than that he should run the hazard of being rebuked for slowness of apprehension, by one who already knoweth what he hath to explain.

Moreover this inquiring spirit which men are at such pains to repress, would seem to have been bestowed by God for the express purpose of farthering man's knowledge: for the child asketh of his parent the cause of this and that, and if he be answered well and freely, he will have learned, long ere he come to man's estate, the current state of science; and having thus a foundation whereon to advance his building, he may chance thereupon to place a superstructure which may be both useful and fair: but if this first instinct be checked, and the child be compelled to look on what he understandeth not, and yet hold no question thereupon; he will soon learn to glance carelessly over the things around him, so that 'seeing he shall not see, and hearing he shall not understand;" and when he cometh to years, miscalled of discretion, it will be well for him if they afford enough of it to enable him then to hold his tongue.

During the first years of childhood the brain is tender, and impatient of much hard application; and, therefore, if heavy lessons be set him to learn, a child soon becometh unhealthy, and finally lumpish and incapable: but it is at this period of the tenderness of the brain, that he is most prone to ask questions as to all that he seeth or heareth, as though he were exercising that organ in the same way that he doth his limbs, by many irregular jumps and movements which favor its healthy development. If these movements be restrained, the body becometh deformed; nor doth the brain suffer less by the repressing this its natural exercise; becoming ever after inert, and unfit for all those higher operations of in

tellect, which require promptitude of thought: so that not only is much precious time lost afterwards, in gaining that rudimentary knowledge which might have been acquired viva voce without fatigue, but the organ itself is, by its long inactivity, rendered less fit for its work. Two heavy evils, whereof the world hath daily experience in the bad ordering of affairs, by reason of the lack of mental expertness in those who have been entrusted with the overseeing thereof: and thus a large quota of mischief ariseth from the senseless vanity of parents, who are ashamed to acknowledge their lack of science; or their inconsiderateness in giving forth commands which they cannot support by any just and convincing reason, for which cause they dread the word, "why?"- -or their indolence in not choosing to seek, either in their own minds or elsewhere, the means of satisfying the first longings of the child after true knowledge and justice.

"A boy should be manly."

AND what doth this phrase of "being manly," intend to express ? We can understand what was meant by the apɛty of the Greeks, and the virtus of the Romans in heathen times: for in states when war was the only honorable employment,--plunder the only riches, and the choice was only between slavery, literal back-breaking slavery, and conquest; it is easy to conceive that personal courage was reckoned the virtue κατ' εξχην. But the manliness of a Christian Englishman is a much more puzzling thing. "I like my boys to be manly," saith a father; and thereupon he setteth his children to fight one another or their companions; not in defence of the oppressed: not in resistance to wrong doing which they can no otherwise avoid; but upon some

quarrel, having for its origin either ill-humor, or pride, or ill passion of some kind. It is manly, then, in the eyes of this father that his son should do, what, as a Christian, he is forbidden to do! Yet this same parent would shudder at the thought of allowing him to bow to the image of a Hindoo deity, or of a Romish saint even. But wherein lies the difference? Are we empowered to be thus curiously nice in the picking out which of God's positive laws we will obey, as though we gained an immunity for the neglect of the rest, by the observance of one or two? If we are to call it manly to cast off the very sign and badge of our Christian profession, "hereby shall men know that ye are my disciples that ye love one another,”—we need make small scruple to imitate the example of the Dutch traders to Japan in former times, and deny our faith when interest prompteth us so to do. To my mind, the sin is not greater in the one case than the other: for to be manly according to this devilish interpretation of the word, is not to be a Christian man. If such is to be his future training, wherefore is a child mocked by being signed "with the sign of the cross, in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified".... and shall “continue his faithful soldier and servant unto his life's end?" Verily the father who meaneth to have such a manly son, might spare himself the trouble of carrying him to the font.

"A man is not responsible for his belief." MESEEMETH that there is, in the use made of this saying, some deal of error, sheltering itself under an undeniable truth: for though man's mind be so framed that he cannot believe without proof, and therefore he remaineth free from blame, if, from

poverty, he be misinstructed, and thereby his faith. be starved; or if, from ill instruction he be supplied with prejudice only, and thereby his faith be poisoned; or if, from being born in a pagan country, the light hath not arrived to him, and therefore the seed of faith hath not been able to germinate; yet if the lack of belief in revelation be the consequence of inattention, which doth not seek for proof, or of indolence, which will not be at the pains to cultivate the intellect enough to be able to comprehend the proof when given, then is such a man assuredly responsible for his errors. Yea, methinks he incurreth the blame of the servant in the parable who having a talent given him, improved it not, but brought it back, not even naked as he received it, but wrapped in a napkin of fleshly desires and conceits, which he had bestowed on it whilst it was in his keeping, and complained of his lord as a hard master, because having bestowed on his idle servant the means of bettering his estate, he expected him to have made some use thereof.

It is a strange notion of many well intentioned persons, that religious knowledge doth differ from all other; and that it cometh by prayer only, and not by study. How shall the man pray who knoweth not, or believeth not the necessity for prayer? But when study hath roused his attention, then there will be some likelihood that, like the treasurer of Queen Candace, he will find out his own ignorance, and seek for some man to teach him; yea, look on high for the instruction of that Divine Teacher who is ever ready to make them wise who seek for true wisdom.

It hath never been my luck to know one whose faith bore right good fruit, who had not reasoned thereupon; for as St. Clement of Alexandria doth

truly say, "faith is knowledge, and knowledge is faith; God having so constituted them that they mutually lean on each other, by turns leading and being led." Nor, for this kind of reasoning, is it needful to haye been trained in the schools of learning; for as the ancient fathers of the church do well observe, man's mind is naturally λoyɩxos, i. e., rational or logical; and therefore many a peasant who never heard of Aristoteles, doth, notwithstanding, come to a good logical conclusion by dint of his own deep thinking, aided by experience in life and right intentions. Let a man, therefore, well judge himself, ere he assert, as a reason for his incredulity, that we are not responsible for our belief: for if he have not exerted all the powers of his mind upon the question, aided by all the cultivation which his station of life hath put within his reach, he may find when it is too late for his comfort that he hath cast away that faith which is knowledge, and knowledge which is faith, to his own great detriment in all the circumstances of life. For man, as he is not self-existent, so neither is he self-supported. He who would find diamonds must well know and believe that there is a gem within that rough outside, or he will pass it by unheeded: and he who would truly prosper in this present world, must sufficiently believe that there is good meant to him in the seeming roughnesses of life, to induce him to seek for it with some pains, otherwise he will sit down desponding, and only see black stones where others are gathering gems. Man is not yet what he shall be, and in this his infancy, if he be not content to lean on the hand which God holdeth out to him, he will stumble amid the rough ground which he hath to pass over ere he reach his resting-place.