formances of art or the weighty business and projects of human affairs. And yet, in truth, what occupation can be be more noble than to analyze the first principles of the immortal mind; to devise and prosecute the best modes of planting and nurturing the seeds of thought, of cherishing and unfolding the buds of genius, of expanding and leading to maturity those intellectual fruits which the frost of death is not to wither, but which are to bloom, undecaying, through the spring-time of eternity? Another obstacle in the way of promoting any reform in the early education of youth in language, is, the popular objection, that nature herself has pointed out the best mode; that art cannot mend it; that children will take their own way in learning the elements of speech; and that it does no good to attempt to hasten to maturity what must, of necessity, be gradual in its growth. But you do not leave nature to do her own work. You do not let your children rise to manhood, like the forest-tree. You pursue modes of instruction; you give them the influence of example; you lead them, by the force of imitation, to use language as yourself and others around them use it; you perhaps even go so far as to send them to school at a very early age, if for no other purpose, at least to save yourselves some care and trouble. Now, the true question is, not whether nothing or something shall be done, but whether what is done is susceptible of improvement? There is a mode of teaching children language, a very old and almost universal mode: you have carelessly adopted it: are you sure, that a better mode cannot be devised? Is human invention, which is now astonishing the world with its discoveries in almost every other field of human effort, to be considered absolutely impotent and useless in that of education? Will fathers take more pains with their fields or gardens, than with their children, and devote more time and researches to know how to make their estates yield a more plentiful or valuable produce, than how to train up the "olive plants which are around their table" to the production of richer and more abun dant fruit? Will philosophers subject matter to all possible varieties of forms and combinations, in order to elicit some new processes of its motion or action for the temporal benefit of man, and yet neglect to ascertain the principles, and cultivate, to their highest degree of improvement, the operations, of that mind which is the very agent to which they are indebted for all the truths which they discover, and all the wonders which they perform? Statesmen lay the monuments of their glory in cutting canals, that what administers to the bodily wants or comfort of their countrymen may find its way more easily and cheaply from one part of the nation to the other; and will they leave the fountains of human thought unexplored, and the stream of human intellect, in all its earlier courses, to grope its tardy passage through the thousand obstacles which error, sanctified by custom, opposes to its broader and deeper tide? We do not then act up to the dignity of our nature. We prefer matter to mind; the body to the soul; time to eternity. There is one other cause, tending to produce the prevalent low state of improvement in the early education of children that yet remains to be mentioned; the desire of accomplishing this object in the most economical way. A cheap teacher, and a large school, will do very well for quite young children. As well might you say, that an inferior mason, and bad materials, are adequate to the laying of that foundation on which you hope to erect a great and permanent edifice. If the principles laid down in the former part of this essay are correct, the very time to have your children under the care of skilful and accomplished teach ers, is when they are beginning to learn the import and use of language. For errors committed then, will hardly be quite got rid of through life. Their great task afterwards will be, not so much to learn as to unlearn; and perhaps they will have always to lament the vague ideas which they attached at first to language, the incorrect associations of thought which they formed, the confused modes of thinking which they adopted, and the unmeaning or unpleasing phraseology which they acquired. The experience of every person, arrived at mature age, must have convinced him of the truth of these remarks. How thoroughly soever his mind may have been disciplined by study, and his judgment rendered profound by experience, and his imagination and taste formed to be classically correct by cultivation; the impressions of his childhood cling to him with a' force, and revive with a freshness, almost irresistible. The old meaning of words which the school-dame taught him, and all her illustrations, and stories, and examples, to render these words intelligible, start up in his remembrance at times, when he least expected or wished for them, and influence his thoughts, and, perhaps, his expressions, in spite of himself. It is in mind, as in manners; an awkward trick of childhood is sometimes carried through life, not to be counteracted by associating with the most refined society, or even by acquiring a simple elegance of deportment. course, it becomes infinitely important that those terms which are used to convey moral and religious ideas should be well understood. If children are left to attach a false or vague meaning to these terms, who can calculate the influence which this will of necessity have upon all their thoughts and feelings on moral and religious subjects? Nay, it goes to form their character through life. The man may by reflection and study correct the errors of his head, which have grown out of the misconceptions of childhood; but these misconceptions have already moulded in a great degree his affections, and desires, and purposes; and he finds it a mighty task to subdue the waywardness of his heart. If these considerations have weight with regard to the intellectual, how much greater have they with reference to the moral, character of man! Whatever may be our opinious concerning the moral sense; how far it is instinctive, or how much it depends on cultivation; all will agree, that