of life. It is peculiar to this state that it is seldom open to change. What a person's character is when manhood or womanhood is reached, that it generally remains. And this fact makes the education of the young of such momentous importance. Perhaps there is no truth so universally accepted as this. Certainly there is none that has so many willing supporters of every grade and sect. Nor is it a very modern theory. It has for many years been gradually encroaching upon the domains of the antiquated notions of an earlier generation, until, now it has deeply struck root in the public mind, and requires directing rather than nurturing. All this is good, and promises much for the well-being of future generations.

All interested persons (and who is not interested?) have great cause for rejoicing at the present state of things in this direction; yet the educational sky is not without its speck-its little cloudthat detracts considerably from the effect of the whole. It may be the result of an over-anxiety to see the result of labour spent, which may arise from ignorance of the important principles forming the basis of the present system, and which cannot be departed from without injury to the object desired. It is sometimes the case that teachers are very anxious to force the young mind, in order to produce some tangible effect of their labours; just as a gardener, by the aid of mechanical appliances, forces his plants to flower, and his vines to yield fruit long before their appointed time. This is a great and injurious mistake. The true object of early education is to prepare the mind for the consideration of the more minute and complicated studies of after-life; to lay the foundation of a judgment which shall be able to discriminate between the false and the truethe good and the evil-that the world will shower around it as it steps into its new life of opening manhood. To succeed in doing this is far more commendable than to studiously force the mind to an unnatural precocity. The youthful genius, so to speak, is a very pleasing phenomenon; and it may be safely asserted that it would receive more adulation from its parents and teachers than the child who, while exhibiting no extraordinary capabilities, was known to be progressing favourably in laying a basis for future acquirements, which would govern his whole after-life. The object should be to mould it into the image of what we would have it be in future years, rather than to make it perfect and pleasing in its early days. We have seen that the wire destined to become the handsome needle, is heated and straightened, and stamped, punched and split, only to give it the rough form of what it is afterwards to be, and not for any present use; to prepare it for the second and final process, which is to ensure it its future useful

ness. If the material used be good, and the shape carefully given, its after education will develop the fine plastic material beneath, and give it that highly-polished and graceful appearance so much admired but should the wire be faulty, or the preparatory stages carelessly passed, it is only reasonable to expect that it will be unable to stand the stern test of the final ordeal, and so what was intended for its good, will, on account of its unprepared state, prove its utter destruction. It is precisely so with the mind. If during the time it is under the guidance of parents and teachers it receive a broad and just conception of truth and knowledge of virtue, it will be found that its intercourse with the world, with all its smooth hypocrisy, will merely smooth down the asperities of its surface, and reveal the inward character in all its loveliness: but if that part of the child's early life has been spent in maturing some favourite quality he was supposed to have possessed, or in entire neglect, there is every reason to expect that the influence of evil will be more than he will be able to withstand; and that the evil that meets him will ultimately triumph over what good there may be in him, and prove his utter ruin.

Dum spiro, spero, runs the old Latin saying, ever ready to disperse all doubt and giving up. It is not always the case that what begins ill comes to a bad end. There are exceptions. It is quite possible that in the meridian, or even decline of life, old habits may give way to new ones, and the general character undergo quite a transformation. But such a change is not to be relied on. We may hope that such a thing may take place in this or that instance; but we cannot complain if it should not. On the contrary, we are frequently reminded that as we sow so shall we reap, and enjoined to "train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."

But if the time spent under the direction of kind and anxious friends and teachers is of great moment, the second period seems of no less importance. School-days are over; the period of subjection has come to an end. He enters a new life, elated with great resolves, and pleasant anticipations; and the mind seems to run riot in every variety of speculation. It is now that the early education will be put to the test. Hitherto he has been led; now he learns to question and dispute. If he meet the world as most young people do, he will mingle with those who hold nothing sacred, and with others who, while denying the infallibility of what he has been taught to revere, yet have faiths of their own which they plausibly declare to be the veritable truth that should influence the world. All these apparent contradictions will crowd

upon him, and confuse him with their feasible claims for credence. It is not enough that others believe what he has been taught; if he would retain his early impressions, he also must know the why and the wherefore of that belief. Confined. within the limited circle of his home and sect, it had never occurred to him that he would afterwards meet with any who would question its truth, and as a consequence, he is unable to combat with the error that meets him.

