the convocation is not an ecclesiastical body, but that it ought to be such. They affirm that the articles, liturgy, and homilies owed their existence to the convocation, which is incorrect; as these were composed by some select divines, and published authoritatively by the king; and the convocation and clergy had nothing to do but receive them as presented, without any right to reject or amend. But the reading of the foregoing petition will satisfy the reader that the English Church possesses no proper ecclesiastical authority by virtue of her convocation, which is nothing else than the creature of the state, and under the entire control of the crown.

5. We have seen that the articles of religion were not promulged at first by the convocation; and, though the 20th article says, "The church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies," it appears this power was exercised by the civil magistrate at the Reformation. When did the church, as a convocation, or in any other capacity, decree one rite or exercise of religion? When did the bench of bishops, or the clergy in convocation, act in church affairs? Or when did the metropolitan do the like, unless when commissioned by the supreme head? By going back to the time when rites and ceremonies and articles were decreed, we will find that they were formed, and authoritatively published, by the supreme head of the church; and it was only afterward that they were recognized by the clergy. Indeed, they received as much opposition from the clergy themselves as they durst exercise in those times. And though these things were done at first, either by authority or under the covert of acts of parliament, yet it was at a time when the parliament itself was subject to an unconstitutional control from the crown; when it could degrade itself so far as to pass an act, giving the king's proclamation the force of law. (See Dyer, p. 168.) (To be continued.)

ART. II.-A LECTURE ON EDUCATION.

BY REV. PROF. N. ROUNDS, A. M., OF CAZENOVIA.

Delivered at Utica, April 2, 1837.

"That our sons may be as plants, grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace," Ps. cxliv, 12.

THE inspired writer is, in this psalm, enumerating the circumstances which go to make up the character of a "happy people." The first is, that their children be properly educated. A proper education implies that series of means by which the human understanding is gradually enlightened, and the best dispositions of the human heart formed and unfolded, between the periods of infancy and manhood. It contemplates two principal ends: first, to impart a practical knowledge of those sciences which pertain to the ordinary business of life and to the fine arts; and secondly, what is of no less importance, to develope and improve the native endowments of the mind and of the heart. This last idea is beautifully expressed in the figurative language of the text-"That our sons may be as plants, grown up in their youth." The mind of an uneducated young man might be represented by a plant, which, being stinted in its

growth, remains in a shrivelled and unfruitful state; while the thrifty, flourishing plant, clad in luxuriant foliage and blushing with the flowers of promise, is the pleasing emblem of a mind that has received that early cultivation by which its original energies have been heightened and matured.

But the royal psalmist would not confine the benefits of learning to his own sex. Heathen writers may pass over the subject of female education in silence; modern libertines may speak of it with contempt; but the pious and enlightened king of Israel introduces it with profound respect. He particularly alludes to the kind of education females should receive-" That our daughters may be as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace." The stones here referred to are probably like those denominated "costly stones" in the First Book of Kings, which are supposed to have been of different kinds of marble, so polished as to bring to view every latent cloud and vein in all its beauty; and so fitted in the corners of their public edifices as to impart to them additional strength and elegance. Thus female education, while it aims primarily at practical utility, does not neglect those graceful accomplishments which improve the taste, the manners, and the sentiments. Observe the appropriateness of the figure" Like corner-stones polished." They were polished; they had received all the nice touchings and finishings of the artist; yet the external embellishment did not belie the internal substance. They were not polished wood, so ornamented as to counterfeit a richer material: they were polished marble. Not a mere painted surface, while all within was vacant and hollow: they were sound, solid, and substantial; admired not more for their beauty than for the important purposes they were adapted to subserve.

I. In considering the benefits of education more at large, let us notice them, in the first instance, as they are realized by the student himself; and here, of course, I shall address myself primarily to the young, Whether honour, happiness, or usefulness be your aim, learning presents itself as a necessary requisite.

The love of praise is implanted by our Creator in every human breast: to be dead to its dictates were a defect; to be governed by it is depravity. The path of science is the path to honour. Wealth may secure to you the admiration of the ignorant multitude, but it would still be a matter of question whether that admiration were not directed more to your riches than to yourselves. Had these young men lived in the dark ages, when knight-errantry was in fashion, they might have sought for honour in deeds of desperate daring; such as storming an enemy's castle, pillaging his territory, or slaying a rival in single combat. Extraordinary physical attributes, whether height of stature, strength of muscle, or even fierceness of look, might have been a satisfactory passport to the high places of power. But in these days, mind is the standard of the man. The world now think that intellectual endowments are a necessary requisite, without which no man is eligible to any office of honour and responsibility, either civil, military, or ecclesiastical.

