as do the believers in the church's theory, that the care of the seed of a new life, planted in the child by baptism, is the office of education.

II. PELAGIAN PEDAGOGY.

I have mentioned Rousseau. We have learned to consider him the true representative of that system of pedagogy which I shall, for brevity, call Pelagian-or even hyper-Pelagian. "Every thing is good," begins "Emile,” “ 'as it comes from the hands of the Creator; every thing degenerates, in the hands of men." These words he uses, not of Adam before the fall, but of every new-born son of Adam, born of sinful seed. And he says, in another place, "The fundamental principle of all morals, upon which I have proceeded in all my writings, and have developed in Emile as clearly as I could, is, that man is by nature good, a lover of justice and order; that no inborn perverseness exists in the human heart, and that the first impulses of nature are always right."

Thus he distinctly denies original sin, and would disprove the words, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of heaven." While the Christian teacher seeks for reformation, for the destruction of the old man, and the quickening and growth of the new, Rousseau recognizes only one, the old man, whom he himself calls the "natural man." Him he would develop and watch over; and would dress him out for baptism with borrowed Christian adornments, although he ignores Christianity, and congratulates himself on the fact that his child of nature belongs to no religion and no church.

We have seen to what absurd conclusions Rousseau was pushed by this unchristian premiss; to what unnatural views, by his constant reference to nature; to what sophistries, by his attempt to show that all wickedness is first implanted in the child, originally as pure as an angel, by adult persons. Luther's sound and healthy pedagogy is precisely the opposite of Rousseau's. The comparison of the two must convince any one that the division of educators into Pelagian and anti-Pelagian is a fundamental one, and of the greatest practical importance.

RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE IMAGE OF GOD. HUMAN TRAINING.

Christ said, "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." Thus he places before us the very highest ideal; and reminds us of that lost paradise where man retained the uninjured image of his prototype. And thus we take courage to "press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

Christian training seeks the re-establishment of the image of God,

by raising up and faithfully guarding the new man, and by the death of the old. The process of the re-establishment is one both of building up and of destroying; positive and negative; and this in relation to

a. Holiness and love.

b. Wisdom.

c. Power and creative energy.

IV. EVIL TRAINING.

While a right training, such as is pleasing to God, seeks such a re-establishment of the image of God in man, that the new and heavenly man shall become a power within him, and the old man shall die, there is still, on the other hand, a false and devilish training,* a miseducation, a caricature of education, which is not satisfied with our inborn sins, but which also proceeds to destroy the young by naturalizing bad instincts in them, or even by a methodical course of corruption. The ideal objects of this miseducation are to destroy the seed of grace in the new man, in the child, and, on the other hand, to encourage and protect the old man, the man of sin, until he shall rule, alone and uncontrolled.

Fearful evils grow out of such a state of things. All manner of warnings away from this destructive path should be given; and to this end we should give diligent attention to discipline in the Lord, to delay, to education, and to miseducation.

V. (a.) RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF HOLINESS AND LOVE. CHRISTIAN ETHICAL

TRAINING.

Man fell, from pride; because he would be not merely like his Maker, but equal to him, instead of obeying him in childlike love. In the place of love of God, there thenceforth prevailed in him a delusive self-conceit and self-love; and, in order that he might not thus go entirely to ruin, God reserved for himself a place in him, by a conscience, powerfully corroborated by the death of the wicked. This was man's dowry, when he was driven out of Paradise; his protecting angel, powerful against his original sinfulness, who ever, against his own will, kept him humble in the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom; and was his inward taskmaster, to drive him to Christ. Afterward, the law was put over him, as a severer taskmaster; to awaken his sleeping conscience, and to direct him when going astray.t

In the fullness of time appeared Christ, to reconcile fallen man to

"We are justly given over to that ancient wicked one, the master of death, because he has persuaded our will into the similitude of his will, which is not established in thy truth."— Augustine's Confessions," vii., 21.

† Romans, ii., 14-17.

God, and to re-establish the kingdom of childlike obedience and love.

The explanation of each of the ten commandments, in the smaller Lutheran catechism, begins with the words, "We must fear and love God." This is to awaken the conscience of the child, and to impress upon him the fear of God; but love is joined with fear. In these two words are contained the law and the gospel, the Old and New Testament presentations of the commandments. Conscience and the law continually remind sinful man of God's holiness and justice, and drive him to repentance. But the most anguished conscience will find peace in looking to the forgiving love of Christ; in faith in him who beareth the sins of the world.

The Holy Scriptures repeatedly point us to the holiness, justice, and love of God as our model. "Be ye holy, saith the Lord, as I am holy." "Be merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful." "Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." But Christ includes all in the words Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect."

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Thus, we repeat, He admonishes men to return to God; to reestablish their original likeness to him; and He, who is "the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person," the beginner of our faith, as he will be the finisher of it, will not neglect the work of his hands. The hour of his death was the hour of the birth of a new world, victorious over sin and death, loving and wellpleasing to God. After His return to his Father, he sent us the Holy Ghost, to complete the work which he had begun in the hearts of men, and to extend the kingdom of God over the whole earth. He, the educator of the human race, is the master of all teachers; he must guide them in all truth, must bless their labors, and teach them to pray. Only under his guidance can a Christian ethical training prosper, the image of God be renewed in the child, holiness and love planted in his heart, and wickedness and unlovingness rooted out.

