The advice which was given in a former Lecture, to cultivate all amiable and virtuous dispositions, is the best method which can possibly be taken to secure our veracity. If our thoughts, our designs and actions are true, our words need not be false. When this is the case we shall have no end to answer by deceit, and consequently shall be free from all temptation to practise it. Let us therefore be less solicitous to appear good than to be so in reality. Let us strive to cultivate, and to fix deeply in our minds, all those moral qualities which too many, alas! are only desirous of being thought to possess. Let Truth be the character of our minds, and let us fear the violation of it much more than death.

As it is easier to prevent bad habits of every kind from taking place at first than afterwards to correct them, (though the latter is not only possible but absolutely necessary) it cannot be amiss to caution those who are Parents, and, indeed all,

when they shall become Parents, to instil into the minds of their offspring, at that season when they are most susceptible of impressions, a strong and lively sense of the vast importance and indispensable obligation of Truth. Let this be the first principle of all young minds. Whatever other faults you may overlook, never, never overlook a single breach of veracity. At all events, make them speak the language of truth. For alarming as it may sound, I will venture to affirm that a Child who has formed an incurable habit of lying, is lost to innocence, lost to virtue, lost to respect among men, lost to God, and lost to Heaven. And little do they attend to the nature of habits of every kind, who suppose that if a habit of violating truth be formed at that early period when the language is naturally most artless, and the soul most sincere, it will be easily broken after mixing in a world where falsehood and dissimulation too generally abound. I appeal to the experience of those who have lived long

enough in the world to derive knowledge from experience, whether those children which they have known to be guilty of this vice, and have not been cured of it, have not practised it in a more shameful degree when they have reached the period of manhood. I speak from no little experience of my own. It is as reasonable to expect that a thorn will grow into a vine, or a thistle into a fig-tree, as that an artful and dishonest Child should become a sincere and honest Man. That this observation, and an exhortation to check the growing evil while there is a possibility of doing it, may make a lasting impression upon your minds, I shall leave them, as the conclusion of what I have to offer upon this truly important, but too much neglected subject.

LECTURE XXIX.

HAVING considered the Nature of Man, and some of the most important relations which he sustains to beings of the same species, which considerations have led us to an inquiry into the duties which he owes to himself and his fellow-creatures, we are now arrived at the third part of our course, in which it is proposed to treat of the duties which he owes to God. This part of morality, on account of the excellence of its object, and our entire dependence upon God for existence and happiness, is the most important of all; it is the highest exercise of all the higher powers of our nature, and what particularly distinguishes man from the animals below him. This sublime principle,

which is termed Piety, consists in a firm belief, and in just conceptions of the Being, Perfections, and Providence of God, and in such an habitual consideration of these as will produce and keep in constant exercise suitable affections of mind towards God, and form us to a resemblance of his moral perfections, and a constant obedience to his will. It is, therefore, in itself, the highest point of excellence to which the best use of our intellectual and moral faculties can attain, and it is moreover the spring of every personal and social virtue.

That "there is a God, all Nature cries aloud through all her works." Whatever part of the great creation we survey; whether we contemplate the celestial bodies, or confine our views to this earth on which we dwell; whether we consider the inanimate, vegetable, or animal world; whether we consider the curious structure of the human body, or the more exalted faculties of the human mind; in any of these cases we cannot