In the second stage of the manufacture of a needle, an uninitiated person, as he watched its successive transformations, would sometimes think that it took a retrogressive movement; but the skilled artizan is disturbed with no such doubts; he knows full well it is gradually moving on to completion, in spite of any contrary appearance. It is just so with the mind passing into the settled convictions and pursuits of manhood -through the conflicting influences of its new life. All this we watch anxiously enough, for the results are momentous, and it seems as though the youth were wavering from one to another, and going from side to side like a rudderless ship; but as he ripens in years he increases in knowledge, and soon feels able to combat with false or questionable ideas of morality and religion, and ultimately emerges from his season of perplexity and doubt, to a decided acceptance of certain laws of life. But, as a rule, this can only be the case where the judicious training in earlier days has prepared and strengthened the mind for such a conflict, and such a sequel. In cases where the childhood has been passed in the midst of positive, or even negative evil, it is not to be expected that such pleasing results can accrue. On the contrary, we may be pretty sure that as the untutored mind enters the world it will be led hither and thither, and having no previous, or deep-seated ideas of a right course, it will submit to be led by that which seems most congenial to its disposition; and we all know the inclinations of the human heart are evil, and that the broad road is easier to travel than the narrow one. Or the young may have the semblance of the wellprepared, and may hope to pass muster with their betters. Alas! what delusion! If those who are primed up with all that affection can conceive, or judgment dictate, be scarcely able to withstand the ordeal, how much less is their chance who are but counterfeits; who having the shape and impress of the current coin, lack the familiar ring of the legitimate metal! Of course, there are cases that have turned out contrary to all reasonable expectation; and it is well that it is so. Were it otherwise, we might grow presumptuous who are able to train our children rightly; and those

who have neglected this duty might fall into an abject despair. But thanks be to God, we have no reason ever to despond, and are hourly taught our weakness that we may not presume.

It seems as though in this second stage past neglect may be retrieved, albeit by a different process. What would have done the work in earlier days is useless now. Then, we might have silenced and commanded; now, we must concede, and answer, and seek, by winning acts, and kind, but unobtrusive influence, to lead into the right path. Now it may be done effectually, but if this opportunity be allowed to pass, the chances lessen as the years move on. This is fully exemplified in the course now taken by those who are anxious for criminal reform. This hope is in the working of the penitentiary, whose object is to take the youthful criminal from his vagabond associates while his moral nature is yet open to good influences, and to seek to counteract the vicious teachings of its early life,-by first removing it out of the reach of evil and in the second place, by giving every encouragement to industry and good conduct. But it is a difficult thing to reform an old practitioner in crime, though it is not impossible. But when the young law-breaker is taken under the care of the penitentiary authorities, there is every reason to believe he will come out morally healthy. To apply Dr. Darwin's theory of natural selection to morals, the neglect and disuse of the evil propensities eventually promote their entire extinction, and the care taken to foster the slightest indication to do good, almost invariably results in the dominance of the acquired habit of doing good over the old disposition to do evil. And this course of action, so favourable in its results in criminal life, is equally fitted for our ordinary life.

So, dear reader, we have seen that if we but faithfully lay the basis of a good character in the minds of the young, we shall have done a great deal to ward off the attacks of enemies from whatever quarter they may come; but, if in addition to this we are able to discreetly counsel them in their growing youth and opening manhood, and so help them to ferry over the stream of danger that lies between their state of dependence and their sense of safety, in spite of the powerful currents of error and superstition, that seek to carry them with their flow, we have accomplished that, which, by the blessing of God, shall endure as long as their life lasts.

T. P. S.

PRAYING AND WORKING.

"And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing, ye shall receive."-Matt. xxi. 22.

WHATEVER Conceptions we may form of God in any of His attributes, they must, from the infinity and eternity of His nature, and the limited scope of human faculties, of necessity fall far short of the reality. When we think of God, it is not possible that we should do otherwise than imagine Him as less than He truly is.

But when to the limitation of our faculties there is added an evil heart of unbelief, all our ideas of the character of the Deity are still more contracted, and we do not think of Him as so great in goodness, glorious in power, and awful in holiness, even as it is possible for us to do. We contemplate His goodness, and no doubt easily yield assent to the proposition that He is wholly good; that He is always caring for us, watching over us, and guiding us in all our ways. It is easy to yield a mere cold assent to this doctrine, and to imagine we believe it; it is part of our religious creed, but too often nothing more. Let us, however, arrive at some critical period in our lives, when all things seem against us, and we can escape neither to the right hand nor to the left; when we are as Bunyan, against whom the very stones of the street seemed pointing, while the sky above him, instead of shewing its beauteous hope-inspiring blue, lowered black and terrific as a thunder-cloud; it is at such a time we learn whether the doctrine that God is good be not only inscribed upon our outward creed, but graven upon our hearts. Most likely we shall find it a doctrine hard to believe,-to believe, that is, in such a manner as that we can cherish the joyful assurance that all things are in our Heavenly Father's hands, and that He will not suffer us to harm. Most likely, I say, we shall find it hard to believe it so; we think on the goodness of God, and our evil heart of unbelief limits it by the imperfection of our own nature, and by our fears, instead of gratefully and exultantly thinking of it as equal to His power and glory.

Just so, when we read the promises of Christ, our unbelief blinds us to the fulness of their meaning; we are afraid or unwilling to believe that what the Saviour has said is true just as it stands recorded, and true without any limitation. Whatever meaning His words will truly bear, that meaning, were we not of so little faith, we should at once give to them, shrinking not at the greatness of the blessing promised.

Now, take the passage which I have chosen as my text-" All