VI. ANTI-CHRISTIAN AND IMMORAL MISEDUCATION.

But who can enumerate the manifold offences of parents and teachers, against the rules of a Christian ethical training?

The conscience of children is laid asleep instead of being awakened, and sins are treated as pardonable weaknesses.

In the place of a godly conscience is even planted a lying spirit; a devil's voice is placed in the hearts of the children. Thus, there is held up before them, as the highest object of attainment, not acceptance with God, but the false and deceiving glitter of honor among men; notwithstanding the warning voice of the Lord, "How can ye

believe, which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor which cometh from God only?" How often must we hear it said, What will people say? Foolish parents refer their children to "people" as the highest tribunal; to the customs of the multitude who are walking on the broad road which leadeth to destruction; instead of early impressing upon them the bold expression of the apostle, "For what have I to do to judge them also that are without?"

A similar practice is that of teaching children to put on a hypocritical behavior before people, to assume rootless and lifeless pharisaic virtues, such as will pass current with those who do not look for any ethical basis of action, and with whom the show will pass for the substance.

If we follow the life of the fleshly minded, back to their youth, we shall very often discover many serious faults in their parents. The first seeds of the dominion of the flesh in them were often planted either by the unjustifiable neglect of their parents or by actual positive misleading. Who can describe the influence upon a child's soul of vile loose dances, of vulgar plays, of reading bad romances? How often have cards and loto during childhood originated the subsequent fury for gaming; and how often have deluded parents taught these dangerous games to their children!

Many things might be said of the bad examples set before children by the thoughtless and even wicked remarks which they hear grown persons make. But enough has been said to explain the meaning of the term "anti-Christian, immoral miseducation."

VII.

RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF WISDOM.

INTELLECTUAL TRAINING.

WRONG WAYS.

With sin is closely allied error; deviation from true ways. Adam's naming of the beasts in Paradise indicates the profound and godlike power of mental penetration which he possessed before the fall. For it is said that, as the man named them, "that was the name thereof." This divine approbation of Adam's nomenclature showed that the names were competent to express the natures of the various animals; and would certainly not have been bestowed upon the names which modern science has arbitrarily invented and bestowed on them.

But the restoration of this primitive innocent wisdom is an object to be sought after. It is the object of all intellectual training; and is intended to destroy error, and lead to the real truth; just as it is the office of Christian ethical training to destroy sin, and to lead to virtue by faith.

As conscience may be considered a correlative of original sin, so *The utmost reverence is due to the young; if you are meditating any thing vile, disregard not their tender age." How many Christians does Juvenal put to shame!

the reason may be considered a correlative of original error; as an intellectual conscience; an organ of intellectual self-knowledge.

Defenders of Christianity have said much against the reason; and quite as much might be said against the conscience. We have seen that in men, instead of the true conscience, the voice of God, there may enter a false conscience, the voice of the devil, betraying into all evil. In like manner the reason may become false, especially through pride. When not thus distorted, it represents God's truth in man, as the conscience does God's holiness and justice.

"The reason," says Hamann, "is holy, right, and good; but it can produce nothing except a conviction of the universality of sinful ignorance." Thus, the right reason will make us humble; and points sinful, ignorant man to a holy and all-wise God. Through an unholy, wrong, and wicked reason, on the contrary, comes, on one hand, the boundless presumptuousness of pretending to know absolutely, to recognize truth as God does; or, on the other hand, a doubt of all recognition of truth, a proud and cold acataleptic condition. The good and holy reason of a Christian applies itself, under the Holy Ghost, to that learning which guides into all truth. In this schoolthe school of humility-it learns to know its intellectual limits; and the boundaries between the regions of faith and of sight. It recognizes the fact that, since the fall, man has been in the "region of dissimilitude," and distinguishes between that which is given him to know and that which is the subject of faith; those incomprehensible mysteries whose essence God alone understands, because he is that

essence.

Absolute truth, as it is in God, is just as inaccessible to man, as long as he is imprisoned within his earthly tabernacle, as is absolute holiness. He who asserts that he possesses the absolute truth must also mean that he is absolutely and completely holy; and armed with divine power.* "Knowledge, and power, and holiness are identical." A strife for wisdom, analogous with the strife for holiness, lasts every man his lifetime, in the pursuit after truth.

There is also an intellectual miseducation, analogous to the ethical one, in men perverted and turned away from God. Puffed up with a conceit of wisdom, they are deceived as to the limits of it. They also mistake the giver of all knowledge; do not ask him for wisdom; do not thank him for the intellect which he has given them; for they think all knowledge the fruit of the powers of their own minds. But their labor, which is not performed in God, which seeks not the

Not that every truth is merely apparent, and is uncertain; but that every truth contains something entirely comprehensible, and at the same time something entirely incomprehensi ble. This is true even of the profoundest essence of mathematical truth-of its ultimate base. See the chapter entitled "Mysteriously Revealed."