relies on it, and repays its benefits as best he can in his helplessness. Very soon he will stretch out his little hands: he will add caresses to smiles. True it is that all this, whether the gratitude on his part, or the kindness on hers, is evinced in a sensible manner; but neither the one feeling nor the other is a substance with form and colour, for both are objects of another world, the world of thought; and the little dumb creature has entered into it, not by reflection or science, but by a sort of tact which is undefinable, and by the feelings of his young heart, its pains and its pleasures, its hopes and its fears. In all this there are ideas, however obscure: for we can trace reasoning and calculation in what he does; it is not then nature which keeps the child so long in bondage to the things of sense, but our systems, which invoke her name while they counteract her works, and retard in the child the development of the man, impeding and keeping him down, when he would fain aspire towards the dignity which is his birthright.

This mischief, great as it is, cannot be imputed to the mother, who, amidst the glories of nature, speaks of a Father in heaven, and of his mighty and wonderful works which the child daily sees and enjoys. She leads him from the work to its Maker-from the benefits to the Benefactor; and no process can be more natural; for though God does not present Himself to his view, yet the little being who, in his cradle, invoked his mother by his cries, and believed in her kindness while he saw it not, will not require to see God, or to touch Him by the hand, in order to believe in Him.

"But what idea," will it be said, 66 can he form of God? This novice in life, as yet so undeveloped, can fashion for himself but a very unworthy image of the Being of beings; better wait till he can form a clearer, juster idea of Him; we know the tenacity of early prejudices, and their deplorable consequences,-practical infidelity in some-superstition in others."

To avoid these snares, Rousseau wished Emile not to hear of God until his education was completed, and therefore it was necessary to seclude him from the world

All the

lest even the name of God should reach his ear. while Rousseau counted for nothing the language of the heavens and of the earth, and the tendencies and wants of the human heart which go forth to meet the God whom the universe proclaims. System-mongers, enamoured of their own devices, forget that nature within us and without will not shape herself to their ideas, but laughs them to scorn, whilst she defies their prohibitions and frustrates their plans. Rousseau only wrote a romance, and did not try the experiment, but a German philosopher has done So. M. Sintenis reduced to practice the fiction of the author of Emile. He had lived in a town and he retired to a small property in the country. He was in affliction at the death of a young wife whom he had tenderly loved, and who had left him but one only child-a boy, in early infancy. He educated this child himself in complete seclusion, and contrived that he should never either hear or read the name of the Deity. His motive in this was twofold: he dreaded, like Rousseau, that his pupil should conceive a false idea of the Almighty if it was conveyed to him before the development of his mind: and on the other hand, he wished to try an experiment which he had much at heart. The philosophers and theologians of his country were discussing a subject which is not unimportant in the knowledge of human nature: the question, viz., whether man is born with an innate idea of God or not. In this, as too often happens in all such discussions, they had neglected to define with precision what was to be understood by an innate idea of the Deity. Did it mean a complete knowledge to which nothing need be added? If so, experience was at hand to prove that this idea, the most sublime as well as the most important that man can conceive, never can precede in our minds the elements of which it is composed. But if this innate idea was nothing more than a natural disposition to rise towards the author of the universe in order to account for its origin, to intrust its government to Him, and to commit our destinies into His hands, together with the tribute of our gratitude, there was experience again at hand to attest that such is the truth; and this is the answer which M. Sintenis obtained

in educating his son according to Rousseau's plan. The boy, as he himself tells us, had no intercourse whatever with any one but his father. The lessons were generally given out of doors, amidst all the beautiful phenomena of nature, which were the main subject of them. Lessons in Latin were added to those in the mother-tongue, and for a long time they were entirely oral, as the pupil did not learn to read till late. At ten years of age he had never heard or read the name of God. In the absence of the name,

however, the want of the reality had been keenly felt by the child. He thought he had found it in the sun. As this splendid orb appears daily to run its glorious race in order to impart light and heat and benefits innumerable, the child did not hesitate to consider it as a living being, as had all heathen antiquity before him. He kept silence on this point, for it was his secret, and daily, in fine weather, he used to repair mysteriously to the garden in order to watch for the rising of the orb of day, and pay to it the homage of his praise. Never did Vestal, as he has since said, offer up to it worship more sincere, more cordial, or more pure.

