122 ON THE EXPEDIENCY AND MEANS OP 



blished church. Our morning and evening prayers (which we read 

 with strict regularity) consist of portions in the liturgy. On Sun- 

 day our domestic service includes the greater part of the liturgy and 

 the lessons of the day." This, of course, is in addition to a regu- 

 lar attendance at public worship. A part of the time between the 

 hours of service is employed by the pupils in committing the cate- 

 chism to memory, in transcribing portions of the Scripture or in 

 reading the same with a view to a subsequent examination. Inclu- 

 sive in these duties rest the whole moral code of the educative 

 scheme in most schools. Valuable as are '^ religious ceremonies" in 

 raising the soul above a dull and stagnant moral propriety, to the 

 contemplation of a power infinitely glorious over the highest ration- 

 al excellence ; yet acting upon the mere senses of children with no 

 other or deeper consideration of the soul, and unassociated in theory 

 with the example of love, may discipline thera to a sect, but will 

 never approximate them to God. " Many parents (and teachers) 

 according to their best knowledge and apprehension of religion in 

 which they themselves have been educated, and too often according 

 to their zeal without knowledge, do take great care to plant little 

 and ill grounded opinions in the minds of their children (or scho- 

 lars) and so fashion them to a party, by infusing into them the par- 

 ticular notions and phrases of a sect, which when they come to be 

 examined, have no substance nor perhaps sense in them ; and by 

 this means instead of bringing them up in the true and solid prin- 

 ciples of Christianity, they take a great deal of pains to instruct 

 them of some doubtful doctrines of no great moment in religion and 

 perhaps false at bottom ; whereby instead of teaching them to hate 

 sin, they fix in them schism and teach them to hate and damn all 

 those who differ from them and are oppossite to them.'** But this 

 compulsive submission of the educator to the doctrines of any parti- 

 cular church, creates another and personal injury to the scholars, 

 for either they must all in the school, wear the same sectarian 

 livery or the worst evil of superstition will be numbered with the 

 vices of the school, and schism and the hate of schism, will be added 

 to the sins of childhood. 



The persecution of children is active as their natures ; it pursues 

 its object with relentless avidity, and everything that could be as- 

 sociated with the subject of religion is converted into a missile of 

 offence against the innocent victim of their scorn. The prejudices 

 of children are derived from their parents, whose opinions (to them) 



* Tillotson, Sermon 52, p. 486. 