And need we say that the man who has enjoyed the advantages of education is possessed of sources of enjoyment of which the illiterate are totally ignorant? That the man, for instance, whose hours of leisure can be spent in perusing the writings of the great and good, VOL. VIII.-July, 1837. 23

is more happy than he who has no resort at such times but the idle chit-chat of the fire-side or of the bar-room? That he whose mind is richly stored with the varied incidents that have distinguished the history of the different nations of the earth, enjoys his hours of reflection and conversation more pleasantly than the person who knows nothing of the world, save what has transpired during his own life, and within his own town or neighbourhood? Will the pleasure of contemplating the evening sky be no greater to the scholar, who beholds in every planet a world, and in every fixed star the centre of a system of worlds, than to him who looks at them with the same vacant stare as he would behold the sparks that glitter for a moment above the chimney of a forge? But that we may not consume your time upon so plain a matter, let me ask finally, on this point, what is the circumstance which renders the state of man more desirable than that of the inferior animals? It cannot be our superior capacity for sensual gratifications, for some of them command the enjoyments that arise from two elements; we are confined to one. Others of them are so constituted as to enjoy the pleasures of the palate almost without interruption; but that this would be utterly incompatible with the human constitution, is every day developed in the disastrous consequences of drunkenness and gluttony. No, my young friends, it is the pleasures of mind in the exercise of thought, in the play of fancy, in the reveries of reflection, and in the excursions of hope, that separate human from irrational beings by so broad a line of demarcation, and open a new world to the soul of the enlightened man. These are pleasures which elevate him to a community of enjoyment with the angels of God; and we have the strongest grounds to believe that no inconsiderable portion of the future happiness of the redeemed will consist in exploring those delightful fields of knowledge which shall open, in endless succession, for the improvement and gratification of the immortal mind.

But we have said that learning would increase your usefulness, as well as your happiness. A desire to be useful is one of the most noble motives that can actuate the human breast. Christ went about doing good. In this view, the text compares well-educated young men to plants grown up in their youth. They are like " plants,' not like wild and noxious weeds; but the word in the English, and still more plainly in the original, implies some useful vegetable, which the hand of the husbandman had carefully planted and reared; and the marginal references render it more than probable that the plants alluded to were the olive. The olive tree was one of the most valuable productions of the East. Minerva, the tutelar goddess of Athens, is said to have planted it originally in that city, as a sign that she had taken the Athenians under her peculiar protection. Its fruit enters largely into the diet of many nations, while its use in medicine and pharmacy is scarcely to be estimated. Yet such is the beautiful and striking figure which the inspired penman has selected to illustrate the public benefit of well-informed young men ; those whose minds have been early and judiciously cultivated, so as fully to develop their natural talents, and prepare them to act a useful and distinguished part in the affairs of men: To confine our view for the present to temporal interests, who can tell how much

the world owes to the inventor of the mariner's compass, and of the printer's press? to a Newton, who, in the midst of the darkness that shrouded the philosophic world, said, Let there be light, and there was light? to an Arkwright, by the invention of whose admirable machinery the article of cotton may be spun to any assignable fineness, and, as a consequence, multitudes of the poorer classes, who were otherwise destitute of a livelihood, are now furnished with a productive and honest employment? When shall America forget her obligations to her artisan, who, by the application of steam power to the purposes of navigation, has given man the ascendency over the strongest of elements? To her chieftain, who so deservedly receives the title of " father of his country?" To her philosopher, at whose command the subjugated thunderbolt lay harmless at his feet? Yet it was education which made these illustrious men the honour

and blessing of our race. Without the cultivation of their intellectual powers, Fulton and Franklin had never been known in any other character than that of obscure mechanics; and Washington had never been distinguished either in the cabinet or in the field.

