census taken on the occasion alluded to, it is shewn that the priests numbered rather more than one in ten of the whole congregation, which amounted to more than forty thousand souls.

In face of the facts I have quoted, backed as they must be in the recollection of Scripture students, by a host of collateral passages, it cannot be denied that household education, aided by public preaching and exposition of the law, was ordained to be the mode of inculcating religion amongst the early Jews. It is perhaps impossible to trace the origin of new classes of schools, but it is certain that in process of time the schools of the Prophets, and other schools taught by the Rabbin, were set on foot, and were principally adapted for the reception of the children of the rich. Such schools were perhaps common in the East; and, at any rate, it is plain that Moses was trained in an Egyptian priestly school; Cyrus was trained in a school attached to the Persian court; and it is known that the Indian Brahmins taught in secret schools. But the amount of learning to be acquired in any of these schools was of a nature ill-adapted to the general wants of a community, and was never attempted to be applied to the mass of any nation. We may observe that it was the custom for the Jews to resort to the schools of the Prophets in order to resolve questions of difficulty; and perhaps the schools of the Synagogues afterwards were similarly made use of, their advantages, however, were applicable but to a few. The reader will recollect that Saul, when in search of some missing asses, travelled a long distance before he was able to enquire of the prophet Samuel what he should do.

It being acknowledged that the Divine Law must have been adequately framed for the purpose required; and, established, that the law prescibes parental and priestly admonitions and teaching, at the hearth and in the synagogue and temple, as the sufficient method of inculcating religion, there remains the question, Did the Christian Dispensation in any manner qualify the amount of the parental and priestly

duties in teaching the young? or, Is the Christian Dispensation more difficult to teach and more complex than the Mosaic? We have no warrant for answering these questions except negatively, on the authority of Scripture. There is, however, another question which it is the duty of every statesman to resolve: Has the aspect of the world so changed that in material investigations, in conforming to social proprieties, and in physical knowledge of all that occurs around him, and demands action from him, the learning necessary to man has become more various and comprehensive than it was in the days of the patriarchs? Who will deny that it has?

Religion, the highest study of mankind, is no less accessible now than it was in the days of Abraham; from the burning sands of Arabia, the luxurious shelter of tropical vegetation, or by the shore of the icy Neva, man can place himself in communion with his God, and, so to speak, rise superior to the difficulties of his flesh; but, in the world of matter, physical relations and necessities imperatively demand obedience or care; and there is no way to overcome the difficulties imposed by those necessities except by timely study and labour.

Now it is clear that though every parent can at present, as in the days of Abraham, teach wholly or in part the duty we owe to the Almighty, no parent can hope to be able to teach all the intricacies of worldly science, which, nevertheless, are necessary to his children: hence the duty of schoolmasters (a race of men indeed too much despised or too little esteemed). And this duty is not the mere mercenary performance of what the parent or priest could do better themselves if they had leisure, but it is the high and difficult task of doing, in an appropriate sphere, what is not demanded. from parent or priest, and what, in many instances, neither the one nor the other could perhaps perform. Doubtless most people have, in the course of their experience, heard an

ignorant parent declare that if children are sent to school just to be kept out of harm's way for a year or two, and to learn to read and write a little and to repeat their Catechism, all has been done that need be done. But this feeling is an injurious one to the character and office of the teacher, and is destructive of the responsibility of the parent, who comes to look upon the teacher as a convenient mercenary, to do what parents are too lazy or too careless to do for themselves.

I am far from asserting that a teacher should not aid the parent, and I am persuaded that he is just so much the more likely to do so in proportion as the parent may acknowledge and act up to his own responsibility and duty. It is a matter of consolation to reflect, that day by day the conviction gathers strength in the world, that the position of teachers is cne which ought to be recognised as the most honorable.

Having thus glanced, in some measure, at the object I have in view as respects an exposition of the duty of the teacher in the present age, I shall now resume my historical sketch of those educational institutions which have at different times and in different countries been formed for the training of the young; but before doing so I am tempted to insert here, as an appropriate conclusion to the remarks I have made upon the Jews, one or two facts which are also an apt corollary to the hints I have thrown out concerning the duties of parents, as set forth in Scripture. It has been observed that the Jews are punctilious, to a striking degree, in conforming to their laws and institutions at the present day; and they have occasionally given remarkable exemplifications of their adherence to the faith of their fathers.

Yet it cannot be denied that the Jews receive less state support than is given to any other persuasion in Christian countries; nor can it be denied that they teach their religious tenets effectually in those countries. They do this, however, not in public schools, for it is the labour of domestic love and scriptural duty;-the responsibility of the parent is acknow

ledged and undertaken, and the result is that, considered as a people, the Jews are perhaps more observant of their laws and better versed in their peculiar tenets than any other family of mankind. Surrounded as they are in some countries by millions of persons professing a dominant religion, and seeing, as they do, that dominant religion vainly sought to be thrust out of its sacred sphere, and entrusted to teachers who are invited to desert their particular calling in order to usurp the authority of the parent, the Jews, unaided by the state, succeed in doing what the majority around them fails to do, though it annually expends vast sums, and bestows diversified attention in seeking to accomplish it. Why is this? Merely because the duty of parents is not neglected, and because their Scripture (which in this respect is our Scripture) is religiously adhered to.

This remarkable feature in the Jewish character can be pointed out, not only now, in days of toleration, but of old, when persecution was rife. In the year 1492, so celebrated for the discovery of America, the Jews were expelled from Spain by an edict of the king, and yet there were very few apostasies, though apostasy would have saved them from exile from a land in which for several centuries their race had dwelt. Their alternative was to accept the religion of Ferdinand or to quit his country; to profess the triumphant faith of the Holy Inquisition, or to become houseless wanderers. Nearly all of them accepted the latter condition; and in a band, which has been variously estimated at 300,000, 650,000, or 800,000, they abandoned their pleasant abodes, in preference to deserting the religion of their fathers. Christians cannot point to a more glorious material martyrdom than this; and those who deny that the temple and the domestic circle are the peculiar shrines of religious teaching, will prove the consistency of their arguments very ingeniously indeed, if they can explain the superiority of their

own system to the organisation which produced the noble result above detailed.

In Roman Catholic France, when the Christian religion. was for a time proscribed, was there such a sacrifice made? Yet there was a numerous body of ecclesiastics, and they had administrated a vast amount of wealth up to the date of the Revolution.