The Duty of the Church in Relation to Sunday Schools [pp. 377-393]

Duty of Church, c.
cond coming of Christ, in the display of Millennial glory, as an
event near at hand. French and German philosophy predicts
a new religion and new social state, as the grand result of all
preceding changes. The wisdom of the philosopher will
doubtless disappoint him-the faith of the Christian may, as
it respects the precise time, but cannot in the end. "Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on
the earth?"
ART. IV.-THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH IN RELATION
TO SUNDAY SCHOOLS.
M.EN often come slowly to the adoption of the principles
of the merest common sense, even in the doctrines and duties
of religion. How much Christianity has lost whilst its disciples have been dallying in hesitation about obeying the
simplest instincts of duty, we believe to be incalculable. They
never ponder so deliberately, and with such cautious progression, as when an effort is proposed to take advantage of the
very postulates of reason in promoting the triumph of the
Gospel. The strongest illustration of this most anomalous
fact is furnished by the history of the Church in regard to its
efforts to control the education of the young. For it is no
late discovery that the mind of childhood is susceptible of
permanent moral impressions. No theme can claim a more
venerable prescription to the last honours of triteness than
this. And if the world are really ignorant of the connexion of early education with the destiny of the individual, it is for some other reason than the want of common fame to proclaimn it: fbr it has been set forth in all
conceivable forms, from the Proverbs of Solomon to the distich of Pope, and from the staring apophthegm of the copybook, to the rant of the college rostrum. It is thus that the
great truth has been suffered to evaporate, even since the dispensation of the Gospel. The praise of education has echoed
from the pulpit too, in good set phrase, but the Christian
world slumbered upon the sermons until the Archbishop of
Milan showed that the subject was capable of some practical
inferences. But even this hint, like many others from that
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