But shall we give no word of encouragement to the youthful female whose bosom heaves with the pious desire to benefit her species? We have not so studied the spirit of our text. The figure by which the sweet singer of Israel illustrates the usefulness of wellinstructed females, is not less beautiful or appropriate than that which he applies to the other sex. They are like the corner-stones of a kingly palace. They are not only interesting to look upon, but are of great utility. What part of an edifice is more important than the corner-stones? Upon what part does its strength, beauty, and durability more obviously depend? If the corner-stones be well selected and well fitted, the building will stand almost as a matter of course. But let them be imperfect, and what then? Let them be unshapely, and no matter how much labour you bestow upon the other parts; no matter how finely you bind its Gothic arches; no matter how gracefully you twine its lofty columns with the Ionic or the Corinthian wreath; still the symmetry of the structure is disturbed, and its beauty is essentially marred. Let the corner-stones be of an unsubstantial character, and however much you may strengthen the walls, the fabric is defective and weak; and the heavier its battlements and the loftier its dome, the speedier will be its dilapidation and fall. But what the chief corner-stones are to the palace of a king, female education is to the welfare of this nation. Let woman be neglected in her mental and moral culture, and you sap the foundations of our prosperity; let her sink into ignorance and insignificance, and the nation sinks with her. But let the native energies of her mind, and the characteristic virtues of her heart, be called forth and moulded by a judicious course of scientific and moral training, and she becomes the centre of domestic felicity, the keystone in the arch of social enjoyments; and if not the most prominent and the boldest, yet the most graceful and the strongest pillar in the temple of American glory.

II. And here it is in our way to consider for a moment how the general diffusion of knowledge is connected with our political interWhat tends more directly than this to elevate the character of a country among the nations of the earth? What enables Eng

ests.

land to sit the queen of the ocean? How can that little island maintain her superiority over many other nations, compared with whose territorial limits she is but an evanescent point? Some might refer it to the strength of her naval armaments; some to the perfection of her manufactures, and others to the extent of her commerce; but he who studies well her character, will perceive that these are only second causes, while the ultimate reason lies in the extent, variety, and general diffusion of her literature and science. Again, what constitutes that striking disparity of national character between the northern and southern portions of our own hemisphere? Why is South America so far inferior to these United States? It cannot arise from any defect in her natural scenery-her Andes rise above the clouds, and her Amazon is the prince of rivers. Nor from her climate; "for here," says one, "spring, summer, and winter are seated on three distinct, but contiguous thrones, which they never resign; each being surrounded by the attributes of its power." Nor yet from the barrenness of her soil. Her broad savannahs, clad with perpetual green, and diversified with fruitful groves of the palm, the cocoa, and the banana, vie in luxuriance with the banks of the Nile; while the kings of the earth are indebted to her exhaustless mineral treasures for the richness of their plate and the splendour of their jewelry. Why, then, we ask again, is that country, which was settled long before our own, a hundred and fifty years behind us in national improvements? Why are almost all parts of the United States intersected with turnpikes, canals, and railroads, while from the city of Rio Janeiro, with a population of 200,000, there is but one road sufficiently worked to run a carriage, and that only to the distance of forty miles? That in the city of New-York the weekly emission of periodicals from a single office is more than sufficient to load down a coach and four, while in the capital of Brazil the great national mail from the interior has, until recently, been carried upon a man's back, and is still transported by a mule? Why are our hills and valleys cheered by the passing and repassing of the locomotive engine, "that most brilliant gift of philosophy to man," which rushes along with its noble train, shaking the earth with the majesty of its tread and vying with the eagle in the ease and swiftness of its motion, while it constitutes a vehicle for hundreds of delighted passengers; whereas in Rio Janeiro the ordinary vehicles that meet the eye are ox-carts, with wheel and axle both of a piece, and both revolving together? The answer to these interrogatories is very plain. We cultivate education; they neglect it. are endeavouring to establish and sustain seminaries and colleges in all parts of our country; they have but two colleges in an empire comprising 5,000,000 of inhabitants. We are an enlightened people; they are besotted in ignorance. We have a ministry whose minds have been enlarged and improved by knowledge; they are shackled and oppressed by a multitude of ignorant and vicious Catholic priests, who will not enter the domains of knowledge themselves, and them that would enter they prohibit.

We

III. This leads us to consider, finally, the favourable bearing of education upon the interests of morality and religion; and this is by far the most important light in which the subject can be viewed. For, however much it may benefit our temporal or political affairs,