The works of the Rev. William Thom, late minister ... - waughfamily.ca

LETTERS, TRACTS, ^C.28^makes the life fober and regular. Parents ought torecommend religion to their children, and all teachersfhould, both by example and inftrudlion, (liowtheir Icholars that they have a high efteem of religion,ajid a deep fenfe of its importance to promote all thevaluable interefts of mankind.We have lately feen a printed Sermon upon theCaufes of the Decline of Religion, and we verily expe61:cdto find one thing affigned as a caufe of thatdecline, which has been and continues to be muchtalked of and much lamented in this place, but whichit feems the author did not advert to. If he had pleafed,he might have mentioned the bad difcipline ofcolleges, and the too little appearance of piety in thedeportment of the mafters, which, though perhapsnot fo cxtenfive, is as real a caufe of irreligion as any•he has named. It produces very difmal ette6f s ; theftudents, who afterwards apply to divinity, are cooland indifferent in the ftudy of it ; thofe who applyto bufinef?, in town or country, bring along with themfrom the college a vifible averfion to religion ; andwith this pernicious contagion they infe6l the unwarywho fee or converfe with them.The blunt faying of a plain and honeft citizen,fome time after public prayers began to be difufed inthe univeriity, v/as quite agreeable to our fentiments.When he was entering his fon to one of the philofophyciaffes, " I am indifferent, (faid he) I am indifferentabout your nice difputes : Teach my fon religionand morality ; teach him to govern his paffions, andto love God and men : I had rather have him a piousand good man than poffeffed of all the curious philcfophyyou can teach him in feven years." ;Religion ought to be the ground-work of everycourfe of education, and the principles inftilled intothe minds of young people fliould be fcriptural andfound. This is certainly right in every view. Wehave known fome young men who were marred in