that hobgoblins are getting out of fashion, being afraid of being caught by the schoolmaster, we should not be surprised to hear of honest matrons charming their infants to sleep by telling them, not "the old gentleman is coming," but "the Socinians will have you." A moral may be extracted from mirth, and the moral of our story is, that Unitarians must labor to enlighten the minds of the ignorant, and to check the misrepresentations of the interested. The latter is the chief point; for while the pulpit and the press are replete with injurious statements, Unitarians cannot secure the attention, much less the favorable regards, of the people.

1

A DANGER INCIDENT TO SUNDAY SCHOOLS.

We have always been the advocates of well-conducted Sunday schools. In large and populous places, in particular, where the children of the poorer classes are often left to grow up in ignorance and idleness, without a knowledge of God and their duty, we have thought that these seminaries could not fail to be eminently useful. And in all cases where parents neglect to bring up their offspring in "the nurture and admonition of the Lord," we deem it an act of christian benevolence in the individual who endeavors to supply, however inadequately, this defect.

We have, however, never been blind to one unhappy consequence of Sunday school instruction. We fear that the opinion of many excellent men in our community is but too well founded, viz. that it is the tendency of

per

Sunday schools to relieve parents from the sense of sonal obligation and responsibleness in the religious education of their children. The parent who finds excellent and well qualified persons willing and eager to assume the laborious office of imparting religious principles to his little family, will be tempted not merely to share with them this solemn duty, but to transfer it entirely into their hands. This, we say, is the danger; and it ought to be considered and carefully guarded against. These institutions are becoming so deservedly popular, that we are liable to close our eyes to the reality and extent of the evil alluded to. Formerly it was the custom for the little ones on the Sabbath, to gather round the knees of their parent, and to catch the accents of piety and holy love, as they fell warm from a mother's lips, doubly endeared to their young hearts by the sweet tones of that familiar voice. But now the thing is changed; and children are sent away from the fireside and the domestic altar to hear lessons of duty from the lips of the stranger. This thing ought not so to be. The christian parent should not be willing to devolve upon another that sacred and delightful office which he, and he alone, can adequately and successfully discharge. Imperative necessity alone should reconcile him to this unnatural alienation of duty.

Do not say that few parents are competent to impart religious instruction to their children. However it may be elsewhere, we cannot admit that this is generally true in our community. If it were, it would be high time for the ministers of the gospel to arouse themselves, and to remind the people of their charge, that it was their bounden duty to qualify themselves to be the religious 3*

VOL. IV.NO. I.

instructers of their offspring. But the objection, we conceive, proceeds upon a false presumption. It implies that much learning and information are requisite in order to bring up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We allow that it would be so, were the object in view to make them ingenious critics or skilful dogmatists. But that surely is not the object. The simple purpose of religious education, we conceive, is, to impress early upon their susceptible minds the grand, simple, undisputed principles of piety and virtue; to cherish in their hearts a sense of the providence and goodness of their heavenly Father; to give them just and confiding views of the divine character; and to win them to a reverence and love of their great Benefactor. To do this, requires no great acquisitions in theological learning. All those who attend our churches are continually hearing those views of the divine character and attributes illustrated, which it is desirable should be first impressed upon the infant mind. Besides, every parent has the Bible, the teachings of Jesus, his life, character and example; delightful and inexhaustible themes of religious instruction. Every parent can understand the views of God, and the great lessons of duty which the Saviour taught, and he can impart them to his offspring. Perhaps he may not be able to do it in the precise language of technical theology; but he can clothe his own views and impressions in those simple and affectionate terms which his children can understand. The great object should be not to fill the mind with facts and speculations, but to touch the heart, to win the affections to God and holiness, to plant just sentiments and good principles in the soul. A New England mother can do this as well, ay, and far better than the accomplished

scholar or the professed theologian. There is a charm in a mother's voice to win little hearts to God, which the zealous minister of Christ would part with much of his learning to possess. Let it not then be said, by any who value the simplicity of the gospel, that christian parents cannot explain it to their children.

But it will be said, that they neglect this duty, even if they are competent to discharge it. We fear that this is too much the case. It is a serious evil, and ought to be remedied. Let the minister, then, in the pulpit, and in the family, remind parents of this important duty. Let him exhort, encourage and aid them in its performance. But let him be careful how he supplies them with an opportunity and excuse for evading this duty, and of ultimately relieving themselves from it entirely. Let parents be affectionately entreated never to put aside this delightful office, and permit the Sunday school to deprive them of a most interesting and valuable employment of their Sabbath hours.

The danger now alluded to, we find, has presented itself to other minds as well as our own. Dr Channing, in his address at the last annual meeting of the Boston Sunday School Society, observed, that "the only objection which had been made to Sunday schools, that deserved consideration, was this-that they take off a sense of responsibility, and supersede parental exertions. Now this evil, if it existed, was a great one. Nothing could take the place of parental instruction. And as far as the teacher gives parents the idea that he or she is a substitute for them, so far a great injury is done. *** They should keep in view the truth that God never places beings in relations to each other, without giving them strength

to perform the duties annexed to them. And you, [Sunday school teachers] with all your speculations, made ever so interesting by eloquence, must fail of producing that profound impression of the reality of virtue, and of God's care of it, that the practical example of a parent may produce. That mother, in the hovel of which we have heard, had done for her child more that fitted it for worship, in opening in its heart the fountain of love, than the most accurate information could do. We must take care that in our artificial arrangements, our societies and associations, we do not undervalue or interfere with the arrangements which God has made, but on the contrary, that we co-operate with, and aid them. Else all our efforts are vain."

Dr Flint, of Salem, in his excellent discourse on the Sabbath, published in the Liberal Preacher, in speaking of the duty of parents to impart religious instruction to their children, observes, "This is a part of domestic education which may not be devolved on strangers, and which, if not performed by parents, is not performed at all. Children may indeed acquire a religion of the head in a Sunday school; but for the religion of the heart, the child must drink it in with the accents that flow from the parental heart, as they fall from parental lips."

A PARENT.

FAITH.

THERE are several kinds of belief among those who come under the general appellation of Christians. Many hold to Christianity as they do to their estates, as a valuable