giveth to all, life, and breath, and all things*." If any man presumptuously thinks that he can give aught to God, let him answer this question of the Apostle: "Who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed to him again? For of Him, and through Him, and in Him, are all things, to whom be glory for ever. Ament." These words are but a commentary on those of our Lord Himself, "When ye shall have done all say, We are unprofitable servants." It is very grievous that men should have imagined they could render service to their Heavenly Father, as the heathen thought to do to their impure deities. But our course of language will combat such heathen ideas; and in the stead of this senseless pride will substitute Christian humility, and teach its pupils to yield to the free goodness of their Heavenly Father, the tribute of gratitude which is His due. It will set forth most vividly His gratuitous goodness. It will to this end inculcate the evangelical maxims quoted above, and will assign motives for them; and it will add others, such as the following: "What hast thou, O man, that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received it, why shouldest thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?” "We are not sufficient to think anything as of ourselves, but all our sufficiency is of God." "Every good and perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights§." So that in rewarding what is good in us, God in fact rewards His own works. We shall also point out to children the absurdity of that arrogance, which would place the creature on a level with the Creator, and think to confer obligation upon Him as upon a fellow-man. It will also be well to prove from daily experience that the Heavenly Father needs no return for His gifts; for does He not bestow the sweets of existence on animals, who can neither know Him nor thank Him? And does He not make the sun to rise on the evil and on the good? These are palpable proofs of the disinterested goodness of God. * Acts xvii. 25. + Rom. xi. 35, 36. 2 Cor. iii. 5. From the greatness of God, deists have inferred that as He needeth not our worship and service, we may be dispensed from offering it. Undoubtedly it is useless to God; but it is needful for man, and he is urged to it by the impulse of his heart, if it is not dead to all right feeling. The evils of life are like a cloud, which too often overcasts the goodness of our Heavenly Father. Little children, thoughtless creatures as they are, will not be disquieted by these evils on their own account, but they will hear complaints which may have an injurious effect upon them. Besides, education must look to the future, and therefore it has, in this respect, a duty to discharge. The following then are some of the suggestions that, with this view, it will introduce into its series of phrases. What are we, that we should presume to say to our Father, who has given us life and all things, "Thou dealest hardly with me.' Let men cease, once for all, to reproach their Maker and Father with the evils which they bring on themselves by their disobedience to His law. The earth supplies enough for the wants of the whole human family; and it is our own fault, if any are without the necessaries of life. The Creator, it is true, has attached pain to injuries of the body; but it is in order to warn us to attend to them. The course of nature seems sometimes to be against us, individually, but is it not through this same course that the human race is kept alive upon earth? Do away with the wants and evils of life, and you will also annihilate the sweetest and most endearing of virtues: compassion, patience, and that forgiving spirit which renders good for evil. All that we know of the works of our Heavenly Father tends to our real good; and why should not we conclude that it is the same with what we do not know? Why should we complain of the evils of life, and forget that this is the seed-time, and that we must wait for harvest? Let us submit our will to that of our Heavenly Father, and we shall soon find that all things work together for our good. Would you know the purpose of the evils of life, look to the Saviour rising from the grave, triumphant over His enemies and over death. By reflecting on these examples, teachers will see what means they should adopt to dispel the cloud of which we have spoken, or to prevent its forming in the minds of their pupils. Expression of Gratitude. The child, in order to testify his gratitude to his parents, will avoid all that he thinks will displease them, and do what he thinks will please them. Next, he will discover that his parents have wants to be satisfied; that they are susceptible of injury and benefit; and, therefore, his gratitude will show itself in acts of beneficence to them as far as his powers and knowledge will allow of. This beneficence undoubtedly cannot enter into our gratitude to our Heavenly Father, for then we should fall into the anti-Christian error, of bringing the Creator, from whom we receive life and breath, and all things, down to the level of His poor, weak, indigent creatures. What our course of language will have told its pupils of the free goodness of our Heavenly Father, will guard them against this pagan delusion. To do His will, as it was done by His beloved Son, in the days of His flesh; this will be the expression of gratitude on which it will insist. Nevertheless, it will require acts of kindness, not indeed to our Heavenly Father, who needs them not, but to his family on earth, some of whom are afflicted with poverty, pain, sickness, or other adversities; and all of whom need instruction and encouragement in what is right. It will familiarize its pupils with that sublime Christian truth, that inasmuch as we do either good or evil to one of the least of His children, we do it unto Him. In this we must not stop short at words or outward acts, but we must extend the demands of gratitude to the most secret emotions of the heart, and require of our pupils to sacrifice on the altar of God, every spark of envy, jealousy, wrath, and malice. Among our examples on this important subject, we must not omit the following: There is but one way to please God; that is, by doing His will as revealed to us by His beloved Son, and in us by our conscience. We can render no service to our Heavenly Father Himself; but He has a numerous family on earth, to whom we may do good for His sake. In order to please our Heavenly Father, we ought to be able to say, as did His beloved Son, my meat and drink is to do the will of my Father. So long as I cherish resentment in my heart, how can I please Him, who makes His sun to rise on the evil and unthankful, as well as on the good? "How can he love God, whom he has not seen, if he does not love his brother, whom he hath seen *?” To animale Confidence in God. The little child confides in his kind mother. From his first waking in the cradle he has had incessant proofs of her tenderness. He has seen that she was both willing and able to come in aid of his weakness, his ignorance, and his wants; then judging of the future (however limited to his view) by the past, he concludes that she will ever be the same towards him, and he trusts implicitly in her. Have you not observed how, at the smallest fright or surprise, he lays hold of her, or hides behind her, if he can walk; or how, if in arms, he turns to her and nestles in her bosom ? This is a type of the confidence which binds the Christian to his Heavenly Father. It is alike the offspring of gratitude; and appealing to the past for the future, it produces an implicit confidence in the care of a Father whose power and wisdom are infinite, and who loves us far better than we can love ourselves. But the confidence of the Christian in his God, without being closer, more complete, or more loving than that of the child in the mother, extends infinitely beyond it; for it stretches onwards to eternity, and has interests to confide, which are far more valuable than those of mere animal life. Here our course of language will have two duties to discharge: first, to suggest motives for Christian confidence; and second, to give it a suitable direction. * 1 John iv. 20. Motives of Confidence. These motives are contained in the preceding articles, which prove that the Father can and will make the happiness of His children; therefore it would be superfluous to recur again here to these two points, on which confidence is grounded. On the other hand, the attention which our course of language will bestow on the moral cultivation of the pupils, will, in proportion to its success, dispose them to rise towards their Heavenly Father on the wings of hope, because conscience, when freed from remorse, will allow them to do so; as said the beloved disciple, "Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God." Nevertheless, in order to confirm it, we shall add in our lessons a few reflections, drawn from the same source from whence we derived the knowledge of the Heavenly Father, whom the Son has revealed to us. To inspire His disciples with trust in God, our Saviour referred them to His providential care for the birds of the air, whom He feeds without their sowing and gathering into barns as we do; and He adds this question, "Are not ye much better than they?" Thus implying, that if the Father provides for the animal that is given for the service of man, how much more will He provide for His children. Thus will our course of language reason with its pupils. It will also employ another and a similar train of argument, of which our blessed Lord also made use in the instruction of His children: "What father is there among you, who, if his son ask bread of him, will he give him a stone? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him." Here it is not a question of food and raiment, but of what is infinitely more important, the Holy Spirit, which the Father of His infinite goodness has freely offered to those who earnestly desire it. These arguments of our blessed Lord are within the |