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THE

MONTHLY RELIGIOUS MAGAZINE

AND

Endependent Journal.

PROF. F. D. HUNTINGTON, D.D., EDITOR.

Single copies

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TERMS.

$3.50 a year, or $ 3.00, if paid in advance.
1.75 half-year, in advance.

Six copies to one address for 15.00, payment in advance.
Twelve

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25.00,

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N. B. Clergymen furnished with two copies for $5.00. Any person procuring five subscribers shall receive a sixth copy gratis.

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No subscription discontinued until all arrearages are paid. New subscribers can commence from the beginning of a volume,- January or July, and be furnished with the back numbers accordingly.

For sale, complete sets of the work from the commencement, neatly bound, in eighteen volumes. Subscribers furnished with the back volumes in exchange for the numbers, by paying the cost of binding.

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CAMBRIDGE: METCALF AND COMPANY, PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.

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JOB XXviii. 28: — " "Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding."

RELIGION is true wisdom; virtue, to which religion leads, is the best proof of a good understanding. These truths are introduced in the passage before us with peculiar solemnity. After describing the wonders achieved by man, in searching out the treasures that are hidden in the earth, the inquiry is made for a treasure far more valuable than gold or silver or precious stones. "Where shall wisdom be found, and where is the place of understanding?" For this treasure, the miner would penetrate the earth in vain, — the diver plunge in vain to the depths where pearls are found. "The depth saith, It is not in me; and the sea saith, It is not with me." From the universal denial of created nature, the inquirer turns to nature's Divine Author. He alone, who "looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven," he alone hath "searched it out. And unto man

* A lecture delivered before the Derby Academy, Hingham, at its Anniversary, May 19th, 1858, by Rev. S. G. BULFINCH.

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he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding."

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Education, with the advantages it possesses in our day, leads its young votaries in ways as strange and as daring as those described in the earlier part of this eloquent passage, which portrays the researches of adventurous man. The pupil penetrates, for the hidden treasure of knowledge and of thought, to depths unimagined by the wisest in the days of Job. However lofty the strains of poetry in the book that records that ancient sage's experience, however sublime its philosophy, however divine its teaching respecting the ways of Providence, the three thousand years that have elapsed since its composition have brought truths to light, and made them the common theme of our children's school-day exercises, which were unknown to Job, and entered not into the intellectual treasures of Solomon. But to one great question the answer is the same now as it was then. Even the flood of light granted to us in the revelation of our Saviour alters not essentially that reply. To the inquiry, where shall wisdom be found, human science, as of old, can make no satisfactory return; and the new revelation joins with that of the elder times in declaring, “The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding."

Religious instruction claims a place superior to instruction of all other kinds. Others may impart knowledge, this alone gives wisdom. We read scarce anything in the Bible of schools, and no precepts to bring up children in the knowledge of languages, of accomplishments, or of science. But we do read that Moses said to the Israelites, "These words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." We do read that an Apostle gave command to Christian fathers, to "bring" their

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children "up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Under the old law, then, and under the new, is religious instruction more insisted on than secular. And sound reason acquiesces in the distinction. Secular education is important, but instruction in religion and virtue is indispensable. The one is of value, as contributing to add to life the charms of comfort and refinement; but the other is necessary to prevent life from being utterly perverted from its proper objects, and spent in wretchedness and vice, instead of happy preparation for still greater happiness beyond.

In no portion of the world have the interests of education received more careful attention than in New England. Colleges and professional schools prepare the more advanced of our young men for competition on equal terms with the learning and the science of Europe; academies founded by the munificence of the past stand at intervals through the land, pledged by their past fame and their peculiar advantages to be foremost in the attainment of all true excellence; private schools, in wide variety, invite the patronage which the faithfulness of their teachers may fairly claim; while, noblest of all, our public school system, wisely arranged and generously sustained, unites in its support the disciples of every creed, and offers, with republican impartiality, to rich and poor alike, the invaluable blessing of a good education.

And yet an intelligent stranger, coming to us from beyond the Atlantic, might notice with surprise one characteristic, generally observable in our schools, whether public, endowed, or sustained by private energy. It is the subordinate place given to that instruction which we have just seen to be the most important of all. The stranger is not ignorant, we will suppose, of that truth which we have diligently kept in the world's memory, that this portion of our country was settled by religious men, who sought here, beyond all other good, "freedom to worship God," according to the dictates of their own consciences. If he has previously travelled in

Spain, he has seen, in what schools that benighted country could boast, the pupils diligently instructed in the doctrines and habituated to the forms of the Roman Catholic Church. If he has visited Sweden or Prussia, he has heard the scholars repeating the Augsburg Confession, the formula of doctrine of the Lutheran Church. If he has been in England, he has met in most schools the Church Catechism, and in the rest the religious manuals of the various dissenting sects. How strange, he says to himself, that this region, this steady, religious New England, should, in its system of school instruction, neglect a duty which every other country fulfils! Is this the result of the highest civilization, of the noblest freedom, of the most spiritual interpretation of Christianity?

I know that the answer-and almost an indignant one -is on every lip. The stranger who should express such thoughts would be met with a denial of the statement that religious instruction was neglected in our schools, and by an explanation of the causes which have led to its receiving less attention than in the seminaries of other countries. * You would tell him that in most schools among us some portion of Scripture is daily read, and that in many a prayer is offered by the teacher; that in some cases the children joined in repeating the Lord's Prayer. You would add, that, though it might be desirable to do still more in a cause so important, it was in our country impossible, on account of the number of religious denominations among us, each jealous of any encroachment on its rights. It would be further said, that the omission was supplied by other means; that the Christian nurture of the young was not neglected among us, but only transferred from the common school to the home, the church, and especially to the Sunday school.

Let us give these statements all the weight they can justly claim. We admit the value of the Scriptural reading and prayer, by one or both of which the daily occupations

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