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GOOD PREJUDICES.

the period of growth the material of the brain is shaping itself in these nerve tracks which are maintained through life, and, in fact, form the mind of each one of us. If this be so, the necessity of forming the mind of children from the first according to what is right, and storing up right knowledge and principles which are to last for life, is incontrovertible. Of course I do not vouch for this materialistic view of the matter, but if it has any truth in it, those who hold it, would, one would think, be specially anxious to save their children from the danger of imbibing wrong notions in their youth, and, in spite of their prejudice against prejudice, preoccupy the nerve tracks of their children's brains with what is good and

true.

The long and short of the matter is simply this, that all persons are of necessity more or less prejudiced, and the object of statesmen, parents, and all who have influence should be to take care that the rising generation is brought up in good prejudices, and debarred as much as possible from evil ones. The gutter children of our great towns are, it is to be feared, imbued from their very infancy with all sorts of evil habits and notions, which are as much engraven in their soul as good ones could be, nay, more so, inasmuch as evil is more congenial with the nature of man than good. There are many excellent men who think that

STUART MILL'S EVIL ONES.

219

our Board Schools will save children from these evil habits. There are others whose approval of Board Schools arises from the fact that they do not bring up the children of the poor in religious prejudice, but prejudiced, in fact, rather against religion. John Stuart Mill was prejudiced, as we have seen, against religion and against most other things which are good. He reminds one of the lady who had a fine Grecian bend, only unfortu nately it was the wrong way. "It would have been inconsistent with my father's ideas of duty," he says, "to allow me to acquire impressions contrary to his convictions and feelings respecting religion." "I am one of the very few examples in this country of one who has not thrown off religious belief, but never had it. I grew up in a negative state with regard to it, I looked upon the modern exactly as I did upon the ancient religion, as something which in no way concerned me." (P. 43.) "Next to aristocracy, an established church or corporation of priests, as being by position the great depravers of religion, and interested in opposing the progress of the human mind, was the object of my greatest detestation." (P. 107.) These are tolerably strong prejudices, far more mischievous in such a man than those of the most unhappy gutter children. After all, perhaps, John Stuart Mill was more to be pitied 1 See Autobiography, p. 42.

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CHILDREN SHOULD BE PREJUDICED

than blamed.

Some one well asked, with the Pharisees, "Did this man or his parents sin that he was born blind," and remained so all his life? It is a strange and sad thought that in this nineteenth century, a child should be thus deliberately prejudiced by a parent against all that is true and holy.

The object of Christian parents and teachers is directly the contrary to that of Mill's father. Our chief endeavour should be to prejudice the children, from the very beginning, in favour of keeping God's commandments and praying to Him, and loving Him with all their heart, and soul, and strength. And that they may be able to do so, we must tell them what great things God has done for them in their creation and redemption. And no more effectual instrument has been devised for this purpose of prejudicing children in favour of what is good and holy, than the Church Catechism. We should imbue the souls of our children with the holy truths of the Catechism from their infancy.

And from this will be evident how seriously those politicians neglect their duty, who consent not to bring up the children of the nation in distinctive religious principles. Surely we ought to endeavour to instil into the hearts of children' those great truths by which we hope ourselves to be saved. But the infidels pretend to say that it

BY THE CHURCH CATECHISM.

221

is illiberal to prejudice children in any form of religion. That I distinctly deny, it is a foolish prejudice. I do not mean, of course, that we are to force the doctrines of the Church upon children, whose parents object to their learning them. It is clearly understood and admitted that there shall be a conscience clause in operation in every public elementary school. My argument is that when Church people have the power, by majority of votes, to teach the Church Catechism in a school, it is a dereliction of duty to omit to do so, and that a legislature, the large majority of which consists of Church people, is strangely neglectful of its duty if it does not, at least, give the power to all Boards of Education to teach religious truth to those whose parents do not object to their receiving it. Infidels, of course, will make a great bluster, and cry out against such a notion; but Christians must not be so weak and vacillating as to give way to their clamour. The worst of Conservatives and Church people of the present day is, that they weakly give up the most important principles for fear of being thought prejudiced.

TIONAL."-HE ALLOWS HIS SUBJECTS A POTENTIAL VOICE. HE LISTENS TO THEIR PETITIONS.-GOOD MEN HAVE GREAT INFLUENCE WITH HIM.-BAD MEN ARE

CONTROLLED AGAINST THEIR WILL.

IN these days of philosophical inquiry into all matters, whether sacred or profane, it is not surprising that even the principle of God's government should have been called in question. Some unhappy men we know there are who do not recognise His authority at all. This glorious universe came into existence, they imagine, somehow of its own accord: and GOD, if there be a GOD, is but a sort of unintelligent Force, or "tendency not ourselves" according to which things develope themselves by constant evolution. It is strange that men of the nineteenth century, with all their boasts of progress and advancement, should really have gone back two thousand years, and adopted the crude notion of Democritus and Epicurus. Yet so it is, nor need we wonder at anything men will do who reject the light of the blessed Gospel.