rticular object of the education of these, as indeed it
should be of all rich persons, so to instruct them, that, while they are
obliged to live in the world, they may be enabled to live out of it, or
deny it; so that, when seated amidst its corrupt opinions, amusements,
and fashions, they should estimate them as below their notice, and as
utterly unworthy of their countenance and support.

I should be sorry if, in holding up this species of education to a
farther encouragement, as a preservative of the morals of the children
of rich parents amidst the various temptations of life, I were to be
thought to endeavour to take away in any degree the necessity of the
influence of the Holy Spirit on the mind of man, or to deny that this
Spirit ought not to be resorted to as the first and best guide, both by
rich and poor, during their pilgrimage upon earth. For who can teach us
best to deny the world? Who can teach us best to estimate its pursuits?
Who can instruct us best to resist its temptations? To the Divine Being
then we are first to look up, as to him who can be the best author of
all our good, and the surest averter of all our evils, who can apply the
best remedy to the imperfections of our nature, and who, while he leads
us in safety, can lead us into the way of truth. But when we consider
how many are inattentive, on account of the cares, and pleasures, and
fashions, and prejudices, and customs of the world, to the secret
notices of his grace, I cannot help considering that we may be allowed
to have secondary and subordinate helps to our virtue. As the discipline
of the Quaker society may produce and preserve a certain purity of life,
so may a literary and philosophical education operate to the same end.
Such an education is in its general tendency a friend to the promotion
of virtue and to the discouragement of vice. It sets us often
unquestionably above many of the corruptive opinions and customs in the
midst of which we live. It leads us also frequently to the contemplation
of the Divine Being in all the variety of his works. It gives us
amiable, awful, and sublime conceptions of him. As far, therefore, as it
is capable of doing this, it is a useful, though it be only a
subordinate source of our purity, and we may therefore adopt it
innocently. But we are never to forget, at the same time, that, though
it may help us occasionally to resist corrupt temptations, and to
encourage desirable propensities, yet it cannot