in other situations of life, often have to endure. Indeed, even with those who work the hardest, the approaching period is more required for other objects, than as a mere rest from labour; and though, even in this respect, it is, no doubt, good for them, yet there are other ends answered, or which might be answered by it, to render it much more valuable.

It may be said, however, that if the labour of school cannot in most cases be considered very great, yet that school is altogether a place of hardship and irksomeness in one way or another, and that therefore it may fairly be varied with seasons of greater indulgence. It is certain this doctrine is very much acted upon, as many parents seem to think that a boy can never be too much humoured, or have too many amusements, when he is at home, to make up for the restraints and the uncomfortableness which he is supposed to endure at school. And the things in which this indulgence is sometimes shown, are precisely such as to confirm a boy in his worst habits;—I mean, indulgence in eating and drinking, and in indolence, or rather in laziness. There is something shocking in seeing so sacred a name as home degraded by such low associations as these ;-that it should be thought of as a place where a boy can get his appetite better pampered, and his laziness less disturbed. Some points indeed there are, in which home is fairly and properly a place of greater in

dulgence; things, which so far from being low or degrading in themselves, are absolutely in their proper degree useful; but which we cannot allow here, because, amongst so many, it is impossible to keep them to their proper degree only. For these, home is the fit place; and, in this respect, one feels a pleasure in thinking that the restraints of school are taken off, because they can be taken off with propriety. But, besides these two sorts of home enjoyments, there is another which is, I believe, often keenly felt by young boys, and which may give us matter for useful reflection. In the two former cases, school cannot be different from what it is. We ought not to encourage boys in their love of eating and drinking, and in their indolence; we cannot here allow many of those amusements which may very fitly be given them at home, because they can be there separated from their evil. But the third point in which home is often found to afford so keen a contrast to school, is one in which school might and ought to alter itself. I mean the change which a boy now too often feels in the general treatment and disposition of those around him, in going from school home, or in coming from home to school. At home a boy meets with nothing but kindness;-it is not always well-judged kindness indeed, but still it is kindness; his feelings and his comfort, far from being needlessly hurt or interfered with, are per

haps sometimes overmuch consulted. It might be well, perhaps, if home and school could in this borrow something of each other; if there was somewhat less of weak indulgence there, and less of roughness and want of consideration here. But our business is with ourselves; with the faults of school, and not with the faults of home. In some instances, indeed, all the discomfort of school has arisen, not from any necessary or useful strictness in the system, but from what is absolutely bad and mischievous;-I mean the unkindness and want of feeling among boys towards each other. It is my real belief, and it has often given me great pleasure to believe it, that there is as little of this evil here as anywhere;-and that instances of gross cruelty and ill usage would be very contrary to the general practice and state of feeling here. Still, we cannot flatter ourselves that we have nothing in this matter to correct;—that there is not a good deal of coarseness and unkindness shown towards each other, which must make the contrast of the gentleness and kindness of home to many amongst us exceedingly delightful. I never can consider this as a light evil, let it be as common as it will: indeed, it is difficult to say, in whose case it is more injurious,-in his who is guilty of it, or in his who suffers from it. Undoubtedly, this is a matter in which you ought all to keep a jealous watch over your own conduct :

and every one of authority or influence amongst you ought to keep watch over that of others too. You are not indeed aware, perhaps, of all the pain which is given by it, and still less of the serious evil which it causes to the character. Impressions, at some periods of life, and in some minds, fade so quickly, that I verily believe many boys, when they are behaving with unkindness to others, absolutely forget how much they, a little while ago, suffered from the same treatment to themselves: and they have not perhaps thought or observed enough to know, how apt it is to harden the temper, and how a boy, finding himself teased, or laughed at, or ill used, is driven at last, in a sort of self-defence, to check his own gentler and softer feelings, to answer ill usage with sullenness, and to endeavour to escape from the laughter of others, by turning it upon some new subject whose feelings are still more susceptible than his own.

In this, then, home may justly be considered a place of rest; and its influence upon the mind is often no less wholesome than it is delightful for the moment. And this leads me very naturally to consider the highest sense in which the approaching holidays may, and should be, a rest to us,—I mean, in the sense of rest from all those evils to which we are most exposed here. We know that "the rest which remaineth for the people of God" is especially a rest from sin;-a rest from evil

without us, and still more from evil within our own hearts; a rest of happiness, because it is a rest of holiness. And the same was the higher object of the Jews' Sabbath,-and is the express and direct purpose of the Christian Sunday. Such, too, were those rests of our Lord,-such as that mentioned in the text; not, of course, that our Lord had in his own heart any sin to rest from,-but that his rests were used spiritually; were spent in prayer and communion with God, that his human nature might be the more abundantly strengthened for his work as a prophet. For this purpose it is most useful that you should go for a time to a place which, generally speaking, is more favourable to your moral improvement than school is, where you may not only leave off for a while your daily work, but much more may be removed from many daily temptations to evil; where you may not only enjoy more pleasure, but may get more good. You know full well in how many different ways opportunities are given you at home in a greater degree than here; how all good is, in a manner, made more easy to you. There you have no temptations to lie, and swear, and indulge in offensive language: on the contrary, the influence of other company makes itself felt immediately; and it is extraordinary how seldom a boy is betrayed, when at home, into a single instance of the same bad language, which here may be quite habitual to him. There