Training and instructing are the two main processes, but training is infinitely the more important and extensive. All ages, all conditions, the prince, peer, and peasant,-need the same training; but a different measure, and a different sort of instruction, must be given to those whom Providence has called to work with their heads, and those who are called to work with their hands. Training is the first in order of time as well as importance. It begins before, and ends after instruction; nay, it never ends. But I will try to show you, by instances, where it begins, and how it ends, or rather never ends, in eternity.

As soon (and very soon it is) as the child shows the symptoms of its first fallen birth,-as soon as the difference between a suffering and a corrupt nature is discernible, which is before a child can walk and talk, then, even then, is the first process of the training part of education to begin. But who can dare to oppose the first risings of self-will? who venture to coerce, without breaking, the first riot of so tender a spirit? who dare to quell, without crushing, the first rebellion of so soft a heart? Who shall put down the tiny arm uplifted in wrath? Who has a hand light enough, and a heart gentle enough, for so delicate a task? Who is the first honoured minister in this infant school of CHRIST? Neither Bishop, Priest, nor Deacon; but the Parent, and here not the Father. Even he is too rough handed for so nice a work; loving and pitying as he is, there is one still more so-the Mother. And every true Christian mother begins thus early this cradle education,-this putting down self, and this putting on CHRIST upon her infant. And O let her remember for her warning and her comfort, according as she faithfully performs, or heedlessly neglects, this her peculiar labour of love, she is laying up for herself either a blessing or a curse, and is preparing for society a benefactor or a scourge, in her offspring.

In the advance of age, the house or home, the school or college, are the training schools of wisdom, especially the home. Here the scholar is not trained by the positive rebuke, or the special reward, so much as by the general order, the economy, or what may most significantly be called, the tone of the place. You must well know how much is suggested, and how little can be expressed, by the term "tone;" for it is very impalpable, though most influential. It is like a perfume in the air; it pervades every pore, and is sensibly felt all around, yet nowhere tangible or visible. Go into two houses, and you will feel (if I may so say) a good tone in one, and a bad tone in the other; and yet you cannot positively say that the difference is here or there. But it is either a moral or an immoral atmosphere which our youth inhale at every breath; and in either case the power of a good or evil tone is immense, because it steals upon them, and insinuates itself into them unconsciously.

Let us know, then, the necessity of training a youth, by creating a good tone all round him. Suppose him advanced to early man

hood; now he has begun to learn the first rudiments, and go through the first exercises of his own heart. Now his school is within, a deep, mysterious school. There are the silent, secret conflicts between the flesh and the spirit; thorns pierce, and buffetings of Satan confuse; doubts and scruples divide, perplexities harass, and difficulties distract his mind. He falls and rises again, retreats and advances, watches, prays, pauses, flies, fights, and faints; but though faint, he is pursuing a course of victory. These are heart-trainings.

Now advance him into the training school of the outward world. Men and women, if they are Christians, learn lessons from its changes and chances, its competitions, successes, and failures, its riches and poverty, its honours and reproaches. Have you had youthful hopes disappointed? If so, you have been trained out of delusions into realities. Has sickness and sorrow crossed your path? Has the death or desertion of friends made you taste the bitterness of bereavement? This, too, is part of your education. You are taught not to lean on slender reeds of earth, but to seek safe shelter under the shadow of the Cross. It is the training preparatory to old age, which, with its attendant infirmities, is the last earthly stage of education for death, which is the gate of everlasting life.

Thus life is a school of holy wisdom. Nor yet is there a finish; for though we repudiate the false notion of purgatory, and affirm that there is no repentance in the grave, yet we are warranted by holy Scripture to believe, that when we depart out of the Church militant into the Church intermediate, there is advancement in the soul; that the quick and dead are still one body, and that this body is in all its parts,—all growing together to fuller and farther perfection, and making increase unto the edifying of itself in love. Then, when the number of the elect is accomplished, then, after the judgment day, and not till then, (for this is fact, not fancy,) all the full trained and perfectly educated saints will have, according to our burial service, their full consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in the eternal and everlasting glory.

Such is the regular process; it is not always so. Alas! it is rarely so. Children often grow up to men and women without any training; and children who have been well trained in their youth, to remember their Creator, forget and forsake Him in their manhood. GoD, in His exceeding love for souls, bears with long and daring rebellion, and sometimes converts at the sixth, ninth, or eleventh hour. We, too, in like manner, who are fellow workers with GoD, must recognise and follow this double process of building up souls into the full maturity of their baptismal faith, and also of converting souls from darkness into the first baptismal light. But we must be cautious, lest we abuse God's goodness and mercy in conversion, by extenuating or allowing sin. We fully and thank

fully own the doctrine of conversion, and even at times of sudden conversion. But should any one say in his heart, "I need not present or continued training,-I may be converted on the instant some five, or ten, or twenty years hence," then, even then, I would not say his conversion were impossible, for with GOD nothing is impossible; I should only say (but this I should say strongly)" that it were next to impossible."

I must, moreover, observe that submission (as far as it is physically possible to a man who has lived an irregular life) to regular discipline and training, such as I have spoken of, is the very test of sincere conversion.