His father suspected him, and broke in upon the young idolater, when on his knees, with arms uplifted, he was pouring forth his prayers and his thanksgivings to the God of his imagination. The father then saw that the time was come to raise the thoughts of his son from the creature towards the Creator: so he gave him lessons in astronomy, and taught him that all the fixed stars shining in their own lustre are so many suns scattered over the immense expanse of the heavens. This discovery carried consternation into the heart of the child, for he knew not where now to deposit his thoughts, his gratitude, and his desires. To comfort him, his Mentor at last spoke to him of the great Spirit, the ruler and master of the universe.

By this systematic education the father had solved the great problem of the philosophers of his country-he had also ascertained that human nature, while untainted by the world, seeks after God, after one God alone, and that when without a guide, it searches for Him among the objects which excite the most lively admiration; and that it there

fore turns to the orb of day, before whose brightness the stars cease from shining: to that orb which is pre-eminently the benefactor of all the inhabitants of earth. Thence arose the worship of the sun in ancient times; that worship which we have found again more recently in the most favoured parts of America, in the peaceful and prosperous states of the Incas. The experiment which the father tried upon his son is deserving of attention in the world of science; but it cost dear to the poor child, who had rejoiced in his God, and who endured the agony of being bereft of Him. Had his fond mother lived, she would never have ventured on so cruel an experiment.

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Every mother who is worthy of the name is anxious to impart to her tender pupil all that is most sublime and most valuable in her own mind; the first teacher becomes also the first missionary in her family. And oh! let us beware of despising those elements of religion which she so anxiously instills. Like the Gospel, she speaks of God as our Father in heaven." She first talks to her child of his earthly father, whom he knows, and loves, and reveres; and without depreciating the one, she extols the surpassing greatness of the other, the magnitude of his family, the immensity of his gifts. In her instructions the sun is both the image and the agent of divine goodness; and we defy all the philosophers of the world to lay a sounder foundation; for in the idea of our Father in heaven" is comprised all religious truth, as the plant is in the seed.

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And shall this teaching be called precocious? If the child seizes it, (and he never fails to do so,) why should the mother be deemed premature in imparting it? She has given birth not to a brute but to a man child, and she hastens to stamp him with the dignity of his nature. We well know that she will not convey to him adequate ideas of the Deity; but who by study can acquire such? God alone can know God as He is; we can form but human ideas of Him, and why not allow the child to form his own? When he shall attain to manhood, he will think as we do; and the deeper the idea of God has sunk into his heart, the more firmly it is rooted in his early associations,

so much the more secure and complete will be the super

structure.

Is it to be feared that the child will form false ideas of God? But where is the fatal germ of error that lies hidden in the idea of our heavenly Father as suggested by the mother? This idea, so simple and so natural, evidently involves the principles of that charity which, ascending towards our common Father in acts of worship, descends again on earth, to love all his family for His sake and under His all-seeing eye. It also includes the bright hope of eternal life, for why should a father give life to his children, in order afterwards to slay them?

Is it to be feared that the idea of spiritual truth having been implanted in childhood will afterwards go astray? Is there not rather much more reason to fear that religious instruction will come too late if deferred till boyhood or beyond? This tardy knowledge will not be amalgamated with the first thoughts and feelings of childhood; it will come too late to guard its innocence against the assaults of vice, and the young heart having once taken a wrong bias will carry within it the fatal seeds of infidelity. The mother does not anticipate these grievous consequences, but she follows the dictates of her heart, and these are identical with the conclusions at which the most far-sighted reasoning would arrive.

But the first teacher of language has also another object in view: whilst familiarizing her pupil with language, she wishes not only to enlighten his mind but to form his heart aright; and piety occupies a distinguished place in her plan. She well knows that her pupil is like the little bird that cannot support itself long on the wing, or often soar towards heaven; so she only asks of him a few words of prayer on first rising, at his meals, and on going to bed, in the conviction that his heart and mind will be engaged in the act; nor is she deceived. She is certain that her child feels gratitude to her and to his father, and she concludes that he will also feel the same towards the heavenly Father whom she has revealed to him. In fact, what is religion but filial piety, which having found its first object in the visible father and