God the Judge of all, and with Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant," of whom the whole family in heaven and earth are named. If, therefore, there be any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit; if we have any sense of the honour of those great relations to which we are here admitted, if any taste of the spiritual pleasures of communion with God and his saints; with joy and gladness shall we attend the returns of these holy assemblies, and seek here the comfort and refreshment of our souls.-Dr. Rogers.

ON THE STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.

Ir might naturally seem a great recommendation of any study, that it is agreeable to those who pursue it; and we should expect, that when a kind of knowledge was in our own possession, which every child catches at with delight, all parents, and all who have the care of children, would be eager to seize on such an instrument of education, for the equal relief of the child and the teacher. Yet look to experience, and you will find that this consideration has scarcely a place at all among the principles that regulate education. Look at what history tells us of the studies of early enlightened nations; look at the numerous, wealthy, and venerable establishments which, over all Europe, have at this day the charge of rearing the human intellect; nay, look into the bosom of every family, where you would imagine that nature had some chance of making herself heard, and you will wonder what the principle can be that has dictated to men the studies of childhood. In all these institutions, (and parents copy them,) you will find that the pre-eminent pursuit, the pride of the place, is some sort of cold and barren knowledge, to which there is no natural propensity in a young and growing mind; which is sought after by none of its early desires; which, in its full acquisition, supplies the mind with no powers; and which to acquire, is a toil and suffering, that for ever after shuts the heart of more than

half the learners, to pursuits into which they have purchased admission with the best years of their life.

Why should this be? Is it that we know not where to look for more delightful knowledge? or is it that pain is the only salutary discipline for a growing mind? or that nothing seems precious but what is purchased by sacrifices? I will not attempt to investigate the causes in which this system has originated; but shall undertake the more agreeable occupation of considering at some length one species of knowledge which is a good deal neglected in our own country, and which, it appears to me, is full of profit to the student, from childhood to hoary years; and which would require, I believe, no other compulsion to its pursuing, than the delight it brings with it, in overflowing abundance. The study of which I speak is that of living nature: the most interesting part of what is commonly understood by the name of Natural History.

I shall not say much of the facility of engaging children in this study; for this should not be argued of, but seen; and the opportunity of seeing it, of seeing the strong and early feeling with which the natural mind is carried to this knowledge, will not fall in every one's way. For our lives are too much withdrawn from nature; and the lives of our children have their character from ours. To know what is their natural mind, you ought to see them more as children of nature; not imprisoned in houses and towns, fixed by their place, their employments, or the pleasures that are prescribed to them, in seclusion from nature. Where the instruments of all a child's occupations and amusements are of your making; where all the objects on which his eyes can fall are creations of human art; where all the pursuits he sees going on about him among those he is emulous to imitate, are artificial altogether; how is it possible you should see what native bent there is in his mind to those pleasures and thoughts which lie among the scenes and beings of the natural world? If you would know from your own observation, if you would see with your own eyes, the strong self-born impulses there are in the mind of man, carrying it to the love and knowledge of VOL. III. Second Series. D

this beautiful world, in the midst of which it is placed, to live and grow by feeling and thought, you must see him, at the season in which his senses are opening upon the world, placed in natural life. You should see him a child sporting his native liberty among fields and woods, trying his new powers at his will, and choosing his own delights from amidst the profusion of nature; where earth, and air, and water, the grass under his feet, and the trees over his head, are all teeming with objects that allure his curiosity, or oppress him with wonder.

Would you so place a child with any native spirit of exertion, you would soon find him busy in the elements of natural history; you would find him in some way or another engaged among the multitude of living creatures that surrounded him on all sides. That redundant activity of childhood, which may be tired out, but cannot be supprest, would turn to them for its employment, and you would see him, in the first place, connecting his occupations with them. He could not be long among them before he would begin to find, that he could make himself pursuits out of them; and you would see him making them the objects of his thoughts, his desires, his affections, his exertions; with some as an eager enemy, hunting and ensnaring and waylaying them; and with others as a friend, feeding and managing them. And, in either case, you see plainly that his mind is engaged among them, and that he is driven by a strong personal interest to the study of their ways of life, their manners, their natural history. For it is only by adapting his own proceedings to their nature that he has any chance of success. But you would see more than this; you would sometimes see him suspended in his pursuits and plays, led away by some of the numberless interesting appearances about them, to observe, and study, and understand, from curiosity and wonder alone. should have great pleasure in pursuing the history of such a boy, and in tracing through the pleasures and occupations and incidents of his early years, the workings of those growing feelings which, in their maturity, are the power that impels genius through the investigation of nature. I should have to trace that history from con