From training, I pass on to the other inferior process of instruction. I shall not enter much into details, because my office and province is to lay down principles. There is much diversity of opinion respecting the extent of knowledge which should be imparted to the different orders of men. All, however, would agree that the labourer does not require the same sort of school, and the same degree of knowledge, as those who are meant for the learned professions. All, too, would agree, that whatever is taught to the lowest child should be taught thoroughly and accurately. A smattering is bad for all classes. It harms the mind morally, first by making it inaccurate, and then untruthful. It leads children to make hazardous guesses, and deceitful equivocations, and draws them off from any fixed meanings or exact ideas of words or things. A little learning is only dangerous when it is made to look like a great deal; and this false show is often made, by aiming at diffusion over many subjects, rather than the clear, compact, and elemental knowledge of a few. And let us all remember this, that the pains, and patience, and discipline of acquiring knowledge, is more valuable than the knowledge itself; for this is the training of the mind, which, as I said before, is above instructing it. But they are inseparably connected with each other. Depend on it, learning made easy is of very doubtful worth. The labour is not merely the test of price; it is a most precious thing in itself.

Let me remind you also, that in a Christian country all knowledge is Christian. What is secular is in its measure sacred. You cannot separate what God has joined together. In every profession, trade, and calling, CHRIST must, as the text speaks, be put on. We cannot learn to be statesmen, merchantmen, husbandmen, tradesmen at one time, and then learn to be Christians at another -just, for instance, at Church, or in acts or exercises of devotion. We must be Christians always, as we are citizens always. The higher character must be superinduced all over the lower. As we are baptized, and have put on CHRIST, SO must everything belonging to us undergo the same regenerating influence. CHRIST'S transforming Spirit must be fused (if I may so say) into our arts and sciences as well as our holy services,-into our mauufactories

as well as our missions. This is what I understand to be the full meaning of the Scripture phrase, "putting on CHRIST." He must be not beside and above, but in und through our worldly occupations. It is this which dignifies and throws a lustre over those which are most menial. This is well expressed by our true Church poet

"All may of Thee partake-
Nothing can be so mean

Which, with this tincture, 'for Thy sake,'
Will not grow bright and clean.

"A servant with this clause

Makes drudgery divine;

Who sweeps a room as 'for His laws,'
Makes that and th' action fine.'
""*

But full and direct knowledge can only come from instruction in the holy Scriptures. This is amply afforded by the Church. The Old Testament is appointed to be read once, and the New three times throughout, every year; the daily portion is no less than four entire chapters. But as the bulk of the people have neither liberty nor leisure for this daily and continuous course of reading; nor, if they had, could they reduce it to any order or arrangement; therefore we have another orderly and arranged course of instruction in the Ordinance of Holy Seasons. Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Passion-week, Easter, and the Ascension seasons set the whole Incarnation before us in the simplest and clearest method. So much so, that the written word is quickened into an actual life of CHRIST. The Word literally is made flesh, and dwells amongst us; first as a little child, then as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, then as a crucified, then as a risen, and last as an ascended LORD and SAVIOUR. And as the Old Testament as well as New testify of Him, the whole Scripture lives and moves, as it were, before our eyes in the Person of our LORD. The Word is not only with God, but is GOD. We behold His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the FATHER, full of grace and truth.

Nor is this all; the same inspired Word rises up into holy sacraments, as well as holy seasons. Both Baptism and the LORD's Supper not only set CHRIST before us as our great Head, but they show how every Christian is incorporated and knit together in Him. Other ordinances, too, especially the order of Holy Matrimony, signify and represent unto us the union betwixt CHRIST and His Church. Thus, through the right instruction in Scripture, the Word becomes a living CHRIST to us; and we, too,

* George Herbert's "Elixir."

out of the same holy Word, become living members of Him: we live, and move, and have our being in Him.

Again, there is a line of sacraments and ordinances all issuing out of true Scriptural instruction, reaching from the cradle to the grave, and guiding and guarding us, step by step, from the one to the other, and even beyond. This line begins with the infant in holy Baptism, goes on to the boy and girl in the Catechism, attends the youth in Confirmation, is the bread of life to the adult, and continues to be so, down to old age and death, in holy Communion. Nor do we lose our clue there; it conducts our bodies to the grave, in the office for the burial of the dead, which pronounces over the faithful the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.

Here, again, is another pathway of religious instruction, and is like the path of the just, shining more and more upon us unto the perfect day. And though the more learned must study the original languages, and the abstruser parts of theology, yet none can safely neglect this plain method of the Church, which is historical, doctrinal, and practical. Nay, more-CHRIST Himself, as I have shown, becomes the Word, and by the same written Word we also become living members of Him. By neglect of this system, which should be not only the subject of sermons, but of that kind of cate chising which, though addressed to the children, instructs the whole congregation, I say, from the neglect of this system on the part of the higher orders, many a charity scholar of our national schools will pass a better scriptural examination for a prize reward, than our students at the universities for a learned degree.

By neglect of the Church's method, too, we lose that valuable feeling" association;" a feeling which softens and subdues the pride of intellect, and, more than any other feeling, connects the head and the heart together. It brings down the aspiring attainments of the one to the humbler, and holier, and wiser meditations of the other. What blessed bonds, what mysterious links did the name-the thought of the old parish, pastoral, paternal, and maternal Church-fasten round her obedient scholars! The font, the altar and the aisle; the very spot where once he stood to be catechised; the encouraging look and word of the Pastor, and his own shy reserve and reverence; the cautious praise of parents on the way homewards; how did all these binding associations of Church instruction follow the wild wanderer with burning, bitter, yet sweet thoughts of home and of heaven! How did they recal the prodigal back to his FATHER in heaven, and his father on earth, in unfeigned repentance! How did it bring out all that was human and divine -in other words, the words of the text, how did it put on CHRIST, and spread it all over the character of English Churchmen.

Alas! this is not so now. We have forsaken both the Scriptures, and the Church method of teaching them. Religion is picked up in