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The truth that the Word of God is God's instrumentality for reforming and saving man, is the foundation of our present argument for the religious education of our children. We would enlarge the mind, elevate the character, and ennoble the nature of our children; we would lift them up above the mere degradation of working animals; we would ennoble them so as to give them a capacity for intellectual enjoyment and rational happiness; we would wish to make them not only loyal and faithful subjects of their earthly sovereign, but devout servants of the King of kings; we would endeavour to cheer them amidst the privations and agonies of poverty they are frequently called to endure, with a view of the glorious hopes that are created in us by the Christianity of the Scriptures; and it is because we desire this that we would give them a Christian education. We live in times when thrones are utterly shaken to pieces, when sceptres are shivered to atoms; a moral earthquake is heaving the foundations of society. In times like these we may well turn our thoughts to the right instruction of our children; in times like these, when the freedom of the press has been proclaimed, when all men seem to be speculating as to the best means of securing national prosperity and individual happiness; in times like these, fraught with incalculable evil, as well as with immeasurable good; in times like these, so peculiar, so startling, we may well apply ourselves to the imparting of the sound principles of true religion to our children, that so those who are now the youth of our land may grow up to be a rightly-instructed as well as holy people. We have seen in that nation which hath, in a century gone by, flung aside the law of God and lightly regarded the Word of Jehovah, judgment following judgment, in revolution following revolution. Truly there is a judgment from heaven upon that nation that will not acknowledge God, and who lightly esteem the Word of God. But if we would express ourselves thus strongly of the neglect of the Word of God in education, we would also express ourselves strongly in reference to the blessedness of the country where that Word is honoured by being employed in the education of the people. Education without religion is education without God, and therefore education without the blessing of God; and if we, in the education we impart to our children, mingle the truths of our holy religion with everything, we shall draw down a blessing upon our homes and happiness upon our hearts; we shall be blessed in our mountains and in our valleys, and the whole land will be glad and rejoice in the presence of God.

(M. H. Seymour, M. A.)

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KJV: And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:

WEB: These words, which I command you this day, shall be on your heart;