Moral Advantages to be drawn from the Study of Hiftory, independent of the Examples it exhibits. It proves the Corruption of Human Nature.-It demonftrates the fuper- Page On the Scripture Evidences of Chriftianity.- The Chriftian Religion peculiarly adapted to the Exigencies of Man; and especially cal- INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. WE are told that when a sovereign of ancient times, who wished to be a mathe matician, but was deterred by the difficulty of attainment, afked, whether he could not be inftructed in fome easier method; the answer which he received was, that there was no royal road to geometry.The leffon contained in this reply ought never to be loft fight of, in that most important and delicate of all undertakings, the education of a prince. It is a truth which might appear too obvious to require enforcing, and yet of all others it is a truth most liable to be practically forgotten, that the fame fubjugation of defire and will, of inclinations and taftes, to the laws of reafon and confcience, which every one wishes to fee promoted in the lowest ranks of society, is fiill more necesfary in the very higheft, in order to the attainment either of individual happiness, or of general virtue, to public usefulness, or to private felf-enjoyment. Where a prince, therefore, is to be edu cated, his own welfare no lefs than that of his people, humanity no lefs than policy, prefcribe, that the claims and privileges of the rational being fhould not be suffered to merge in the peculiar rights or exemptions of the expectant fovereign. If, in fuch cafes, the wants and weakneffes of human nature could indeed be wholly effaced, as eafily as they are kept out of fight, there would at least be fome reasonable plea against the charge of cruelty. But when, on the contrary, the most elevated monarch muft ftill retain every natu ral hope and fear, paffion of the heart, every affection and mind, and every weakness of the body, to which which the meaneft fubject is liable; how exquifitely inhuman muft it be to provide fo fedulously for the extrinfic accident of tranfient greatness, as to blight the growth of substantial virtue, to dry up the fountains of mental and moral comfort, and, in fhort, to commit the ill-fated victim of fuch mismanagement to more, almoft, than human dangers and difficulties, without even the common refources of the least favoured of mankind. Yet, must not this be the unaggravated confequence of not accuftoming the royal child to that falutary control which the corruption of our nature requires, as its indifpenfable and earliest corrective? If thofe foolish defires, which in the great mafs of mankind are providentially repreffed by the want of means to gratify them, should, in the cafe of royalty, be thought warrantable, because every poffible gratification is within reach, what would be the refult, but the full blown luxuriance of folly, vice, and mifery? The laws of human nature will |