sought and secured in the plan of Christian training here, no one "stuck out." Each ran into the other, or grew out of it, so naturally, that the result was the smoothness, and the roundness, and the completeness, of the circle. Given a great man's ideal, and it will be realized, in himself and in his work. Rather his idea, is the reflection of himself. And this was his; "a circle, the simplest of all figures, consisting of one line only, and yet, complete and perfect." So he described the character of Washington, for whom, the impulsive admiration of his boyhood, grew, with his manhood, into a steady and reverent appreciation. That he dwelt most, on the religious features of his plan, was natural and needful. It was what, men thought least of, and what, God cares most for. But being the weakest side with man, and the most unpopular, it stood the more in need, of a courageous, devoted, and persevering advocate. So, constantly and with such beautiful and tried reality, he writes of it.

*St. Mary's Hall is for Education. It is the watchword of the day. Men worship it, as some at Athens did "the unknown God." It must be feared, almost as "ignorantly." It fills their mouths, as loudly, and as long, as that old cry, which the Apostle heard at Ephesus, "Great is Diana!" But let us ask, before we join in it, what is it? What is education? Is it to read, and write, and cipher? Is it geography and history? Is it political economy, and moral philosophy, and metaphysics? These, doubtless, are all well; each, in its place, and in its due degree. The world, which God has placed us in, He meant that we should be acquainted with. The powers of mind, which He endowed us with, He meant that we should cultivate. But, are these all? Are these the chief? Will all that ever was attained, of these, and such as these, restore in man that god-like image, which the fall defaced? Does learning, merely, make a man like God? No; these are not education. They are not, by necessity, a part of education. They do not, of necessity, minister to education. Who doubts that devils are of higher intellect than men, and with more varied and extensive acquisitions? And is theirs, education? How different the lesson of the Holy Scripture! "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it." Behold, in these few simple words, the art and mystery of education: defined with truth and fulness, by an authority in lexicography, to be "the exercise and training of the powers of the mind," not only, though these also must be exercised and trained, but "the passions, affections, dispositions, habits, manners." It comes before instruction. It accompanies instruction. It outlasts instruction. It is never done: but still goes on, and will go on, in infinite progression, through eternity; its pattern and its mark, as perfect men, being no other and no less than this, "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Edu

* Address at laying the Corner Stone of the Chapel of the Holy Innocents, Sept. 25, A. D. 1845.

Richardson.

cation is the forming of the character. It is its rescue, first, from ignorance and sin. It is its advancement, then, in knowledge and virtue. It is its transformation and conformation. Its transformation from its native guilt, the issue of the fall. Its conformation to its original brightness, in God's image, the purchase of the Cross.

*Education, to be true and real, must be Christian Education. Would any one call that an education, which should only cultivate the body? However perfect the physical development might be, in health and strength, in vigour and in grace, if that were all, would any one call that, an education? Why not? Because there is a mind, within the body, which is its better part. Because the body might attain, as in the ancient hunters of our native woods, the stature, and the bearing, and the beauty, of the Apollo Belvidere, and yet the mind be wholly unimproved; and all its noble faculties lie in their native ignorance. But, is the mind, the man? Is it the mind, that loves? Is it the mind, that worships? Is it the mind, that takes in God, and so becomes godlike? No. The highest reach of mental culture may be won. The fullest stores of intellectual riches may be gained. All heights of poetry, and the profoundest depths of all philosophy, may be attained; and yet the heart be unconverted, and the soul be lost. The physical is not the man; the intellectual is not the man. The moral, the spiritual, the religious, in these consists the God-likeness on earth; to these belongs the immortality of Heaven. This is what God asks; แ "My son, give Me thy heart!" This is what Jesus Christ has taught us, is the all in all of being: "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

