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unfit to sustain life, and ready to fall a prey to the first enemy. On the other hand, by suitable culture the intelligence and will of the young may be made reflections of the Divine likeness, and it is very probable that supposed failures in this respect are commonly due to neglect of the power of habit-that is, the training has not been sufficiently associated with the teaching. It is one thing for a child to learn how a thing is done, it is quite another to be so practised in doing it that difficulty has passed away, and the new acquisition has become an easy habit. There can be little doubt that habit is the key to success in every acquirement, whether in arts, intellect, or morals. is recognised in art, for who expects to become a painter without persevering practice of the pencil after the mode of using it has been learned? Who dreams of being a musician without great devotion to the instrument long after the art of playing and the theory of music have been acquired? Yet how rarely do we reflect that moral precepts only inform the mind, and do not of necessity influence the will-that to become truthful, honest, self-denying, selfdependent, and morally courageous, so that under trial and temptation these qualities may be found real working powers, the young mind must have been well practised in their use.

Without such training, and left to itself, every day's experience demonstrates the ease with which the moral faculties degrade, and lose the hope and nobility of life. To give a child the little accomplishment that may excite vanity, without the experience which has made it understand that the value of a thing consists in its usefulness, might lead only to conceit and idleness. To give the desire for refinements and luxury without the conviction that such objects are the rewards only of industry, skill, and perseverance, might excite the idea of obtaining them by deceit or violence. To light up a taste for the beautiful without habituating the mind to patience, moderation, and self-denial, would probably produce sensuality, improvidence, or insanity.

Even in the upper and middle classes, with the advantages of a polished education, the effects of deficient moral training are lamentably observable. What else will account for the fact that so many persons, under the circumstances named, to whom the virtue and the good policy of truth, honesty, and honour, are trite and unchallenged truisms, act as if life had no duties and no responsibilities. Surely the times are marked by an unusual amount of sham and deceit in classes that in former times were not so distinguished a state of things that betrays a

wide-spread shallowness and feebleness of mind, a complete want of earnestness and sincerity of feeling, an infirmity or unwillingness of thought that cannot or will not entertain probable evidence, and will accept nothing that has not the gross proof of hardness to the touch, and extension or colour to the eye-a condition of intellect that is satisfied to sleep or dream away existence in novels and sentiment, as unreflecting sheep browse on easy pastures, that is amused by "chaff," and finds its highest satisfaction in practising the vain impostures of finery and trickery to obtain the passing admiration of the thoughtless. Or, in other quarters, a like shallowness of mind that permits the weak subjects of it to run after the phantom of wealth, in blind haste throwing away the sterling possessions of honesty and truth, and casting in their lot with the low blacklegs of the abandoned crew, regardless of the wide-spread ruin and misery they inflict on thousands of their fellow-creatures by bubble companies, false accounts, and other villanies.

Surely, had these men been trained in the ethics of gentlemen, to say nothing of the higher principles of religion, they would not thus break caste, and descend to the contemptible level referred to. The same want of earnestness and unrealising apprehension of truth, the

same childishness of mind that clutches a glittering bauble, only can explain their folly.

But leaving illustration of the disastrous consequences of want of moral training in conjunction with education, let us return to the consideration of the training itself.

It is of the greatest importance that we take advantage in educating children of the power of habit, for by so doing when they come on the stage of life as independent actors they will most probably practice the laws of truth, honesty, and self-denial, by choice and inclination, and will thus save themselves from the suffering entailed by collision with the barriers of social law and order. Happy in themselves and useful to others, they will go straight on to success in life. From such members of the community society has nothing to fear; let them be ever poor and low-born-the hewers of wood and the drawers of water -and let them possibly have an ambition above their station, all the better; ambition injures no one and is lawful to all; it is only when ambition seeks the attainment of its ends by unlawful means that it becomes reprehensible and dangerous. True knowledge and training, on the other hand, advisedly discard all means of this kind, as not only bad in the abstract, but inexpedient and impolitic in the practice.

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These observations refer to many a debated question in psychology, morals, and metaphysics— questions of specific difference, of free will, of responsibility, and others, about which much diversity of opinion exists, but the view herein expressed is the one consistent with all knowledge, natural and revealed, and has this advantage over others that, whether men will believe it or not, practically they all adopt it, for the social laws which are necessary to the protection of every man's life and property are founded on the assumption of individual free will and responsibility. But for this assumption it would be most unjust and illogical to punish any offender for any offence, for every criminal would plead irresponsibility and necessity.

Few persons, it is believed, will dispute the influence of teaching and training over the minds of children, and of the power of implanting vigorous and healthy action of the will, commonly called good habits, both in the intellectual and moral constitution of the mind. Few also, it is believed, will disallow the disallow the responsibility of parents, and in the absence of parents of society, to fulfil this great and all important duty for the children entrusted to their care. Yet there is probably no stronger example of the extraordinary shortsightedness and perversity of human operations than is exhibited in the common ex