without instruction in moral and religious truth, man would be grossly ignorant of his duty. This instruction must be communicated by language. Of A child asks the meaning of the word "proper," from some person who, having himself no correct ideas attached to the term, tells the little inquirer, that "proper" means such conduct as he sees in polite and fashionable people. The parent, taking for granted that the boy is making admirable progress at school in the spelling-book, and that he will soon be able to read, (that is, to pronounce correctly,) in the Bible; and, finding, too, that he can even repeat some definitions of very hard words in the dictionary; is at no trouble to ascertain how far he is learning to think correctly,-whether he attaches true or false ideas to the words which he uses, or in fact any ideas at all. The father, to be sure, talks to him often, with affection and earnestness, on the importance of his growing up to be a virtuous and useful man, and hopes his conduct will always be proper, that is, according to the boy's conception, derived from his oracle, that he will act as polite and fashionable people do. It is quite pos sible, that these are the very persons (I speak not of true politeness) whose example the father would least wish his son to follow. What care, what skill, what patience, what ingenuity, what pre cision, ought to be used in teaching children the meaning of such terms as serve to form, and perhaps to fix for ever, their impressions, with regard to moral and religious truth! Are the character and the talents of those to whom this important task is assigned of little consequence? Is the cheapness of the school its highest recommendation? Miserable economy! We employ, indeed, for trifling wages, those whom, perhaps, we had better never have employed at all; at the sacrifice, too, of wasting the time, and toil, and patience of our offspring; and, what is still worse, at the risk of their imbibing errors which no expense or labour can afterwards remove ;a delusion, the folly of which is only equalled by its sad effects. Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. FROM the agreement of your publication with the authorised Formularies of our Church, I am induced to hope, that you will be willing to lend your aid, in assisting to rescue from unmerited oblivion, and from "the ruthless teeth of all-devouring time," a hitherto-neglected mass of valuable sound doctrine and church divinity, which is to be found in the Forms of Prayer, issued by authority, from the Reformation to the present period, en various national occasions; such as, days of fasting and thanksgiving, appointed to be kept in times of war and peace, dearth and plenty, plague and pes. tilence, &c,; two copies of which are sent by the bishops, through their registrars and apparitors, to every parish in the kingdom; and many thousands of which are now lying "slumb'ring on beds of dusty majesty," in mouldering and motheaten heaps, in church-chests, episcopal libraries, and in the possession of ecclesiastical officers, such as deputy-registrars, apparitors, &c., in every corner of the land, unknown and unnoticed by many, and too little thought of by all. Yet these compositions have an authority second only to our Common-Prayer Book, and were the pious and orthodox compositions of the Cranmers, the Parkers, the Whitgifts, the Sancrofts, the Tillotsons, and the Seckers of our church. They have been the channels of a nation's prayers and praises; and, may we not say? the happy means, under God, of averting the Divine displeasure,-and of bringing down to us, from heaven, the blessings of deliverance, protection, preservation, victory, peace, and prosperity, through the merits and mediation of Him in whose great name they were offered to the Throne of Grace: for of this there can be no doubt in the minds of those who know that " prayer guides the Hand that sways the world." All that the original compilers of our incomparable and orthodox Liturgy wrote, is happily preserved; while the equally orthodox, and truly Scriptural, national prayers of their successors "in Moses' seat," are, "although invaluable, yet valued not ;" and, for want of their excellency being known, disregarded, as though they were but ephemeral, transient, temporary, and fugitive, effusions! At a time like the present, when, to prove our orthodoxy, we are obliged to appeal to the law and to the testimony," and we had need to avail ourselves of every help, it is of great importance that churchmen should have at hand every means in their power to prove the unity and agreement of their doctrines, not only with the Scriptures, but also with what we think next to them in authority, as being built upon them, the Formularies of our Church. Now these prayers furnish a desirable link in the golden chain; and therefore to collect, concentrate, and unite these authoritative records, so scriptural, so orthodox, as all, and so sublime as many, of the more ancient of them are, will, it is confidently hoped, strengthen the hands, sanction the doctrines, and assist the labours, of the clergy, as well as aid the devotions of the laity. And it is with these views that I invite and request your co-operation, in inserting this communication, and in furthering its object. For now about twelve years I have been employed, at intervals, in collecting, with a view to publication, these precious relics, at some expense, and at no small share of labour and anxiety. To the kind condescension and disinterested liberality of several distinguished and other individuals, I am indebted for access to libraries, transcripts of forms, lists of dates, the loan of volumes, and the gift of almost all that I possess; but, above all, to my clerical brethren, with whose permission I have robbed their churches to fill up the various deficiencies in my list. But, notwithstanding all the facilities afforded me, and contributions made, my series is yet incomplete and, in the hope that this appeal will meet the eye and gain the approbation of many of your readers, both cleric and laic, who may have any of such Forms in their possession; and to the end that such persons may be