthe tendencies and bearings of which have continued for generations past, and will continue for generations to come. Old Testament and New Testament history-Chaldean, Persian, Medo-Persian, Grecian, Roman, German, French, English, and American histories and biographies-furnish materials for a hundred volumes in proof of the position, that sometimes one, two, or three distinguished orators have stamped their image not merely on the coin of their respective countries, but on the masses that have handled it, and transmitted it, with their manners and customs, during hundreds, if not thou sands of years. The Bible alone, which is, or ought to be, in every man's hands at least once or twice a day, furnishes in its biographies and narratives enough, and more than enough, to con

vince any reasonable man that education, good or bad, has been the most immediate, and continuous, and potent agency in the fortunes and misfortunes of mankind, from Adam and Noah down to this present hour.

From this meagre outline of the allpermeating and all-potent agency of education in the affairs and destinies of the tribes, and nations, and empires of earth, we are authorized to conclude, that it is the paramount duty, privilege, and honor of every family, tribe, state, and empire on earth, to take it under its most special care, direction, supervision, and patrimony.

The richest mine in any community, is its mind. There is found the wealth of nations, the honor, the dignity, and the aggrandizement of every community on the verdant earth. It is a divine decree, which should be as familiar as household words, and oft repeated, that educated mind must govern, and does govern, the world and the universe, of which it is a constituent part.

Our lawgivers, our law interpreters, our judges, our executives, should know this, feel it, realize it, and patronize national education, to the utmost extent of constitutional limits. Why, in reason's ear, not work this mine with more intensity of interest, with more careful and paternal solicitude, with more liberality of support, with more generosity of endowment, than any other mine of national wealth-than any other fountain of national dignity and prosperity? All lawgivers and rulers are penny wise and pound foolish, whose national coffers are replete with gold, and a majority of their population replete with ignorance, and more or less polluted with crime.

To keep within the precincts of one letter of our English alphabet, we ask

How many more Franklins, Fultons, Fausts, Farels, Fauquiers, Fayettes, Fenelons, Fergusons, Fields, Fieldings, Findleys, Flavels, Fleetwoods, Flemings, Fletchers, Forbeses, Fosters, Forces, Francises, Frederics, and Fullers, might we, and mother England, have had, provided only, as a people, we had sooner learned that educated mind is the true riches, the true honor, and the real estate of any and every people.

But our time and our premises are

too much restricted to go into the development of this transcendent theme. But we need not go far abroad in search of argument, illustration, or proof of the transcendent and incomparable value, benefit, and importance of education, in its full-orbed development, in all its bearings upon the destiny of man now, henceforth, and for ever. In fact the whole earth, with all its riches, real and personal, was designed by its Creator to be one grand constellation of schools, of every rank and order for training, developing, and perfecting humanity, not merely to eat, drink, frolic, dance, and die, but to live, reign, triumph in immortal youth, to bloom and fructify for ever in the eternal paradise of God.

From this meagre and miniature glance at this lofty and profound theme, an important and practically interesting question arises in every inquisitive and earnest mind-How is this education-this moral department, more especially, to be prosecuted, and, in some degree, perfected? To answer such a question, might occupy the details of a handsome volume. We can only say at present, that the great textbook of humanity, especially in its moral, spiritual, and everlasting relations and enjoyments, is emphatically the Bible; not on the shelf, nor on the family stand, but daily in the hands, under the eyes, and upon the conscience and the heart of every pupil capable of reading it. I do not mean in the nursery, the infant school, the seminary, the academy, the college, the university. But in whatever you may please to call the school, the Bible must be daily, solemnly read, and the attention of the pupils or students concentrated upon it, with corresponding literary and exegetical developments, in harmony with the capacity and attainments of the pupil, whether child or stripling, in full manhood or womanhood. We have wrought out this problem to our entire satisfaction during the last fifteen years in college life; and we previously wrought it out for seven years in academic life, and have proof, strong as Holy Writ, of its practicability, power, and efficacy.

No other than historic documents, of

* Such is one of the acceptations of this word.-Webster.

which we have five books in the Christian Scriptures, and five primary books in the Jewish Scriptures. These are, in their simple facts and documents, an all-sufficient library for this department of education. We have two other Bibles, for two other collateral studies, which constitute and consummate our studies of religion and morality-these are the volumes of the earth and the heavens. The former, the text-book of geology; the latter, the text-book of astronomy. These three infallible volumes severally studied, analytically and synthetically, furnish ample data for any, and every student in the great family of man, who desires to comprehend himself in his origin, relations, and destiny, in this magnificent universe.