I

jecture: but nothing could be of more force for the improvement of the science of education, than such a history told by those who had the opportunity of recording it from real observation.

I have said, that, in the present form of society, there are few who have the means of watching the working of such feelings in children to any extent. All those who by their affluence can shape their life to their own will, may see it, and ought to see it, in their own children. And slight indications of the same will be familiar to every one who attends at all to the ways of children. You may see it mixing in the interest they take, beyond what we can easily sympathize with or conceive, in the animals about the house.

I know you will easily discover other causes for this interest in animals, beside their propensity to the study of animal manners. I merely say, this propensity does make a part of the interest, and sometimes you may observe it working alone. If you hear a child make a remark on the mode of growth of a plant, comparing it with others, or on any thing singular or interesting in the manners or conduct of his animals, you may say, "This is the real study. His curiosity and wonder are in action. It is his understanding that is interested here; and the boy looks with those feelings on the works of nature, which, if indulged, will make him one day wise in the ways of nature.”

This mode of attaining the rudiments of natural history would, I suppose, have a natural attraction for almost all children. But I think that great numbers also would be drawn to it, in its less interesting, because lifeless, form of representation of the creatures, and books relating such parts of their manners, their character, their history, as are within the compass of a child's wonder. These surely ought to be tried, where the means of those better rudiments are wanting. This chance, at least, should be given to the child of proving his capacity to be affected with what is interesting in the living works of nature.

(To be continued.)

MONDAY MORNING REFLECTIONS.

SEE thou doest injury to no man; for, by so doing, thou teachest others to do so to thee; and thou, then, canst not complain of it, for thy own doings are returned to thee.

So long as thou art ignorant, be not ashamed to ask questions. Ignorance is a shameful infirmity; and when justified, is the chiefest of follies.

If thou hast sinned to-day, defer not thy repentance till to-morrow. He that hath promised pardon to thy repentance, hath not promised life till thou repentest.

Hold the reins of thy passions and affections; and then outward occasions may exercise thy virtues, but shall not injure them.

REVIEW.

Wesley's Sermons. Three Volumes.

12mo. Mason.

WE have referred before to this important issue of Mr. Wesley's Sermons. It is a handsome and correct edition, and deserves to be called a convenient one, as being both portable and cheap. And as the work may be had in parts, and even in numbers, as well as volumes, none of our readers who can purchase books at all, need to be without a copy of what we may describe as being (in fact, though not in form) a system of divinity, not surpassed by any work of the kind in the English language.

We have no objection to acknowledge to the readers, for whose benefit these juvenile Reviews are chiefly designed, our anxious wish that they should be readers likewise of Mr. Wesley's Sermons. They who have not read them, know not the pleasure they have in store. They will not find, indeed, the mere ornaments of composition: Mr. Wesley, of set purpose, avoided them. He wrote, as he said, "plain truth for plain people." But this must not be misunderstood. Mr. Wesley's Sermons are full of thought. They express the well-studied opinions, on the most important subjects, of a man thoroughly in earnest: deprecating the admiration that might be fixed on himself, and only anxious that his subject might be understood and felt by his hearers or readers. No Sermons, perhaps, (especially if we adopt a rule of judgment strictly theological,) surpass those published in the English language; and among these, Mr. Wesley's not only occupy high rank, but, as yet, they form a class by themselves. We shall be glad if this announcement be found to increase the number of readers of Mr. Wesley's Sermons. By Sunday-school Teachers they ought especially to be read. And though Mr. Wesley spoke of the plainness of his style, the juvenile scholar may be assured that it was a plainness to secure which required even Mr. Wesley's learning. And after