while to prepare himfelf for making any reply; and, confequently, the youth of this age never profeffedly ftudy the fubject, or ever give more than an occafional and curfory attention to it.

Another fource of this complaint is, the little care that is now taken by parents in the religious inftruction of their children. They condemn the feverity with which they recollect that they themselves were treated; and, not confidering the advantage which they derive from it, exclaim against fuch exceffive rigour and aufterity, and throw off not only the tutor, but almost the mafter too, with refpect to their children; not recollecting that, after this, there is little left of the parent that is truly valuable. To this conduct they are, no doubt, at the fame time, fecretly influenced by a regard to their own eafe; for upon the prefent fashionable plan, a perfon gives himself very little trouble indeed about forming the minds of his offspring; and, forme may think, that they have fufficiently done their duty in this refpect, when they have provided them

with mafters, to fuperintend their education in general.

Many perfons will not readily adopt my fentiments relating to this subject. For my own part, however, I have not the leaft doubt, but that, though the maxims of our forefathers may have been too ftrict, we of the prefent age are already far gone in another extreme, oppofite to theirs, and much more dangerous. Their method, by reftraining the inclinations of youth, might (though, perhaps, upon the whole, it might not) diminish the happinefs of that early period of life; and, in fome inftances, I doubt not, the exceffive restraints they were under might ferve to inflame their paffions, and prepare them for the more unbounded and criminal indulgence of them, when they became their own masters; but, in general, habits of fobriety and moderation were, by this means, effectually formed, and a disposition to licentioufnefs entirely precluded,

On the contrary, our greater indulgence to youth gives them more liberty, but, perhaps, not more real enjoyment even of early life; but, whatever good effect this conduct may have upon fome ingenuous tempers, I am fatisfied that, in general, it is fatal to virtue and happiness through life. Our youth having had little or no restraint put upon their inclinations, and religious principles not having been fufficiently inculcated, they give the reins to pleafure, at that critical time of life, in which the paffions are peculiarly strong, and reason weak; and the authority of a parent not interpofing, where it is moft wanted, a difpofition to licentioufnefs is completely formed, and fuch bad habits are contracted, as too often end in utter profligacy and ruin. beft, their minds not having been feasoned with the principles of religion, they become mere men of the world, without vice, perhaps, but alfo without virtue.

At

Alfo, in confequence of the fame fuperficial education, to fay the least of it, our youth

youth having never thought upon the subject of religion, inftead of entertaining those enlarged sentiments of religious liberty, which will never be wholly extinct in the breasts of their parents, the flighteft inducement is often fufficient to make them abandon the

diffenting intereft, the value of which they were never taught to understand; and to make them conform to the established religion of this, and, for the fame reason, to that of any other country in the world, attended with fufficient temporal encouragement.

With the difufe of family prayer, the regular reading of the fcriptures has also been laid afide; so that in most of our opulent families, the youth have hardly an opportunity of making themselves acquainted with the contents of thofe books which are the fource of all religious knowledge. When the bible, if there be one in the family, is wholly neglected by the parent, what inducement can the fon have to look into it?

A falfe tafte, and a pretended reverence for the fcriptures has, likewife, banished

them from many of our schools; fo that, except their being read in detached and unconnected portions, in places of public worship, many perfons, it is to be feared, would live and die in utter ignorance of the contents of their bibles.

With this neglect of family difcipline, the neglect of difcipline in our churches, which has been owing to fimilar causes, has likewife concurred. In many of our focieties, the bufinefs of catechifing has, likewife, been laid afide, nor has any thing been fubftituted in its place, as better adapted to communicate religious knowledge; fo that, as the minifter is feldom feen but in the pulpit (I mean in a minifterial character) all the opportunity that the people have of being inftructed in the theory of religion, is their hearing mifcellaneous difcourfes, which are now almoft every where confined to fubjects which have an immediate relation to practice, while the theory of religion, and the evidences of it, are almost wholly neglected.

Because