enabled, if disposed, to patronize and further my design, I subjoin a list of the years in which those Forms which I have not yet obtained were composed and used, omitting, for obvious reasons, those anterior, intervening, and posterior Forms now in my possession. It matters not how mutilated or obliterated they be some experience in deciphering will render them valuable, whatever may be their condition. I presume I need not add, that, where they are not valued, or where the possessors have duplicates, the gift of the originals, or literal copies, will be much more acceptable than the loan, since it obviates the errors attending transcription; while, at the same time, I pledge myself, in all cases where desired, to return them to the same places whence they shall be sent to me, as soon as they shall have been transcribed; provided the Forms be marked, or the name and address of the lender be given, at the time. The years of which I want the Forms are, A. D. 1550, 1563 to 1566, 1577 to 1580, 1584 to 1590, 1594 to 1600, 1603 to 1606, 1611, 1618, 1620, 1623 to 1628, 1631 to 1640, 1642 to 1650, 1660 to 1666, 1672 to 1680, 1683 to 1686, 1688 to 1711, 1713 to 1716, 1720, 1723, 1728, 1739 to 1747, 1749, 1758 to 1763, 1767, and 1782 (May 26). Parcels, containing few or many of such Forms of Prayers, directed to the Rev. Dr. Niblock, Hitchin, Herts, may be sent (if possible, free of expense), to Simpkin, Stationers' Court; Seeleys, Fleet-street; Hatchards, Piccadilly; or Baldwin, Paternoster-row. I am, &c. J. W. NIBLOCK. Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. HAVING been induced, not long since, if your readers will allow the acknowledgment, to accompany a friend to a Methodist Chapel, a hymn was sung, in which occurs the following stanza, "Dies the glorious cause of all, These words were sung in a plain village congregation; but I would ask, what could they possibly understand by them? I was myself a good deal puzzled, as were several Methodist preachers whom I consulted, for an explanation. I was at length referred to Dr. Clarke's Memoirs of the Wesley Family, p. 137, where I found a translation from the Greek, by which I discovered Pan to be a heathen god-a pagan deity introduced into a Christian hymn! The following two lines, with a note annexed, soon caught my attention. Thy herbage, O great Pan, sustains The flocks that graze our attic plains." "The Mendes of the Egyptians was the Pan of the Greeks and Ro ⚫ Hymn 552. mans; and signified him whose nature is infinite, and whose government is universal, from Hav, all, because he is the author and governor of all things. In process of time the pure ideas which the Greeks had entertained of the Divine nature be came obliterated, and the Oμɛvas Ilav, the great Pan, degenerated among the Romans, &c., into a monster, half man, half goat!" I afterwards learned more of this said Pan under the article Mythology, in the Encyclopedia, to which I refer your readers. Having so done, I would only ask, whether simplicity and plainness are not as requisite in hymn-singing as in a prayer or sermon; and whether, therefore, the body of Christians whose hymn I have noticed would not do well to take care that their village auditories shall not stumble upon such compositions as the foregoing stanza in their wishes to sing the praises of God. If the clergyman at the church had introduced these classical allusions into his sermon, instead of their occurring in a hymn in a meetinghouse in his parish, what would have been said by his Methodist villagers? Literary foppery is unworthy of all places, and most of all of the house of God. THEOGNIS. Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. THE remarks, in your last Number, upon the literary habits of Sheridan; his elaborate thinking out, tracing and retracing, writing and rewriting, with numerous variations, those brilliant thoughts which appear as if "struck off at a heat," may, I think, be of great service to many of your clerical readers. I am inclined to believe that not a few conscientious clergymen who have adopted the wholesome practice of writing out, with diligent care and study, as well as earnest prayer, the whole of their pulpit addresses, are discouraged, when they observe the often powerful effect of apparently unstudied compositions; and are apt to think all their pains and efforts of little worth. They feel that they are not gifted with that ready genius which can do much with but trifling effort; and they therefore suppose themselves deficient in what, if they had it within their grasp, would be a considerable alleviator of their toils. But if the author of a burlesque poem could patiently collect, as Dr. Johnson informs us, Butler did, "not only such events or precepts as are gathered by reading, but such remarks, similitudes, allusions, assemblages, or inferences as occasion prompted, or meditation produced;" and if a theatrical and parliamentary wit, like Sheridan, could exert similar pains, keeping a common-place book of hints and sallies, to be worked up to ideal perfection; surely the faithful minister of Christ ought not to think much of the most diligent study, in his pulpit preparations, to adapt them to the spiritual benefit of his flock. His labours will not indeed be directed to the task of discovering new and brilliant combinations of words or ideas to please the fancy; he will not seek for "the words of man's wisdom," the gaudy trappings of oratory, or the subtleties of a vain philosophy; but he will spare no effort both" to gather by reading such events and precepts be" for the use of edifying;" and to treasure up for the same purpose "such remarks, similitudes, allusions, assemblages, or inferences, as occasion prompts or meditation produces." as may Even as respects the more mechanical or literary art of composing a discourse, it should ever be remembered, that True ease in writing comes from art, not chance." The sermon that is carelessly "dashed off" will seldom be as simple and easy to understand, and certainly not as correct or judicious, as that which is well weighed and fully written, or, if circumstances permitted, even re-written, with every addition, abridgment, or alteration |