But in the details of moral culture, it should be noted with much empliasis, that of those pupils that enter schools of all orders, there is a fearful majority of cases beyond the period of successful moral culture. Neglected at home, they enter schools from which they very seldom can receive that culture most essential to the ecclaircissement of their spiritual and moral constitution. If this be neglected in the nursery and infant school, as it is in a majority, a fearful majority of cases, there is not that full assurance of hope which we so fondly desire to entertain, that it can be done in the most primary school beyond the nursery. There is a seed-time in humanity, as well as in the seasons of the year, which if past, is rarely, if ever, to be recalled, but by the special grace of God. Paul's compliments to Timothy, touching his grandmother Lois, and his mother Eunice, are like apples of gold in pictures of silver, and ought to be committed to memory by every maternal lady in Christendom (2 Tim. i. 5, iii. 15.)

But when may moral culture most hopefully commence? is a grave question a most interesting question. Shall we say in grandmother Lois, or in mother Eunice? Before birth, or after it? This is to me, and to you, ladies and gentlemen-Christian ladies and Christian gentlemen—a very grave, serious, and transcendently interesting question. But a word to the wise is sufficient on any thing. It must commence with the commencement of our being, and be continued till our full physical and moral development. So

have said our Solomons and our Apostle Pauls, with all the good and great, the learned and wise men of the last three thousand years. As the twig is bent, the tree's inclined. But it is not merely to commence with our being, but to be continued, in the female sex, to the age of eighteen; and in the other sex, more slow to learn, till three times seven, or one and twenty years. My old friend, Robert Owen, of Lanark, Scotland, once well known in Cincinnati, took the position, and stoutly maintained it, that man, in his prime, was but the creature of mere circumstances. But since the era of new spiritual communications, he has learned better, and abandoned the position, and now imagines that there is more in man than flesh, blood, and bones; and that there are at least infernal spirits, and that the presumption may now be entertained, that there are also supernal spheres, with supernal tenantry, all of which were to him, in bygone days, less than problematical.

But God's own Book of books, is a book of facts, and not at all a book of theories. Facts are for children and the great masses of humanity; but philosophies, speculations, and doctrines, abstruse and metaphysical, are for philosophers and dogmatists, and not for the great masses of humanity. Moses begins with facts and palpable documents, and ends with them; so do all inspired writers. They give us everything in the concrete, and nothing in the abstract. Hence the dramas of creation, of providence, of moral government, and of redemption, are the proper materials of history and prophecy, which include the contents of both Testaments, with some epistolary and didactic communications.

This is the material and the manner of all the inspired documents; and it should be the material and the manner of a useful and practical education. We discover no good and relevant reason why there should be any difference. God is revealed to man by what he has done, and what he has said; just as man is revealed to'man by what he has done and what he has said. Moral culture, we need not repeat, is the great end of all human education. This is the polar star of our whole theory. Much experience, and more observation, has most satisfactorily convinced us

that this can never be achieved without the instrumentality of God's own Book of Life to man. Scholastic ethics are jejune provisions for an immortal mind. God's own book is the only book of life to man. His Oracles are living oracles, and they are also life-giving oracles. The word of God is a living and a life-giving word. It imparts the light of life to a benighted world. It is a monumental fact, to be read, and studied, and admired by every reflecting and cultivated mind, that God created the universe by his word. In the only infallible and satisfactory account of the origin of the material universe, we are informed that twice seven fiats gave to it birth, and being, and location. This antedates all the existing and all the antecedent philosophies of man by thousands of years.

sun.

The book of God is the only book of life, the only charter of immortality to man. A school, an academy, a college, without the Bible in it, is like a universe without a centre and without a We do not mean a Bible on the shelf, the Bible on the stand, but the Bible in the hand, the Bible in the head, and the Bible in the heart, and in the soul, and in the life of man. 'Tis in its hallowed teachings and in its spiritual breathings upon our spirits that they are stimulated, energized into all the activities of a moral, a spiritual, and an eternal life, that not only meets but satisfies the perpetual cravings of our nature, the longings of our soul for the infinite, the eternal, the unfading joys of a blissful immortality.

We demand no politico-ecclesiastical creed, rubric, or platform, no red book dictated, and commanded, or recommended by the civil sword, or an intolerant priesthood. We want the Holy Bible of Protestant Christendom to be consecrated in the heads, the hearts, the consciences, and in the lives of our sons and daughters. We, therefore, plead with God, and we plead with man, and especially with the curators, the superintendents, the presidents, the professors, the teachers of all seminaries of learning, to permit their pupils, if not to cause them, duly to listen to God speaking to them, teaching them, and directing them in the path of life, and honor, and blessedness eternal. If, with Blackstone, we say "The trial by jury is the palladium of

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