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licence , be injurious ? What is civil polity , but a knowledge of the causes that affect the happiness of civil society—of the duties of the governors and the governed—of the proper ends of the social
compact—of rights and duties which can never be denied or neglected without the most afflicting penalties—and can knowledge of this nature be injurious ? No—to none but those who have an interest in corruption and human misery ^ and with such the Christian ought not to be allied . But the moral and religious education of the youthful poor needs more improvement even than the intellectual . In how few schools are there instructions given suited to the understandings
of the children , and on a regular and systematic plan . What more needful than a simple detail of the evidences of the divine origin of Christianity P How desirable that the fundamental truths of religion should be taught , not by authority , but by demonstration—that the duties of the several ages and conditions in life should be plainly , earnestly , and affectionately set forth—that the grounds and reasons of obedience should be explained and enforced—that children should be instructed in the duties of
children , and prepared to discharge those of riper years , in order that the Sunday School might become a seminary for good servantsgood masters and mistresses—good fathers and mothers—good citizens . Yet how little of all this do we actually find . Those ,
indeed , who compass sea and land to make one proselyte , fail not to use every effort to wrap the children's minds around with the swathing bands of creeds and confessions ; but this is not to foster but repress them—not to enlarge , but to narrow the heart . The
same persons are sufficiently active to inspire the youthful mind with a dread of heresy , but we want not bugbears for the moral nutriment of the youthful poor—we want the bread that came down from heaven to be the life of the world ; we want the child ' s affections to be disciplined—a power of self-control to be imparted —its heart to be softened and enriched , by affecting displays of God ' s goodness in nature and in the gospel—of the Saviour ' s mercy and tenderness—of the felicity of a devout life—the unspeakable worth of the immortal spirit , and the incomparable magnitude of eternal blessedness . And these things are wanted , not merely , nor yet so much in devout precept , as in the power of a good life—a pious heart—an affectionate spirit—not so much in injunction as in example . A school should resemble a
wellordered Christian family , where kindness presides in the master ' s bosom , words , and actions , and thence distils on all around him—where obedience is easy because pleasant—where order is insured by the influence of habit . If we turn from what we want to what we have , how painful the contrast 1 How small the utility of that discourse of which the children understand almost nothing—of that address which says much but explains nothing , and which is nearly useless , because the minds of the children have not
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Sunday School Education . £ 35
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s 2
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1832, page 235, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1810/page/19/
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