go, so that when it is old it may not depart from it." But if you cannot commence any science, much less the science of morals, without learning its fundamental principles from the testimony of others, the very first thing to be done is, to shew you which testimony is to be followed. And any discussion of ethics which does not include the fact of a Catholic Apostolical Church, must be as faulty as a theory of astronomy which left out the sun. If a sculptor wishes to convert a block of marble into a statue, he must require three conditions :-First, he must have before him a clear, definite conception of the statue which he proposes to create ;-secondly, he must understand accurately the nature of the marble itself;

thirdly, he must have the power of working on and moulding his materials. Without all these he must inevitably fail. Even, therefore, if the mind of man were, what it is not, to his fellow-man as the dead passive marble to the hands of the sculptor, it would be a matter of the deepest interest to inquire, if He who made man at first had in any revelation communicated any information of man's original nature, given any outline of his ultimate perfection, pointed out any means for realising it. If we search through a heathen philosopher, professedly humanthrough Aristotle, or Plato-for intimations on these three points, how much more should we look for the chance of intimations from God in any communication professing to come from him!

But the human mind is not as marble to the sculptor; it is not a dead, passive, inert substance, which yields unresistingly to the hand which would mould it. Far from it. It is a living thing, full of motion, and with its own laws of motion; rapid as thought, unseen, and untraceable, "glancing from heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven," and gathering at every turn innumerable combinations

of its own ideas, like the shapes in a kaleidescope. And no eye of man can follow it, and no hand or voice command its progress. And these changes do not pass away, leaving it as it was; but every one, like the thousand imperceptible touches by which time mellows a picture, or eats into a ruin, leaves its trace behind it—here a stain, and there a lustre ; here adding strength, and there decay; here corroding its very heart, there consolidating and coating it with a hard and imperishable shell. What would a painter say, if, while he was working on his canvass, the lines shifted of themselves, one colour faded, another became vivid, others melted away together, all the tints and figures became floating like a quicksand, or like motes in a sunbeam,—and he knowing little or nothing of the laws of these changes, unable to see the greater part of them, incapable of combining his colours so as to keep them fixed, was told to continue his picture? Would he not recognise at once that to paint it was beyond his art; that some other power was at work, to which he must defer? And so it is with man. The education of man is beyond the reach of man. He knows nothing, and can know nothing, of the secret fluctuations of the mind; and without knowing these, how can he control or turn them to his purpose? For an hour, perhaps, on some great occasion of one absorbing passion, an orator may bend the mind to his will, and hold it steady to one end; but an orator is one of the rarest creations of nature; and his time is limited, and the circumstances of his action rare.

And yet, in the present age, we talk of education as an easy thing. We plan schools, and form systems, and boast of our powers, though every day, by general results of evil, is shewing that our efforts are failing; and nothing but our ignorance of what really passes in the mind-ignorance increased by

the facility with which our present mode of instruction tutors the young to conceal their thoughtsnothing but this prevents us from tracing the mischief in the case of individuals.

And therefore, my dear reader, when I, this little book, am coming to you in the hope of improving your mind, and when you are placed, as soon you will be, in some post of authority over your fellowcreatures—over a child, or a friend, or a pupil, or the poor, or a people-let us both remember, that to control these minds does not belong to us; that He only who made and beholds them can mould them as He chooses; that education belongs unto God.

And yet man is commanded to educate. What is all government but a branch of education? What are schools, books, lectures, punishments and rewards, promises and threatenings, but means of education? And without these, what will become of the world? It will fall into ruin, if man neglect his duty; and education is one of his first and grandest duties; and yet he is wholly unable to educate. Here is another paradox. He can no more hope to educate than he can hope to calculate correctly a sum of which half the items are unseen, and the other half alter as he counts them. What, then, can he do? He can combine certain outward circumstances; he can apply certain stimulating objects; he can proclaim certain truths; he can set before the eyes of others spectacles and examples for imitation or avoidance; -but in so doing he is working in the dark; he cannot see how they will affect the mind; he must trust to Providence to turn to good what he himself has contrived for good.

And now, if you can realise this fact, you will see why, as every inquiry into ethical science is virtually a treatise on education, so every act of education throws us back upon a search for some com

munication from God, telling us what the human mind is, which we cannot see; giving us positive rules for combining our external circumstances, so that if these fail, we shall at least have the satisfaction of having acted in obedience to God; promising, moreover, the gift of some Supernatural Influence to work where we cannot penetrate, softening, and moulding, and bending to our touch, man's nature in the inmost recesses of his heart. Without this, education is a dream. It is empty speculation, guess-work, gambling, in which the best-planned schemes may fail, and the worst answer; and no consolation will remain for disappointment, and no satisfaction in success. And to obtain this, we must recur to Revelation; for Revelation we must go to the Apostles; for communication with the Apostles we must go to the Catholic Church. And thus our ancestors, who cleared away from our own system the corruptions of Popery, did fall back on the witness of those good and wise men who lived fifteen hundred years ago; and we must do so likewise.

But I will mention another reason why Education, and therefore Ethics, unconnected with the Church, is a fundamental fallacy. I have said what many will think strange, that man by himself is unable to educate man; I add now, what many will think stranger, that without the Church he has no right to educate him. If man stands before his fellow-mortals as a human creature only, whence does he derive the right to interfere with and control them? It may seem expedient for the general peace, but every man will deem himself the best judge of his own interest. It may be agreeable to a parent's conscience, or a teacher's sense of duty; but his conscience is no better authority, simply as the conscience of a man, than the equally strong conviction of the child, that no control is necessary or useful.

E

It may be imposed by the laws of the land; but if the laws of the land themselves are merely human, how is this right in them to be reconciled with the fundamental maxim of modern politics, that "all men are equal?" One thing, indeed, remains,"physical force." The stronger must educate the weak-educate him after his own fashion- take on himself the responsibility of shaping and moulding an immortal spirit, which will retain this shape, and with it the infinite consequences attached to it, of good or of evil, throughout an infinite existence of happiness or of misery. But you think you will do him good; you wish to improve him! Even so you may think you would improve your neighbour's garden, and contribute to his comfort, by cutting down some trees or turning a walk; but the utmost benevolence of intention will not save you from an action of trespass, if he prohibit your entrance on his premises. And if a child will stand sentinel at the door of his heart and deny you access, and demand your right to meddle with the formation of his character(and what child will not readily catch the plea ?), and you have no answer to give, but that you are a man with a stronger arm, and wish to do him good in a way which he does not like,—will not the school-room very soon become a scene of rods and scuffles; and education be a mere tyranny, with sullen, indignant, discontented, contemptuous subjection on the one hand, and arbitrary, irritated brute force lording it on the other? Be assured that no power in the world exists except by derivation or permission from God; and that all power used without a solemn acknowledgment of its Author is an usurpation; and man will not obey, and God will visit it with a curse. If you educate as a parent, remember that a parent is to his family the type and representative of God. If as a civil governor, recall the noble words of our