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membrance of your kindness and affection: I have indeed received from you and

maternal tenderness, and had I not been deprived of the society of my beloved pårents, I am certain that my happiness could not have been more perfect than during the last nine years of my life it has been. Far different is my case to that of girls who quit places of instruction as they would the walls of a prison; this house has not been to met only a scene of improvement, but of enjoyment; and I shall quit it with unaffected sorrow. I feel assured that I have frequently, by my conduct, occasioned you much uneasiness; but I trust. I can with truth affirm that whatever I have done amiss, has not been premeditated, has not proceeded from ingratitude, but from thoughtlessness; but you do not store your memory with the faults of your pupils; I well know that they are pardoned almost as soon as committed, therefore believe me that I am sincerely grieved for every painful moment you have suffered on my account.

"What I have written has proceeded from the heart, without any embellishment, and as such I hope you will receive it. When far removed from you, you and will be remembered with gratitude, by your sincerely dutiful and affectionate pupil."

CHAP. XV.

ON religious instruction, thoughts have been interspersed through the preceding chapter: a few more are now offered, and I am permitted to introduce some reflections on the subject by another hand, which will succeed my own.

It appears strange that people should fill the minds of children with speculative notions on religion, which they cannot possibly understand, and which, indeed, they probably do not understand themselves, and do not teach the simple obvious truths placed before them in the Bible. This is as if they were to lead them into a dark intricate

road, in which thousands have been bewildered, when a beautiful, and plain, and easy path is before them, where they may walk with security and delight: "the way, faring man, though a stranger, need not err therein."

"Objections are made to teaching piety to children. Parents will judge for them selves; but in forming a judgment, they might enquire whether they who do not remember their Creator in the days of their youth, be ever likely to remember him: they might enquire what this meaneth: 'Suffer little children to come unto me:' and what this promise meaneth, they that seek me early shall find me.”*

I

Children should be taught the perform ance of religious duties as a pleasure, and a privilege; and not be compelled to these,

⚫ Charters.

as to a task: neither should parents and teachers terrify the young into being religious, by représenting, as I fear is too often done, the dreadful punishments to which the guilty are liable... It has been said, "forced believers believe nothing." Gloom and rigidity in conveying religious instruction, may render the mind timid and feeble, or inspire a hatred of religion altogether, Some of the greatest profligates may have been among those who were educated in the severest discipline. Terror is a misérable leader: how can we love him of whom we are afraid?

A friend whom I remember with reverence, was educated in childhood by a rigid parent: she has told me that this parent obliged her every night to go into a dark room to say her prayers; and allotted a cer tain time for the performance of this duty, I believe half an hour. Brought up in a country place in the northern part of our kingdom, and more than half a century