present themselves again and again to our consideration; but the season of youth once past, the age of education once neglected, return no more; and with whatever attainments of useful knowledge the present race shall pass from youth into manhood, (that is, in the humbler sphere of life,) with those they must be content to wear away and end their days. As to religious instruction, if they shall have learned no good, nature and example will unquestionably have taught them much ill: thus, therefore, by the neglect or attention of the present age may that which is forthcoming into action be deeply tainted, or radically improved.

3. And let it not be supposed that the more affluent have no interest in these considerations: they must have children to leave behind them, of the same age with those who now solicit your bounty: and as you would bequeath to your offspring clear titles and unencumbered property, in preference to contested claims and burthened estates, it is of equal importance to the comfort and even stability of their future condition, whether you leave them in the midst

of a generation fierce and untractable through vice and ignorance, or surrounded by a docile, industrious, virtuous society of fellow-creatures and fellow-Christians. It is not here meant, that, of all those to whom religious and useful instruction may have been imparted in their youth, none will hereafter fall away but when such is unhappily the case, how is the offender to be advised, how is he to be reclaimed, if his mind has no early principles to which it can recur, if he is unacquainted with the maxims of morality, and the doctrines of religion? To what are those who would counsel him from the error of his ways to appeal for his conviction and reproof? They may tell him of the danger of his course, and the impending vengeance of the laws; and the delinquent, even while he seems to listen, is but meditating arts of delusion and stratagems of escape. It is only the doctrine of Christianity, it is only the belief of an omnipresent and all-seeing God, and of an atoning Redeemer, that leaves vice without refuge except in amendment, wickedness without hope but in repentance. And

as this doctrine is not to be snatched intuitively, it must be taught with diligence and instilled with perseverance at a time when the mind is most open to receive impressions; that is, in youth: so that, inseparably adhering in after-life, when the reason is expanded, and combining, as it then will, the warmth of sentiment with the clearness of conviction, it may obtain an acknowledged if not an undisturbed dominion over those who profess it. However they may unfortunately wander in other regions overrun with vice and pregnant with danger, they will still look to religion as the home and rest of their souls. The remonstrances of their friends or pastors, the suggestions of their own consciences, and above all the calamities they must meet with in the world, will oblige them to turn their eyes and thoughts to the lessons of their early years: Whom," saith the prophet Isaiah, "shall he teach knowledge, and whom "shall he make to understand doctrine ? "Them that are weaned from the milk, and "drawn from the breasts. For precept upon precept, precept upon pre

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cept, line upon line, line upon line:... this "is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing." Other hope and comfort they can have none, save in religion.

These, therefore, are among the advantages which under God's blessing may be expected to result from the communication of early instruction to the children of humbler classes of society. By their improvement all will improve. In relation to the particular institution for which I am pleading, there is but little to add to the general observations above made. Of the utility and excellence of the system of education, or at least of the general conviction of its excellence, one proof among many others is to be found in the disputes which have arisen, and the contending claims which have been advanced, for the merit of originating it. With these disputes we have here no concern. Suffice it to say, that the most approved plan has been adopted, and is pursued.

Isaiah xxviii. 9-12.

The chief object now in view is to increase, to the same number as the boys, the number of children of the other sex; of that sex whose errors produce the most fatal and melancholy effects upon their own happiness, and whose virtues are supposed to have the most extensive influence upon that of society; their situation as mothers giving them the first possession of the infant mind and affections. To them, therefore, early instruction and pious principles are peculiarly necessary. The regular bounty of those also, whom their proximity may appear to render most interested in the success of this institution, will be adequate to the regular discharge of the undertaking. It is only to overcome the dif ficulty of an incipient establishment that extraneous aid is required: for the chief expense once liquidated is of a nature to recur no more; I mean that for the completion of the building in which the children are taught; it is the little ark placed by the river's brink, which is to preserve not the persons of the infant race from destruction, but their morals and principles

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