other cause is, that at no place, or time of life, are people so much the slaves of custom, as boys at school. If a thing has been an old practice, be it ever so mischievous, ever so unworthy, it is continued without scruple; if a thing is new, be it ever so useful and ever so excellent, it is apt to be regarded as a grievance. The question which boys seem to ask, is not, What ought we to be, and what may the school become, if we do our duty?— but, What have we been used to, and is the school as good as it was formerly? So, looking backwards, instead of looking forwards,-comparing ourselves with ourselves, instead of with the Word of God,—we are sure never to grow better, because we lose the wish to become better: and growth in goodness will never come, without our vigorous efforts to attain to it. This cause extends a great way, and produces more evil than we are apt to think of. Old habits, old practices, are handed down from generation to generation, and, above all, old feelings. Now it is certain that education, like every thing else, was not brought to perfection when our great schools were first founded: the system had a great deal required to make it what it ought to be. I am afraid that Christian principles were not enough brought forward, that lower motives were encouraged, and a lower standard altogether suffered to prevail. The system also was too much one of fear and outward obedience;

VOL. II.

I

the obedience of the heart and the understanding were little thought of. And the consequence has been the same in every old school in England,that boys have learnt to regard themselves and their masters as opposites to one another, as having two distinct interests;-it being the master's object to lay on restrictions, and abridge their liberty, while it was their business, by all sorts of means, -combination amongst themselves, concealment, trick, open falsehood, or open disobedience,-to baffle his watchfulness, and escape his severity. It cannot be too strong to say, that this is at least so far the case, as far as regards the general business of schools: the boys' interest and pleasure are supposed to consist in contriving to have as little work as they can, the master's in putting on as much as he can; a strange and sad state of feeling, which must have arisen, I fear, from the habit of keeping out of sight the relation in which we both stand, masters and boys alike, to our common Master in heaven, and that it is his service which we all have, after our several stations, to labour in. A due sense of our common service to our heavenly Master is inculcated by St. Paul as softening even the hardships of slavery, although it is the peculiar curse of that wretched system, that the power is there exercised, not for the good of the governed, but for that of the governor. It is not for his own good, but for the interest merely of his master, that

any man is a slave. But our relation to one another, like that of children and parents, is a relation chiefly for your good: it is for your benefit that the restraints of education are intended,that you may be good, and wise, and happy, in after years, and may bring forth fruit from the seed here sown, which may endure unto life eternal. And this you would all at once acknowledge, if it were not for the old school feeling handed down from one generation to another, and growing out of a system too neglectful of Christian principles, or too fearful of openly professing them. This veil over the heart and understanding, this fatal prejudice, this evil error, like every thing else false, ignorant, and wicked, can only be done away in Christ. When you shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away; and you will be enabled to see clearly your true condition here, what we are endeavouring to make it, and how entirely our objects and interests are the same as your own.

SERMON XIII.

LUKE, xiv. 24.

None of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.

It is perfectly true, that the first and immediate meaning of these words relates to the Jews as a nation. They declare, that the people who were first called into the kingdom of God, were to be cast out from it altogether, because they had refused to obey the call. It certainly does first relate to the Jews; but this is not the meaning in which it concerns us now to attend to it. But as the threatenings and promises of the Old Testament are said by St. Paul to apply to Christians, who were, by faith, become the children of Abraham, and partakers of the covenant for good and for evil; so the warning parables of our Lord, in the New Testament, apply to us, and to our children after us: and it is the wisdom of every successive generation to understand them as referring, not to the sins and follies of their fathers, but to their own.

Therefore the parable of the "marriage supper" should be understood as relating to ourselves. But even thus it is capable of being applied in more than one signification. You may have often heard sermons preached upon it, in which the marriage supper in the parable was understood of the sacrament of the Lord's supper: and the excuses made by the several persons in the story, for refusing to come when they were invited, have been compared with the various excuses so often made amongst us, for refusing to obey Christ's call to the holy communion. And this is a very sound and useful way of making the parable profitable to our own edification. I am going, however, to take it now in rather a different sense; not as relating particularly to the communion, but generally as it expresses these following points, in the dealings of God with them:-first, His calling them to their own true happiness, and giving them a season wherein the doors of his mercy stand freely open to them:-secondly, the obstinacy with which they neglect this call, and like any thing else better; and thirdly, the great punishment which they incur, being after a time utterly shut out from happiness, and being placed in a far worse state than if the call had never been made to them at the beginning.

Still, while taking thus the general principle of the parable, it would be unwise not to illustrate