If there be a soul in man; if it be that which, at the first, was in God's image, and in which His image must be re-created, that it be not lost forever; then, most obviously, as it is He that made, that sanctifies, that saves, so it must be He that is to educate, and train, to renew, and to transform it. And He does so, as in the first creation, so, in the second, in the way which He himself ordains. He took no counsel with man, before the world was framed. He takes no counsel with him now, upon that greater act, its restoration to holiness and happiness, which it has forfeited by sin. For that, He sent His only Son, to die for us. For that, He sends His Holy Spirit to dwell with us. For that, He gave His blessed Word. For that, He gave His blessed Church. For that, the ministry was ordered, the sacraments ordained, the blessing given to prayer. And to separate Christian Education from any of these: to hope to train a soul by human means; to seek the new creation of the heart by temporal aids, and secular influences; or, worst of all, to leave it to the new creation of itself; is farther, far, from reason and from hope, than the attempt to feed the body upon air, or mould the mind by hydrostatic pressure. "There is a spirit in man, and the Almighty giveth inspiration," only as it is sought for, in His Holy Word; only as it is sought for, in His Holy Church; only as it nourishes itself, with the grace of Holy Sacraments, and struggles toward heaven, upon the wings of faithful prayer,

Sermon at the Consecration of the Chapel of the Holy Innocents, Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, A. D. 1847.

is there a promise of its attainment, or a hope that will be realized. "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? Even by taking heed thereto, according to Thy Word." "Ye have not, because ye ask not." 66 Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." "Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man, and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you." "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God; and is profitable for doctrine, for correction, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness." "He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved." "Whoso eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." "Whatsoever

ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." These are our arts of education. This, "our armour of righteousness, on the right hand, and on the left." In our unworthy hands, the gracious Lord has richly blessed these means of grace. Trusting in Him, we still go on, using what He ordains; in the exulting hope of that great day, when we shall stand before the throne, with all the sons and daughters of our heart: Behold us Lord, and the children which thou hast given us.

Turning to the same feature of the College plan, we find the principles urged there, with equal earnestness and eloquent variety.

*The home-feeling is to be our magnetism. And it shall be a sacred magnetism. It is a Christian home that we provide for them. We shall gather them under the shadow of the Cross; and our great care shall be to keep them there, through faith, unto salvation. Burlington College is a Church Institution. Its doors, like those of the Church, will be always open, and to all. It is designed to be a shelter and a refuge for the young. Its atmosphere will be serene and sacred. And the more cheerful, for its serenity and sacredness. Holy Scriptures will be daily read. Holy Prayers will every day be offered. And it will be every day's desire and effort to realize the truth of Holy Scripture, and to live the piety of Holy Prayers. The motto of Burlington College is designed to be its history. "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God." To take the little ones, as Jesus did, into our arms; to feed them with "food convenient" for them; to "bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord;" to develop their capacities, physical, intellectual, and moral; to store them with all useful and elegant attainments; to accomplish them in every grace of manner and of mind; above all, to ripen in them their religious nature; and fit them to be holy upon earth, and happy in the heavens, is what we aim at; with continual prayer to Him from whom all blessings come. We engage not in this enterprise without a careful counting of the cost. We claim the benefit of long and wide experience. We are undoubting in our confidence. We cast ourselves without reserve upon the promise, and mean that nothing on our part shall be wanting to its fulfilment: "train up a child in the way he should go; and

Address of the Trustees of Burlington College, A. D. 1846.

when he is old he will not depart from it." *We have not rounded, as a nation, yet, our century of years. Brief as our past is, it is full of warnings and of lessons. No warning more alarming, than the ascendency of party spirit, as the test of strength, and passport to all power. No lesson more emphatic, than the necessity of a return to the simpler manners, and sterner virtues of the first and purest days of the republic. What hope of this, but in the training of our children, in the love of man, and the fear of God? What hope that he can rulé a nation, who has never ruled himself? What hope, till waters learn to rise above their source, that public manners will be pure, and the public virtue elevated, while hearths are unblessed by prayer, and altars are desecrated or deserted? Nothing truer, in the Word of perfect and unerring truth, or written on the face of nations, with a broader, deeper, track of blood and fire, than that, "while righteousness exalteth a nation, sin is a reproach to any people!"

