designed by Nature in
all her previous endeavours. The parent, therefore, or the teacher, who
wilfully passes over, or but slightly attends to these plain
indications, is really betraying his trust, and deeply injuring the
future prospects of his immortal charge.

The several circumstances enumerated in the previous part of this
chapter, as connected with the moral sense, are capable of suggesting
many important hints for the establishment of education; but there are
one or two connected with the subject as a whole, to which we must very
shortly allude.

In the first place, from the foregoing facts we are powerfully led to
the conclusion, that all kinds of physical good, such as health,
strength, beauty, riches, and honours, and even the higher attainments
of intellectual sagacity and knowledge, are, in the estimation of
Nature, not once to be compared with the very lowest of the moral
acquirements. With respect to the former, man shares them, though in a
higher degree, with the brute creation;--but _morals_ are altogether
peculiar to higher intelligences. To man, in particular, the value of
moral discipline is beyond calculation:--For, however much the present
ignorance and grossness of men's minds may deceive them in weighing
their respective worth, yet it would be easy to shew, that the knowledge
and practice of but one additional truth in morals, are of more real
value to a child, than a whole lifetime of physical enjoyment. Nature
has accordingly implanted in his constitution, a complete system of
moral machinery, to assist the parent in this first and most important
part of his duty,--that of guiding his children in the paths of
religion and virtue. The executive powers of conscience are always alive
and active, stimulating or restraining both young and old, wherever the
action proposed partakes of the character of right or wrong. And, even
where the parental duties in this respect have been neglected, Nature
has, in part, graciously provided a remedy. In all such cases, during
the years of advancing manhood, the law is gradually and vividly written
upon the heart. Its dictates are generally, no doubt, dimmed and defaced
by the natural depravity and recklessness of the sinner; but even then,
they are sufficiently legible to leave him without excuse for his
neglect of their demands.

The preference which Nature gives to moral acquirements, is demonstrated
also by another feature in her different modes of applyi