XXI. are more deserving of your charity,-none SERM. on whom you can lay it out with a probability of doing so great a degree of good! It is allowed to be of the utmost importance to season very early the minds of young people with religion-with honesty with sobriety; when this has been done, it rarely happens but, sooner or later, the good effects of it are seen; the seeds, thus early sown, will perhaps, in some, lie buried for a time, smothered by the heat and inconsiderateness of youth, but they usually break out and flourish at one period of life or other." Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he "will not depart from it." Instances, I fear, at present are too numerous of young persons who, from the ignorance, negligence, or poverty, of their parents, are utterly unacquainted with the manner in which they should serve God; entirely thoughtless of a life after this; altogether X 3 untaught XXI. SERM. untaught in the obligation of doing to their neighbour, as they would wish their neighbour to do unto them; and quite uninformed how much it is their duty and interest to live temperately, soberly, and chastely. Either from the fall of Adam, or from some inherent depravity, it is but too manifest that mankind have a tendency to what is evil. As the ground, when left to itself, yields abundantly hurtful and unprofitable weeds, while care and labour are required to make it produce corn and useful vegetables; so the human heart is spontaneously fertile of follies, vices, and idleness, but seldom, if ever, brings forth the good fruits of piety, virtue, and industry, without the culture of a sober education. Now if this natural propensity towards evil be permitted to grow up unmitigated and unbroken, if it be suffered to acquire the additional strength of early and long custom, what hopes can there be that it will ever be subdued? XXI. subdued? Experience gives us reason to SERM. fear that consequences the most dreadful will ensue. Witness the oaths and the X 4 SERM. actors and perpetrators of them are poor, XXI. ignorant creatures, uneducated, undisciplined, uninformed, whose passions have never been tamed by habits of early restraint, and who have never been instructed in those grand motives and preservatives of virtue justice and self-denial, which are so weightily inculcated by our religion. I do not say that persons of education are never to be found among the notoriously vicious; to such an assertion there doubtless exist exceptions; but they are exceptions only, nor do they bear any sort of proportion to the number of those whose maturity has corresponded with the regular habits of their childhood. Early good impressions are not easily effaced; the whole of life usually takes its colour from the beginning; they who have passed the first stages well, do not afterwards turn aside into the paths of unrighteousness without many struggles and much repug XXI. repugnancy; the ingenuous blushes of SERM. shame must first be quenched, the compunctious visitings of remorse must first be excluded, ere they can intermit or break off those settled habits, which the having been so long engaged in them has ingrafted into their nature, and rendered not only easy but even delightful. The conclusion then is, that by tending your aid to the education of the poor, you will confer on them a kindness of unspeakable importance. But it is not on them alone you will confer this kindness, you will likewise be highly serviceable to your country. Every individual whom you assist in training to virtue and industry, is clearly a public benefit, since it is on the virtue and industry of individuals that the happiness and pros; perity of the state must be founded. You will likewise confer a considerable benefit on yourselves; it is not only your duty to |