This side of the subject is not pleasing; let us look at the obverse. No moral maxim is sounder than that of the royal sage: "Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." The principles of virtue early implanted insure the future saint and hero. A thoroughly good character impressed upon youth cleaves to the man forever.
Exceptions, indeed, there may be—very saddening and disheartening exceptions. It does sometimes happen that those who seem at least to have been brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord subsequently decline from the way of wisdom and become vicious in their lives. But such cases are too rare to affect the rule. And in these instances, is it not likely that we are deceived often by appearances? May not the religious culture have been radically defective in its principle or culpably incomplete in its process? Was not the child committed to incompetent hands, that marred the character they should have made; or abandoned to the influence of an evil world, and exposed to the contagion of bad example, before his virtuous principles were sufficiently confirmed and fortified? An accurate knowledge of all the facts would no doubt develop some capital defect in the education; would show something essential omitted, or something of evil mingled with the good, some base alloy blended with the pure metal, some infant viper coiled unseen among the buddings and bloomings of spring.
But I have the confidence to affirm that apostasy from the principles of a good Christian education very seldom occurs—so seldom, indeed, that the instances might almost be pronounced anomalous. It is a maxim attested by general if not universal experience, that upon the qualities acquired in childhood depends the character of manhood and old age. Childhood is the period of docility and impressibility, when habits of thought and feeling are formed with the greatest facility; and such habits, once formed, are extremely difficult to destroy; and the good wrought in the soul at that tender age, growing with its growth and strengthening with its strength, is almost invariably retained to the latest hour of life.
Ordinarily, no doubt, we are guided more by habit than by reason. To walk in the old way is much easier than to strike out a new. In this respect, taste follows the same law as thought and action. If the child has formed a taste for virtue, the potent law of habit insures its perpetuity. The virtuous taste prompts to virtuous deeds, and the virtuous deeds confirm the virtuous taste. Thus, by a reflex action, virtue proves its own conservator. Daily the habit grows stronger and the motive more efficacious. Daily the heart is more and more fortified against the assaults of temptation. Daily the world loses something of its fascination, its false maxims something of their plausibility, its apologies and solicitations something of their persuasive power.
As with the body, so with the spirit. Habitual inaction enfeebles the faculties, and renders their occasional operation inefficient and fruitless. On the contrary, by habitual exercise one becomes capable of performing with ease what were otherwise laborious and difficult, if not quite impossible. Thus the young, accustomed to resist their evil passions, will afterward keep them in due control without any very strenuous struggle; and the seeds of a pure morality, sown in early life, will strike their roots deep into the soil, and spring up in perpetual blossom and fruitage. The person is thenceforth virtuous, not without effort, but certainly with less effort than if he had never accustomed himself to virtue. The habit of virtue has made virtue amiable, and her service becomes a labor of love, her yoke easy and her burden light.
In speaking thus of the power of habit, which has been called "a second nature," I would not exclude from the process of education the agency of divine grace, nor lose sight of it as a necessary factor to the best results. Divine grace, indeed, has much to do with the formation of the habit, and must co-operate with every agency employed in the work. Without divine grace, there is nothing wise, nothing strong, nothing holy; and after all the efforts of parents, pastors, teachers—however great or however small the measure of success attained—we lift our hands to Heaven and sing:—
"Thou all our works in us hast wrought,
Our good is all divine;
The praise of every virtuous thought
And righteous word is thine.
From thee, through Jesus, we receive
The power on thee to call;
In whom we are, and move, and live—
Our God, our all in all."
An infidel objected to sending his little daughter to the Sunday school, "because," said he, "they learn things there which they never forget." The infidel was a philosopher. Knowledge is indestructible. The fact or the principle once acquired is never lost. The soul's past thoughts, feelings, impressions, and operations, are its inalienable property. They are engraven upon an imperishable tablet, and no power can efface the record. Though some parts of our experience may be but dimly and vaguely remembered, and much that we have learned may seem to be irrevocably forgotten, yet the mind is in possession of a law which, when brought into action, will completely restore the entire train of its former phenomena. They are not dead, but sleeping; and we know not what event at some future day may be the trump of their resurrection. The seed that lies buried in the earth through the long and dreary winter will germinate in spring-time and fructify in summer. Therefore let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.
Christian parents! it is yours to begin at the cradle a work whose blessed influence shall extend beyond the tomb. By the principles you impart to your little ones, you insure the virtue and the Christianity of generations to come; you kindle lights to burn amidst the world's darkness when the faint glimmering of your own is gone; you adorn the living temple of the Lord with pillars of strength and beauty which shall challenge angelic admiration when all the colonnaded glories of earth's capitals are calcined by the fires of doom. To such an achievement, what are all the treasures of monarchs, and all the splendors of empire, and all the applause of heroism, and all the renown of authorship, and all the fascination of eloquence, and all the entrancing power of song?