FAMILIAR SURVEY Or THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, AND OF HISTORY AS CONNECTED -WITH THE INTRODUCTION Of CHRISTIANITY. AND WITH ITS PROGRESS TO THE PRESENT TIME. V INTENDED PRIMARILY FOR THE USE OF YOUNG PERSONS OF EITHER SEX, DUBLIN = primes op JHiUtam porter, FOR W. WATSON AND SON, G. BURNET, P. WOGAN, W. PORTER, B. DORNiN, 1800/ TO THE REVERIND BENJAMIN HEATH, D. D. FELLOW OF ETON COLLEGE, ETO, DEAR SIR, IF I venture to assert that more than customary attention might advantageously be allotted to the inculcation of Christian principles and knowledge on the yOuth of this country; let me not be thought desirous of loading their instructors with harsh and indiscriminate censure. My own personal experience might lead me to a more equitable conclusion. Nearly six of the earlier years of my education were consigned to the care of a clergyman (æ); whose life exemplified the religious lessons, which he endeavoured to impress on his pupils. The years intervening between A 2 private (a) The Rev. John Pickering, of Mackwortb, near Derby. private tuition and the university were passed at the very eminent public school (b), over which you then presided. I recollect with pleasure that the head class, which was under your immediate superintendence, was regularly occupied during one morning in the common days of the week in the study of some book of a religious nature. Nor was this the only effort pointed to the fame end in the conduct of the school. But Lfear that many young persons, if summoned from seminaries of repute to a public examination, would give a better account of the fabled wanderings of Ulysses and Æneas than of the heaven-directed journeyings of Moses and Saint Paul; and would display a more intimate acquaintance with the fortunes of Athens and Rome, than with the historical progress of a religion designed to be their supreme comfort and guide thro* life, and the means of acquiring eternal happiness. The principal fault, when faults exist, is not in the preceptor, but in the parent. The former is to water the plant; the latter must sow the feed. But how often does the parent limit his concern for the best interests of his children to the decorum of mere morals: without impressing on their minds, perhaps without feeling on his own, a sirm and habitual conviction, that there is no stable foundation on which morality can rest except a Christian fear and love of God! How often does the parent expend (b) At Harrow on the Hill'. |
