Chap. I.]

THE DOMESTIC RELATIONS.

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loveth him chasteneth him betimes.”* Again, “ Correct thyson, and he shall give thee rest ; yea, he shall give delight untothy soul.”f See especially Hebrews, xii. 6 — 11, where St.Paul concludes thus, “No chastening for the present seemethto be joyous, but grievous ; nevertheless afterward it yieldeththe peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exer-cised thereby.”|

In the present relaxed state of domestic discipline, I can onlycite these precepts on the ground of their being divinely sanc-tioned. They must wear an air of strictness and severity, towhich, in these days, we are not accustomed. As a writer onmorals, however, I have no choice. My duty is, to make truththe burthen of my instructions ; — these precepts are not mine,they are a part of the oracles of divine truth.§ Even the precept,

* Prov. xiii. 24. t Prov. xxix. 17. t See also Rev. iii. 19.

§ The following extract from a very valuable work, with which the author wasnot until lately acquainted, contains sentiments so well calculated, in his judg-ment, to be useful at the present time , that he has determined to subjoin it.

“ That good sense,” says the writer, “ which forms the sole basis of a systemof education composed for the age of Locke,” (he had been speaking of Locke’swritings on education,) “ is a material of too common and too coarse a naturefor the fabric of those refined and subtile theories, which are fitted to engagethe attention of an age, where the new, the striking, and the brilliant are aloneadmired and sought after. Rousseau, in an evil hour, vented his paradoxes oneducation ; — the man who sent his own children to the foundling hospital, andwho failed, as he owns himself, in the only trial he made to educate the child ofanother. But he knew that a singularity of opinion was the sure road to dis-tinction as an author; and he determined to frame a theory, which should inevery thing be opposite to the common notions of mankind. His organs, as hetells us, were so formed, and his mind so constituted, as to render him incapa-ble of thinking and judging like other people : ‘ Je ne vois point comme lesautres homines; il y a long temps qu’on me l’a reproche ; mais depend-il demoi de me donner d’autres yeux, et de m’affecter d’autres idees ? ’ (Prefaced’Emile.) And feeling and reasoning, as he acknowledges, like no other man, hehas the modesty to presume, that he alone is right, and all the rest of the worldin an error. The ordinary methods of education (according to him) are allcompletely wrong; the very opposite course to the common is almost alwaysthe right one. ‘ Prenez le contrepied de 1’usage, et vous ferez presque toujoursbien.’ (Emile, Tom. I. p. 130.) Thus, because the influence of habit, one ofthe most powerful principles of our nature, is universally resorted to in the or-dinary systems of education, this is sufficient reason with Rousseau for utter-ly exploding its application ; * Habits,’ says he, 1 ought not to be impressed onchildren ; for they restrain the natural freedom of the mind; — La seule habi-tude qu’on doit laisser prendre a l'enfant, est de n’en contracter aucune,’20