MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. CHAP. IX. ON ATTENTION TO THE NATURAL TEMPER AND DISPOSITION OF CHILDREN. TEMPER is the expression of the agency upon the mental manifestations, of that physical temperament, which has been already considered in a former part of this work; disposition, on the contrary, is the sum, and general result of those mental attributes, which are constituted by the intellectual faculties and the passions. As such, both are subjected to the influence of education, the government of principle, the subjection or excitation of passion, the regulation of religion, the controul of habit, the morbid agency of vice, and the cultivation of virtue; hence do they become the peculiar objects of moral instruction. The first object of education, therefore, will be to encourage what is useful, to repress what is injurious; and the utmost vigilance, attention, and perseverance will be required to remove from the child, whatever may be prejudicial to its peace, or detract from its worth; and this principle will be especially applied to the faults which are so prominent in children, the correction, and amelioration of which, will constitute the greater part of the duty of forming the temper and disposition. Man is conceived in sin; he inherits a sinful nature; he brings into the world a heart tainted by corruption, subjected to the malign influence of the great enemy of mankind, alienated from God, and averse from holiness; out of it proceed evil thoughts and actions; the will and the affections, the sentiments and the conduct are influenced by this fountain of evil: the natural bent of his intellectual faculties, is continually towards a perversion of their high and original design; sin is his congenial element, perhaps even his delight, and therefore his prevailing tendencies will be towards that which is wrong, offensive to God, and injurious to man. While then the parent is anxious for the removal of the cause, an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God, and for the renewal and conversion of that heart by the Spirit of grace; it will yet be her duty to watch over the operation of this evil principle in detail, and to combat its influence wherever it may be exhibited. No sooner do children begin to act at all, but we discover how universally sin has pervaded all the sources of intelligence: the first glimmerings of reason are obscured by that lurid hue, which is portentous of the coming storm; the attention |