Therefore, as that, without which all the rest were vain, it is our design, at Burlington College, to bring up Christians. The Word of God is daily read, at morning, and at evening. At morning, at noon, and at evening, we kneel in daily prayers. The precept of the wise man is continually regarded, "Catechise a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it." The means of grace are constantly employed. The hope of glory is steadfastly proposed. The pastoral feet are constantly in motion, in our sacred fold. The pastoral eye is constantly alert, to watch and guard our lambs. The pastoral voice, in admonition and reproof, in encouragement and consolation, is never still. And every yearling of the flock is made to feel, in constant acts and offices of love, the beatings of the pastoral heart. We have set up the Cross before us, as the magnet of our souls. We bend before the Holy One, who died upon it, to beseech Him, that He will draw us, by it, to Himself. It is our constant "heart's desire and prayer to God,"-and He has promised both to hear and answer it" that our sons may grow up as the young plants, and that our daughters may be as the polished corners of the temple; and, that, serving Him, "without fear, in holiness and righteousness, before Him, all the days of our life, we may be a people prepared for the Lord."" But, full of tenderness, and high in sacred trust, as is the nurture of the infant, it is but the shadow of that which falls upon the heart of parents, teachers, pastors, in the training of the child. There cannot be a text more pregnant, more impressive, more exacting, than the words of Holy Paul, to the Ephesian parents: "bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." They tell us of the soul. They tell us of its fearful alienation from the God who made it. They tell us of the obstacles which hinder its return; of the tendencies within, by which it gravitates towards eternal ruin; of the unseen foes, which, from the cradle, dog its track, and to the grave, pursue their prey. They tell us, that, as the harvest, so the garner; as the seed-time, so the harvest; as the spring, so the full circle of the eternal year. And, if they left us thus, they would pronounce a * The Ends and Objects of Burlington College, A. D. 1848.

Nurture, a sermon preached in St. Mary's, Burlington: written for "the Women of the Bible."

blessing upon childlessness, and make the grave more gracious for our children, than the cradle. But the divine Creator knows our frame, and cares for all its wants. He leaves us not uncomforted, in any of the trusts, and trials, which He lays upon our hearts. In every duty, and in every danger, of our lives, He meets us, with His love. The "blessings of the breasts and of the womb" are blessings, which take in the soul, and go with it into eternity. None of His promises are more explicit than those which sanction the religious care of children. His praise of Abraham turns expressly on His domestic piety: "I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him; and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judg ment." And the benign and gracious Saviour, while He won, by every charm and charity of love, the "little children" to Himself, opened a world of comfort and encouragement, to hearts of parents, and of teachers, and of pastors, in those mysterious words: "I say unto you, in Heaven, their angels do always behold the face of my Father, which is in Heaven."

The Christian parent, that desires salvation for his children, need not greatly fear. God has provided, in His Church, all needful helps, and means, to gain, through grace, that great and gracious end. There stands the Font, with its regenerating wave, to wash him from his primal sin, and give him back, new-born, " of water, and of the Spirit." There, ever sounds, in tones of ancient piety, a mother's voice in her dear children's ears, the simple, yet majestic catechism. There, at the chancel-rail, the pastor of the pastors waits, with hands outstretched, to hear the meek renewal of his infant vows, and sign him with the seal of the Divine and Holy Spirit, and commend him to the cares, and toils, and trials of the life that lies before him, with the blessing of the Holy One. There, in the Bread and Wine, which He ordained and blessed, the Saviour gives Himself to every faithful heart. There, the life-giving Word is ever vocal, with its lessons of truth, its counsels of wisdom, and its promises of peace. There, in a voice, that rolls up, round and full, from the deep caverns of the past, the faith once delivered to the old saints, is uttered in the Creeds, which martyrs moistened with their blood. There, in a ceaseless round, the prayers are offered, which have promise-from the gracious One, Who comes, wherever "two or three are gathered, in His name-of answer and fulfilment. And from every consecrated stone, and every charmed spot, and every word of faith, and penitence, and praise, as from His garment's hem, when in the flesh, virtue comes forth to heal, to strengthen, and to bless, to all who kneel to Him, in meek, obedient faith." *

And, in his last address to the Graduates of the Hall, the thread, on which he strings his purest pearls of thought, that

* See Appendix A.

+ "What address to the fair daughters of St. Mary's Hall was ever more sparkling, more imaginative, and yet more profound amid its play of sunny wit and wisdom, than that exquisite legacy he bequeathed to the last graduating class?"-Rev. Dr. Mahan.