avoid such an error, let them only contemplate sedately the difference between learning and wisdom, and they will soon, not only pause, but pursue a more excellent way.

Learning is good in its own place; but it should not be forgotten, that it is simply a collection of the excellencies of others laid up in the memory. Shallow draughts, the too common result of such a race after accomplishments, only intoxicate; and even when learning is pursued to a height, it is but a poor acquirement compared with wisdom. This is the calm and regular government of the soul, leading its possessor to observe true measures, and suitable decorum in words, in thought, and in action. Learning will civilize, and polish, and refine, but of itself cannot moralize or sweeten the temper, or abate resentment. On the contrary, by itself, it sets a keener edge upon the calamities of life, and renders the man or the woman impatient and peevish, if their merits are not appreciated, as their vanity suggests they should be. In the whole world there is perhaps no man so much alive to misery, and in fact so miserable, as a profligate scholar, while his profligacy may, in most cases, be traced, if not to the example, yet to the neglect of his Parents. They observed not, or would not observe, the difference between learning and wisdom. They gave him the one, and paid for it too, frequently saying, that they felt resolved to spare no expense in giving him a good education;' but they neglected to labour in their own appropriate sphere to communicate and instil the other.

Learning alone is captious and arrogant, indiscreet and ill-mannered, presumptuous and addicted to dis

pute. Wisdom is modest and unpretending, gentle and peaceable, full of respect for inferiors as well as superiors, and full of respect for all. Learning alone, also, is not only affected and full of pretence, but it consists in talk, rather than in action; while wisdom is active and efficacious; manages and governs; is never troublesome; and when it seems so, is never out of time or place. If, then, there is such a superiority in wisdom, patiently acquired at the side of the household fire, over merely acquired knowledge, let Parents beware of their Child being brought up to be a mere scholar.

It is certainly a curious circumstance to see these two so often separated-a learned man without wisdom, and a wise man with but little learning; but this is a separation which might most frequently, and with great ease, be traced to the Parents of these men. Since wisdom, therefore, is not taught at any school, and the wisdom of which I speak cannot there be infused, it remains for Parents alone to turn out such men and women into the world as have a measure of both in union. They may pay for learning, but they must teach wisdom. At all events no one else will-no one can. It is not the teacher's business, in general, but it is the Parent's, universally, to say-" Wisdom is the principal thing: my son, get wisdom; and with all thy getting, get understanding." When the boy reads, and acquits himself well, the teacher may indeed say-" I taught the boy," but it remains for the Father or the Mother to add, with far different feelings, "I have taught him in the way of wisdom, and I led him in right paths. Often, often have I said- Be not wise in thine own eyes: trust

in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not to thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct thy paths.'

Prudence, too, or wisdom applied to practice, or the practice of acting with uprightness, it is your province to teach; for though the inconstancy and uncertainty of all sublunary things render it a difficult acquirement, still there is such an excellency, and one of great value. Though "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor yet riches to men of understanding," still there is an order and succession in human events, which render prudence of essential moment. There is a time, and there is a manner too, in human things: hence the wise man's heart is said to "discern both time and judgment.”

Truth and Sincerity.-Telling the truth, upon all occasions, can only result from loving it; but as no one.can be expected to see the beauty, as well as the justice of truth and uprightness, between man and man, or child and child, except he be instructed in and by the truth or word of God; so upon you, in a special and peculiar degree, must depend the means by which alone your Children are to be possessed of this conscientious and willing regard, to the dispositions of sincerity or integrity, in all they say or do. The understanding of these fundamental truths of Christianity, therefore, to which I have adverted, however much they have been overlooked or disdained, will be found, I am persuaded, the seed, and the only security of that sincerity and regard for truth, on all occasions, which you desire to infuse. I trust you know Him who "desireth truth in the

inward parts," and who alone can create in your dear Children that spirit in which "there is no guile.” He alone "in the hidden part" can make them to know wisdom; and to him therefore must you ever look: for not only is "understanding a well-spring of life to him that hath it," and the "wise in heart called prudent," but "the heart of the wise teacheth his mouth, and addeth learning," and sincerity and truth" to his lips."

There is one melancholy reason for you, as Parents, paying a vigilant regard to truth and accuracy in the most trifling occurrences of life yourselves; that is the degree of falsehood and mistake which exist in the world. "Nothing but experience," said Dr Johnson, "could evince the frequency of false information, or enable any man to conceive that so many groundless reports should be propagated, as every man of eminence may hear of himself. Some men relate what they think as what they know; some men of confused memories and habitual inaccuracy, ascribe to one man what belongs to another; and some talk on without thought or care. A few men are sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards innocently diffused by successive relaters." In the training of Children, therefore, a strict attention, on the part of Parents, to truth, even in the most minute particulars, is of the first importance. "Accustom your Children," said the same author,

constantly to this; if a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end." But, said a lady at the table, "little varia

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tions in narrative must happen a thousand times aday, if one is not perpetually watching." Well, madam," he replied, " and you ought to be perpetually watching. It is more from carelessness about truth, than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world."

Should you, then, only guard yourselves, habitually, against inaccuracy and exaggeration, you will also encourage your Children uniformly to tell the truth, whether for or against themselves. To assist you in promoting this, you will find in the Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testaments, most powerful assistance. See Moses frankly and openly leaving it upon record, not only that his brother had been verging towards idolatry, and his two nephews struck dead, but that he himself was a man "slow of speech;" Isaiah, that he was a man of unclean lips ;" Jeremiah, that "he could not speak, for he was a child;" Amos, as artlessly telling, that he "was no prophet, neither a prophet's son, but an herdman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit, when the Lord took him as he followed the flock, and said to him, Go prophesy unto my people Israel."

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Point your Children to such instances in the New Testament, as that of Matthew telling us himself, what the other evangelists have not, that he had been a publican," which in those days was often nothing short of an extortioner. Shew them, that when the disciples, all united, could not cure a man, they tell us, and Matthew, one of themselves, must tell us also the cause their unbelief; that they all agree in leaving upon record their ambitious contest for superiority, as to which of themselves should be the

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