eans to "exhibit
to his rational creatures;"--and that his "greatness," at the close
implies, his "infinite majesty and perfections."

Now it must be obvious, that any one of these explanations may be made
familiar to the dullest child that can read; and if _this_ can be done,
the principle may immediately be brought into exercise. For example,
when the child knows that the first word means "the Almighty," and that
"first" is another way of expressing "the beginning of time," he is
required to read the whole sentence, and in doing so, to throw out these
two words, and to substitute their meanings. He will then at once read
the sentence thus: "[The Almighty,] at [the beginning of time,] created
all things to shew his greatness." The same thing may be done with any
one or more of the others; and if the child at first feels any
difficulty with two, the teacher has only, upon the principle of
individuation, to make one of them familiar, before he be required to
attend to a second; and to have two rendered easy before he goes forward
to the third. Each explanation can be mastered in its turn, and may then
be employed in forming the paraphrase; by which means the child's mind
is called to the performance of double duty,--reading from his
book,--throwing out the required words,--remembering their
explanations,--inserting them regularly and grammatically,--and perhaps
transposing, and re-constructing the whole sentence,--at the moment that
he is giving utterance to that which the mind had previously arranged.

The same thing may be done with a sentence from any book, although not
so systematically prepared for the purpose as the Initiatory Catechisms
have been. The explanations of any of the words which may be pointed
out, or under-scored by the teacher, can easily be mastered in the usual
way by any of the children capable of reading them; and if he shall be
gradually and regularly trained to do this frequently, his command of
words, in expressing his _own_ ideas, and his ability to use them
correctly, will very soon become extensive and fluent. The importance of
this to the young is much more valuable and necessary than is generally
supposed. Nature evidently intends that childhood and youth should be
the seed-time of language; and the exercise here recommended, when
persevered in, is well calculated to produce an abundant harvest of
words, suited for all kinds of oral communications.--Its importance in
this respect, as well