has the advantage on the side of talents, and the latter on that of virtue. In public schools a spirit of emulation calls up those intellectual energies which would / probably lie dormant, or be more faintly exerted, without such a stimulus; at the same time, those practical abilities, and that confidence of address, are formed there, which eminently fit a man for the transaction of real business; but whether the above advantages, whatever they may be, are to be put in balance with those temptations to vice which are usual in such situations, is a matter which ought seriously to be considered. Mr. Locke, in treating upon this subject, maintains the negative; and is also of opinion, that every valuable end proposed in public education, may be sufficiently attained by a due mixture of private tuition and family intercourse: and I have no difficulty in these particulars to subscribe to his opinion.*.

* See Locke on Education, § 70.-There is a medium, however, between a public and a home education, which

II. RELIGION.

Under this head I shall consider, first, that gracious relief which God, in his infinite compassion, has provided for fallen man, through a mediator, and to which all true virtue must be indebted for its existence; secondly, I shall consider some of the principal means by which this relief is actually communicated; and, lastly, reply to an objection.

(1.) Since the original apostacy, man is become not only guilty, but depraved ; and, besides the pardon of his sins, needs the medicinal grace of Christ to heal the

may often be preferable to either. This medium is, when a clerical or any other person of learning and piety, together with a competent knowledge of the world, undertakes to educate only such a number of youth as may properly be comprehended within the sphere of his moral as well as his literary superintendence, and who, in all respects, would treat them as his adopted children. Under a teacher of this description, who knew how to unite tenderness with a just discipline, the pupil would enjoy every advantage, without many of the inconveniences, of a tuition under the immediate eye of his parents.

disorders of his nature, and enable him to exert his faculties in a due and spiritual manner, and thus to restore him to a proper use of himself. In the great business of education, of which we have been speaking, every method that can be employed, without this divine aid to predispose, and habitually to influence the heart of the pupil, however it might serve to supply him with those qualities which would render him amiable and useful in society, would fail to provide him with that virtue which must qualify him for heaven; and every subsequent attempt of his own to acquire this qualification, after he came to act for himself, would, without the same divine succour, prove equally inefficacious.

The dependance of virtue on supernatural aid was asserted by some of the greatest men in the heathen world. Socrates urging Alcibiades to abandon his vicious habits, and asking him in what, manner he supposed this might be effected,

he replied, If it shall please you, O Socrates. You say not well, answered the philosopher What then should I say? rejoined Alcibi ades. You should say, if it shall please God. Well then, concluded the pupil, If it shall please God*. In a dialogue between Socrates and one of his friends, inserted among the works of Plato, where the question is debated, Whether virtue can be taught by human instruction only? after Socrates had affirmed that it was neither to be ascribed to nature nor discipline; Tell me then, said his friend, in what other way men may be made virtuous. This, replied Socrates, I judge very difficult to be declared, since virtue seems to me of a divine extraction, and that good men, in resemblance to diviners and those who deliver oracles, are neither

# ΣΩΚ, Αισθανη δε νυν πως έχεις ; ελευθεροπρεπως, η ου; ΑΛ. Δοκώ μοι και μαλα σφοδρα αισθανεσθαι. Σ. Οισθα ουν πως αποφευξη του ο το περι σε νυν ; ΑΛ. Εγωγε. Σ. Πως ; ΑΛ. Εαν βέλη τω Σωκρατες. Σ. Ου καλώς λέγεις, ω Αλκιβιαδε. ΑΛ. Αλλα πως χρη λεγειν; Σ. Οτι εαν θεος εθελη. ΑΛ. Λεγω δη. ALCIB. I. sub finem.

formed by nature nor art, but by divine inspiration *. In Plato's Phædrus, Socrates intreats the gods to bestow upon him interior beautyf. Bias, one of the seven sages of Greece, admonishes men to ascribe to the gods whatever good they do. Sextus, the Pythagorcan, asserts, that God conducts men in their virtuous actions; that all the good they perform should be referred to Him as its author; and that He inhabits the bosom of the wise. These and similar testimonies, which are numerous and easily col

* Πως ουν αν, ω Σωκράτες, δοκουσι γιγνεσθαι, ει μητε φύσει μητε μάθησει γιγνονται ; τιν' άλλον τροπον γιγο ποιντ' αν οι αγαθοι ; Σ. Οίμαι μεν εκ αν ραδίως αυ το δηλωθηναι τοπάζω μεν δη θείον τι μαλιτα είναι το κλημα και γιγνεθαι τους αγαθούς ωσπερ οι θείοι των μάντεων και χρησμολόγοι· ούζο ετε φύσει τοις τοι γίγνονται, ούτε τεχνης αλλ' επιπνοια εκ των θεων γιγνόμενοι, τοιετος

εισιν.

γαρ

† Καλος γενεσθαι τ' ενταύθεν.

* Ότι αν αγαθον πράττης εις θεες αναπεμπέ.

Il Deus in bonis actibus hominibus dux est in omni, quod benè agis, auctorem esse deputa Deum.-Sapientis mentem Deus inhabitat.