suitably said for thy direction and advantage. Accept and improve what deserves thy notice; the rest excuse, and place to account of good-will to thee and the whole creation of God.

REFLECTIONS AND MAXIMS.

IGNORANCE.

Ir is admirable to consider how many millions of people come into and go out of the world, ignorant of themselves, and of the world they have lived in.

If one went to see Windsor-castle, or Hampton-court, it would be strange not to observe and remember the situation, the building, the gardens, fountains, &c., that make up the beauty and pleasure of such a seat. And yet few people know themselves: no, not their own bodies, the houses of their minds, the most curious structure in the world; a living, walking tabernacle; nor the world of which it was made, and out of which it is fed; which would be so much our benefit, as well as our pleasure, to know. We cannot doubt of this when we are told that the "invisible things of God are

brought to light by the things that are seen;" and consequently we read our duty in them, as often as we look upon them, to Him that is the great and wise author of them, if we look as we should do.

The world is certainly a great and stately volume of natural things, and may be not improperly styled the hieroglyphics of a better; but, alas, how very few leaves of it do we seriously turn over! This ought to be the subject of the education of our youth; who, at twenty, when they should be fit for business, know little or nothing of it.

EDUCATION.*

We are in pain to make them scholars, but not men; to talk, rather than to know; which is true canting.

* Great improvements have been made in books, and in the education of the young and rising generation, since the days of William Penn, and amongst the many who have exercised their ingenuity as well as benevolence in this way, Lindely Murray may be considered as standing pre-eminent, and although some

consider him not to have been so nicely particular, in point of

The first thing obvious to children is what is sensible; and that we make no part of their rudiments.

We press their memory too soon, and puzzle, strain, and load them with words and rules to know grammar and rhetoric, and a strange tongue or two, that it is ten to one may never be useful to them; leaving their natural genius to mechanical, and physical or natural knowledge uncultivated and neglected; which would be of exceeding use and pleasure to them through the whole course of their lives.

To be sure languages are not to be despised or neglected; but, things are still to be preferred.

Children had rather be making tools and instruments of play: shaping, drawing,

science still as the main object of this truly benevolent man seems to have been to imbue the young and tender mind with the love of virtue, in this we must acknowledge he has been truly successful, for there is hardly a region or a clime where his juvenile books are not to be found, and by which the present generation has been improved in virtue and piety.

framing, and building, &c., than getting some rules of propriety of speech by heart; and those also would follow with more judgment, and less trouble and time.

It were happy if we studied nature more in natural things; and acted according to nature whose rules are few, plain, and most reasonable.

Let us begin where she begins, go her pace, and close always where she ends, and we cannot miss of being good naturalists.

The creation would not be longer. a riddle to us. The heavens, earth, and waters, with their respective, various, and numerous inhabitants, their productions, natures, seasons, sympathies, and antipathies, their use, benefit, and pleasure, would be better understood by us; and an eternal wisdom, power, majesty, and goodness, very conspicuous to us, through those sensible and passing forms: the world wearing the mark of its Maker, whose stamp is every